This event was begun in 2010 in honor local high school athletics and their coaches who exemplify sportsmanship. Nominations are based on coachability, attitude, citizenship, and leadership. They also include a specific act of sportsmanship such as putting the game and team before oneself, demonstrating respect, caring, fairness, civility, honesty, integrity, and responsibility.  The ACE ceremony takes place on May 25th at the Alex Theatre in Glendale.

The Character and Ethics Project is a community-wide effort of the people of Glendale and the foothills. It grows from the conviction that each of us can strive to be a better person. Individual self-improvement produces a better community and everybody benefits. That is our goal!

Character is the nature of a person with the courage to care about doing the right thing regardless of pressures and conflicts. Ethics describes accepted principles for choosing right over wrong, especially in complex situations.

Greater awareness of character and ethics leads to higher standards of conduct. As we improve our conduct we foster greater awareness in others.

Groups from business, civic, school, religious, youth and service organizations are each initiating programs for spreading the character and ethics spirit. Your help and support are vital to the Project. Read our Making a Difference section and join this community-wide effort now!

Click here for a calendar of upcoming events.

Board of Directors

Click here to meet the current board of directors

Executive Board Members

Sharon Roth – President
Foundation Director, Glendale Association for the Retarded

Patrick Campbell – President Elect

Don Empey – Past President
Retired, Glendale Unified School District

Toni Beck Espinoza – Treasurer
The Stone-Beck Group, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney

Joanne Venditto – Secretary
Community Service Manager, Community Services & Parks Department, City of Glendale

Christine Baboomian – Vice President Representing the City of Glendale
City Manager’s Office

Kathy Fundukian – Vice President Representing the Glendale Unified School District
Asst. Superintendent

Alen Andriassian – Vice President Representing Glendale Community College

Louie Sadd – Vice President at large
Data Stream

Board of Directors

Dan Evans – Web Administrator
Editor, Glendale News-Press

Ardashes Kassakhian
Glendale City Clerk
David Devens

Stela Fejtek

Susan Hunt

Wendy Jacoby

Nyree Kolanjian

Patricia Larrigan

Nora Matosian

Melina Sardar

Alex Souto

Chip Stone

Jennifer Swain

Marko Swan

Janet Shamilian, student advisor (Glendale Community College)

Advisory Board

Kirk Bell

Bruce Fox

Chris Holder

Steve Howard

Richard Jouroyan

Edna Karinski

Mike Leum

Adel Luzariaga

David Weeshoff

Peter Weir

May 25, 2011   — Athletics with Character and Ethics (ACE) Program – 7:00 p.m. Alex Theatre, Glendale

June 9, 2011 — Board Meeting — 7 am

June 23, 2011 – Board Retreat – 2pm to 5 pm

Community Award dates for 2011-2012

Oct. 27

Feb. 9

May 3

Community Award Programs are held  in March,  September and December.  Each program recognizes individuals, businesses, and organizations who exemplify our twelve Words of the Month, so that their stories may serve to inspire us all. You may nominate someone using the nomination form included on this website.

Youth Leadership Conference

This unique annual conference in January is the signature event of The Character and Ethics Project. For more than twenty years, it has brought together high school students with business and community leaders in open discussions focusing on ethics and leadership.

ACE AWARDS (Athletics with Character and Ethics)

This event was begun in 2010 in honor local high school athletics and their coaches who exemplify sportsmanship. Nominations are based on coachability, attitude, citizenship, and leadership. They also include a specific act of sportsmanship such as putting the game and team before oneself, demonstrating respect, caring, fairness, civility, honesty, integrity, and responsibility.  The ACE ceremony takes place on May 25th at the Alex Theatre in Glendale.

Alternative to Suspension Program

This monthly Saturday class replaces detention duty for suspended high school students – to learn about honesty, integrity, responsibility and compassion. It has been held in conjunction with the Glendale Police and Fire Departments.

Newsletter

A monthly email update of various events and programs to spread the message of character and ethics. It includes quotation(s) focused on the month’s character trait and inspiring discussion topics and ideas for building character in the classroom, boardroom and family room.

Athletics with Character and Ethics (ACE)

Business Awareness

Office and retail businesses are invited to display (in English, Spanish or Armenian language) The Promise of Character and Ethics Project in their business locations, to raise the consciousness of character and ethics among employees and customers alike. Employers are also invited to sign The Promise with their employees.

Sports Accord Program – “Pursuing Victory with Honor”

The Character and Ethics Project believes in the importance of building character through sports. The Project sponsors the Annual ACE Awards Projgram as well as Sports Codes of Conduct and seminars for coaches, league officials, referees, parents and players that emphasize good sportsmanship.

Character Education in Our Schools

Working together with Glendale Unified School District (GUSD) and local schools, we provide resources and training programs that help educators build strong character in the classrooms and on the playground. Teachers emphasize the “Word of the Month” based on our 12 “Guiding Principles”: respect, honesty, trustworthiness, loyalty, courtesy, self-discipline, integrity, fairness, responsibility, cooperation, citizenship, and compassion.

