North Central College was awarded a $3.2 million grant, the largest private grant in the institution’s 157-year history.
The funding from the Wisconsin-based Kern Family Foundation is aimed at developing principals and teachers who foster cultures of character in their schools and address the shortage of diverse and home-grown administrators.
“This grant from the Kern Family Foundation recognizes the college’s historic commitment to leadership, ethics and values and the outstanding reputation of our principal preparation curriculum,” NCC President Troy Hammond said in a news release. “With this investment, the foundation has shown it has confidence that North Central can make an important and far-reaching impact in creating cultures of character in school districts and communities across Illinois, the Midwest, and perhaps, across the country.”
Over the next four and a half years, a framework for building cultures of character in schools will be infused in the Naperville college’s master of education in educational leadership degree program and through the creation of a Character Education Institute, which will be anchored by the college’s campus-wide Leadership, Ethics and Values program and the recently launched Center for Social Impact, according to Kathleen King, assistant professor of education and education graduate placement coordinator.
King said building a positive school culture is what is required to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, and state standards developed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL.
A strong positive culture shown by principals can trickle down to become expressed by the staff, students and community, she said, and the goal is to reach schools and districts where there is a leadership drought.
“We know there’s a lack of good leadership in rural areas. There’s also a lack of good leadership in disadvantaged areas,” King said.
The grant will help schools grow their own leaders who can go back and make a difference in their communities, which is part of the mission of the Kern Foundation, King said.
Another of the grant’s goals is to address the shortage of diversity in administrative ranks by supporting partial tuition scholarships for select underrepresented candidates or educators serving high-needs schools, she said. A key component of the grant is funding fellowships for select master’s candidates to spend a semester-long, full immersion internship with a principal-mentor.
“The grant will impact from both the top and bottom, in terms of school culture,” King said. “The principal leadership piece impacts from the top down and the classroom teachers’ impact from the bottom up. It is best practice to see movement in both directions and our programming will offer that.”
The Character Education Institute will assist current principals, teachers, undergraduate education majors and community stakeholders, like school board members, by offering a Cultures of Character Principal Academy and Character Education Certificate.
King said the academy will provide coaches for administrators in PK-12 schools who want to achieve school improvement goals through strong school cultures of character. Meanwhile, the Character Education Certificate will enable all stakeholders to become scholars of character development and social and emotional learning, she said.
The college was invited to apply for the grant, which involved a rigorous vetting process.
“We had a pretty extensive wish list,” King said. “We are so grateful they were as generous as they were.”
The foundation wants to make a difference in the world, she said, and it’s all the more an honor that the foundation has faith in North Central to see their program through to the end.
“It’s a validation for the whole college. It was the character over our entire campus that attributed to the grant,” King said.
Besides the $3.2 million, the Kern Family Foundation also has contributed to the ongoing success of the college’s $150 million Brilliant Future Campaign, which has helped fund the construction of the science center and other facilities, paid for programs and developed endowments, the release said.
