Warren Wilson College Receives $350,000 Grant to Advance Civic Environmentalism and Climate Stewardship

Warren Wilson College has received a three-year, $349,732 Institutional Impact Grant from the Educating Character Initiative (ECI), a project of the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University, to advance an educational model connecting environmental stewardship, service and civic responsibility. The ECI is funded by the Lilly Endowment Inc.

The award supports “Cultivating Climate Character: Relational Stewardship and
Citizenship at Warren Wilson College,” an initiative building on the College
community’s response to Hurricane Helene in 2024. The grant follows a previous
$50,000 Capacity-Building Grant and will formalize experiential practices that connect
character development with stewardship of community and place.

The work reflects a concept central to Warren Wilson’s educational philosophy:
civic environmentalism — the belief that the health of communities, democratic life and
the natural environment are interconnected, and that education should prepare students
to care for all three. Guiding that philosophy are Indigenous, place-based approaches to
storytelling and knowledge sharing, with collaboration and reciprocity serving as the
projects central values.

That philosophy became especially tangible following Hurricane Helene, when students,
faculty and staff participated directly in recovery, land stewardship and community
support — demonstrating Warren Wilson’s longstanding belief that education, work and
service are not separate from society’s challenges, but essential to addressing them.

The initiative will focus on three areas: a Storytelling Fellowship engaging students,
faculty and staff in peer-driven storytelling; Inclusive Excellence Programming
centered on leadership, dialogue and character development; and expanded
Community Engagement and Work opportunities that put climate stewardship and
citizenship into practice.

“Our character-building approach is community-oriented and inclusive, with community
encompassing people, place and environment,” said Scotti Norman, Ph.D., Assistant
Professor of Material Culture and Archaeology who developed the proposal. “These
initiatives will enhance undergraduate student character development through bottom-
up, holistic engagement that creates a sense of belonging and connection to place.”

“We consider the college relational — we are constructed and reconstructed through
interactions and shared experiences with people, places and more-than-human
communities,” said Siti Kusujiarti, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology and Chair, Social
& Cultural Studies Department who co-leads the project with Norman. “That relational
approach, rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing, is what makes storytelling and
reciprocity central to how we practice climate stewardship and citizenship here.”

The grant advances Warren Wilson’s Progressive Promise, an educational model integrating academics, work and community engagement through experiential learning.
Its roots extend to the College’s founding as the Asheville Farm School in 1894 and
continue through initiatives including the Center for Working Lands, Climate Action Now
and Democracy in Action.