Role Models

When ordinary people display tremendous acts of courage and unselfishness, their behavior stems from the traits embodied in character and ethics.

Each person is a role model for someone. When we take responsibility for the affect our words and actions have on others, we are showing our desire to be a good example.

By deliberately focusing on character and ethics in our behavior, our potential for good morals expands to its fullest. Where this potential is working there are real heroes and great role models.

What Kind of Person Are You?

What are your standards? Are you reaching for something better? Self-improvement and modeling for others starts by knowing your strengths and weaknesses. Character and Ethical conduct will develop from awareness and practice.

Character Fitness

The Character and Ethics program has steps leading to a goal. Step one is the individual’s personal promise to be attentive to character and ethics issues. Step two is exercising behavior that manifests good will and concern for others. The goal of Character Fitness is to encourage individuals to make sound ethical choices the basis for all their actions — choices which are embodied in the Character and Ethics Project Promise and Calendar.

My Promise

To conduct myself with fairness, honesty and integrity in all situations.

To treat everyone with courtesy, respect and compassion.

To convey trustworthiness and responsibility in all my actions.

To express at all times a spirit of cooperation and loyalty.

To practice self-discipline and good citizenship.

The Promise and Twelve Words of the Month are reminders of principles and traits which are essential to good character — every day of every year. Good character traits are never out of date. Practice them at every opportunity. Adopt them as your own for a better way of life.

Speakers for Your Organization

One of the best ways to encourage and reward good character is inspired by good leadership.

Our organization is comprised of professional and accomplished men and women who are more than happy to give an inspiring talk to your organization or class of students.

We are also happy to talk to your group about how your organization can play an active role in providing ethical leadership to our students and community at large.

For more information about our speakers, or to request a speaker, please use our Contact Us form and we will contact you.

Sports Accord

It has been a long road, but the Character and Ethics Project Board and Sports Project Leader, Bob MacKay made certain that the path was properly laid. The consideration on Tuesday, June 11 of the Sports Accord is the culmination of two years of labor in the community.

In Fall 2000, the Character and Ethics Project hosted a Youth Sports Conference. Coaches, athletes, and parents gathered to discuss how sports programs could help equip youth with values to meet life’s challenges, on and off the field. As a result of this conference, thirty-nine (39) coaches and athletic directors from the three area comprehensive public high schools and Glendale College were trained as trainers for the “Pursuing Victory With Honor” Sportsmanship Campaign. This focus has helped coaches, athletic administrators, counselors, sports officials and other youth group administrators discover ways to cultivate strong moral character in young athletes.

After the Youth Sports Conference, all youth sports organizations in Glendale were issued the Glendale Sports Accord. Student athletes and their parents are asked to abide by the code of conduct contained in the Accord. The City of Glendale offers a two (2) hour training program and Code of Conduct for all coaches who utilize the fields and facilities supervised by the City of Glendale. The program was adapted from the “Character Counts” curriculum. Coaches and their assistants are asked to complete training each year. It is estimated that there are 400 sports teams with two adults per team. Each participating sports organization manages the distribution and return of the codes of conduct.

Glendale Unified School District (GUSD) also requires all coaches and student athletes to complete a two (2) hour training program and sign a Code of Conduct for all GUSD sports programs. It is hoped that the effort can be extended to the private schools in the area in the near future.

Parents Code of Ethics

I hereby pledge to provide positive support, care, and encouragement for my child participating in youth sports by following this Parents’ Code of Ethics:

I will encourage good sportsmanship by demonstrating positive support for all players, coaches, and officials at every game, practice or other youth sports event.

I will place the emotional and physical well being of my child ahead of my personal desire to win.

I will insist that my child play in a safe and healthy environment.

I will require that my child’s coach be trained in the responsibilities of being a youth sports coach and that the coach upholds the Coaches’ Code of Ethics.

I will support coaches and officials working with my child, in order to encourage a positive and enjoyable experience for all.

I will demand a sports environment for my child that is free from drugs, tobacco and alcohol and will refrain from their use at all youth sports events.

I will remember that the game is for youth – not adults.

I will do my very best to make youth sports fun for my child.

I will ask my child to treat other players, coaches, fans and officials with respect regardless of race, sex, creed or ability.

I will help my child enjoy the youth sports experience by doing whatever I can, such as being a respectful fan, assisting with coaching, or providing transportation.

I will read the National Standards For Youth Sports and do what I can to help all youth sports organizations implement and enforce them.

Players Pledge (Ages 4-7)

I will be a good sport, during games and practices.

I will follow the rules, and play fairly.

I will be friendly to my teammates, opponents and officials.

I will not argue or fight. I will not tease other players or call them names.

I will listen to my coaches and officials and follow their instructions.

I am here to have fun, to learn and to enjoy being with friends

Youth Leadership

Conference focuses on students’ values, ethics

Business, political, educational leaders meet with area youth to discuss how to deal with dilemmas.

