29/10/2026
Character Formation in the Disciplines | A Colloquium at St Andrew's College within the University of Sydney
St Andrew’s College recently hosted a colloquium considering the role subject-based teaching and learning have to play in the broader efforts towards character education in our schools and educational institutions.
In partnership with the Sydney Character Initiative and with participants from schools and institutions across New South Wales and further afield, we explored the potential for academic disciplines to contribute to the personal formation of the young people studying them.
From the excellent talks, panels and conversations, two key ideas emerged strongly:
🔹 There are many ways that students bring their whole selves to their learning – not just their minds, but their emotions, identities, experiences, and aspirations. Recognising this investment of their whole person into their education provides a basis for the formation of character in the classroom, seminar room, or lab.
🔹 The various academic disciplines promote a vision, usually implicitly, of what it is to be human and how we might make our way in the world. The fuller and richer that this vision of our humanity is, the more productive it is for the formation of character.
My opening lecture started with inspiration from the excellent essay collection Cultivating Virtue in the University, edited by Jonathan Brant, Edward Brooks and Michael Lamb. It noted that virtues are cultivated in schools and universities anyway, so it is as well to be intentional about how this happens.
I moved towards a couple of summary reflections:
🗣️ we are not just preparing students for assessments; we are training them with intellectual virtues, habits of mind, and qualities of scholarly character that will endure.
🗣️ character formation in the disciplines can more readily take place when we have a clear vision of human potential.
Warm thanks to everyone who spoke on the day – Matthew Sharp, Johanna Harris, Joel Harrison, Ann Brewer, Victoria Rennie, Matthew Ross, Dr Hugh Chilton, Tracey Clarke, Abraham Ng and Professor Phil Cummins – to all participants who contributed much to the engaging discussion throughout, to Ben Moutter and Pascal Uxo Williams for the music, and to our convenor, Dr Caitlin Macdonald
