From discovering how text messages can help build empathy to figuring out how character and personality affect ethical behavior on the job, the Character Project at Wake Forest University has led to remarkable advances in the study of human nature, values, morals and decision-making.

The three-year project, funded by a $4.2 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, concluded earlier this year and resulted in 28 research projects by scholars around the world on the psychology of character, the philosophy of character and the theology of character as well as a host of other activities described on the Character Project website.

The next step? Sharing what scholars have learned about character with the public.

To do this, Wake Forest received a new two-year, $1 million grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to spread the word through a Web portal, books, videos, a conference and an online course.

Called the Developing Character Project, the new initiative will be led by Wake Forest professors Christian Miller (philosophy), William F. Fleeson (psychology) and R. Michael Furr (psychology), and Angela Knobel, a philosophy professor at The Catholic University of America.

"Through the Character Project, we provided about $3 million in funding for scholars to do innovative and novel research on character," said Miller, associate professor of philosophy. "The main focus has been supporting people's research. Now we want to get that research out to the broader community."