This signature event of the Character and Ethics Project is a unique mentoring program which matches business and community leaders with high school students.

The annual conference provides an opportunity for one-on-one discussion with adults, on values and ethics, leadership and ethical dilemnas – at school, at work and business.

Hypothetical scenarios are prepared by student participants, tailored to current events and prevailing life situations to make them more realistic. Over 2,000 teens have participated since inception in 1985.

If you would like to participate in the upcoming Youth Leadership Conference, please send us your contact information.

For years school districts have searched for ways to effectively deal with student behavior on their high school campuses. Traditionally, schools would suspend students and send them home. However, this was akin to throwing Brer Rabbit into the briar patch. So schools began developing alternates to suspension. Many of these programs included sitting in a detention room or cleaning up the campus.

Several years ago, Glendale Deputy Fire Chief Steve Howard, 2007 president-elect of the Character and Ethics Project, saw some kids cleaning up trash at Hoover High School. He thought to himself that this seemed like a productive way to correct a student’s behavior. He started to wonder if the “Alternate-to-suspension” program could be developed into something even more rewarding. He then developed and implemented the Firehouse ATS program.

Office Povilatis speaking to students

Once a month, students from Glendale and Hoover High Schools come to Fire Station 21 on a Saturday morning as a result of receiving a suspension from school. In lieu of the suspension, they come and listen to firefighters and police officers present key points about four keys character traits and how they affect life and decision making.

These public safety professionals present the terms of honesty, integrity, responsibility and compassion. They interweave the definitions with real life experiences to bring the terms to life for the students. Along with the presentation, students involve themselves in exercises designed to stimulate thought and help them visualize examples of character in their lives.

At the end of the day, the students are thankful for the time Chief Howard has spent with them. Recently, the Glendale Unified School Board issued a commendation to Steve for his work.

The program has had great success and is a very appropriate alternate to suspension.

This signature annual event of the Character and Ethics Project is a unique mentoring program which matches business and community leaders with high school students.

The annual conference provides an opportunity for one-on-one discussion with adults, on values and ethics, leadership and ethical dilemnas – at school, at work and business. Students enjoy breakfast and a keynote speaker together. This year’s speaker is John  Nicoll, Chief Deputy Executive Officer for the County of Ventura, as well as a professor of public policy at USC and CSUN. Students then break into groups and work as a group as well with individual mentors. They will gather back for lunch and a wrap up session.

Hypothetical scenarios are prepared by student participants, tailored to current events and prevailing life situations to make them more realistic. Over 2,000 teens have participated since inception in 1985.

If you would like to participate in the upcoming Youth Leadership Conference, please send us your contact information.

Trustworthiness: Be responsible and dependable in all that you do.

Quotes on trustworthiness:

It is more shameful to distrust one’s friends than to be deceived by them. ~ Franois duc de la Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French memoirist and philosopher

Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them. ~ FranÁois duc de la Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French memoirist and philosopher

Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 18th-century French philosopher

More dangers have deceived men than forced them. ~ Francis Bacon, 16th-century English philosopher and essayist

Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betrayin ~ Janet Malcolm, 20th-century American journalist and author (The Journalist and the Murderer)

How many times do you get to lie before you are a liar? ~ Michael Josephson, late 20th-century American ethicist

Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work. ~ Warren Bennis

Build a little fence of trust around today; Fill the space with loving deeds, And therein stay. Look not through the sheltering bars Upon tomorrow; God will help thee bear what comes of joy and sorrow. ~ Mary F. Butts

The man who trusts men will make fewer mistakes that he who distrusts them. ~ Camillo Benso Conte Di Cavour

Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love ~ and to put its trust in life.

Candid and generous and just. Boys care but little whom they trust. An error soon corrected ~ for who but learns in riper years. That man, when smoothest he appears, is most to be suspected?

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don’t trust enough. ~ Frank Crane

No, I don’t understand my husband’s theory of relativity, but I know my husband, and I know he can be trusted. ~ Elsa Einstein

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never trust the man who tells you all his troubles but keeps from you all his joys. ~ Jewish Proverb

She knew how to trust people… a rare quality, revealing a character far above average. ~ Cardinal Jean Francois de Retz

Never trust a husband too far, nor a bachelor too near. ~ Helen Rowland

If you can’t trust people, who can you trust? ~ John Widdicombe

One should never trust a woman who tells her real age. If she tells that, she’ll tell anything. ~ Oscar Wilde

My father used to say: Never suspect people, It’s better to be deceived or mistaken, which is only human, after all, than to be suspicious, which is common. ~ Stark Young

Loyalty: Be faithful to yourself and to others.

Quotes on loyalty:

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose you self-respect. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Loyalty oaths increase the number of liars. ~ Noel Peattie

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. ~ Cicero (Marcus Tullius), Roman orator, philosopher and statesman If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principle difference between a dog and a man.

Friendship, like credit, is highest where it is not used. ~ Elbert Hubbard, 19th/20th-century American entrepreneur and philosopher (founder of Roycroft)

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate. ~ Thomas Jones