The goal of the John Templeton Foundation's College and Character Initiative is to encourage colleges and universities to do as much as they can to reinforce the positive values instilled by parents, such as honesty, compassion, self-discipline, and respect. The initiative seeks to foster widespread conversations within the higher education community about character development and to inform college-bound students, parents, policy makers, and the general public about how colleges and universities, individually and collectively, are responding to this challenge. Rooted in the Greek word charakter, the term character" has come to mean the constellation of strengths and weaknesses that form and reveal who we are.