FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Renowned Human Flourishing Institute Expands
VIA Institute on Character and Mayerson Academy Merge to Meet World Demand.
Cincinnati, Ohio. July 11, 2023.
The world is now a step closer to amplifying human goodness. Two pioneering Cincinnati non-profits, VIA Institute on Character and Mayerson Academy, today announce their merger. VIA Institute on Character is the global leader in helping people build better lives for themselves and others by leveraging the newest findings from psychological science on core personality strengths. Mayerson Academy is dedicated to activating strengths in individuals, teams, and organizations and specializes in improving culture and performance in schools and local non-profit organizations. The combined company will operate under the name VIA Institute on Character.
Neal Mayerson, PhD, founder of both organizations, will continue to lead the VIA Board of Directors. Jeffrey Levy, M.D., will continue in his role as CEO of VIA. Jillian Coppley, EdD, will lead the expansion of local and global programs and services of the combined organization in her new role as President and Chief Program and Services Officer. The headquarters for the merged company will remain in Cincinnati, Ohio.
“While this merger will strengthen our ability to generate scientific knowledge and practical tools to help our international audience better their lives, we will continue to see Cincinnati as our epicenter for demonstrating how important this work can be,” said Dr. Neal H. Mayerson.
“Every day, 10,000 people take VIA’s Character Strengths Survey to boost well-being, strengthen their resilience, and discover how to express their very best qualities,” said Dr. Levy. “The combined organization will continue to put character strengths at the center of everything we do – from research to practical applications in education, leadership, and the workplace – and help shift humankind toward the better.”
With over 900 published peer-reviewed studies on character strengths, VIA has long been regarded as a trusted expert for scientists, researchers, and lecturers around the world as well as a valuable resource for educators, coaches, therapists, and consultants to help those they work with. The new organization, VIA Institute on Character, will comprise VIA’s research, education, and training programs including Mindfulness-Based Strengths Practice along with former Mayerson Academy programs: Thriving Learning Communities, Strong Workplace Solutions, Strong Cincinnati, and an online learning platform known as HUB 24. “Bringing together the power of VIA with the practical expertise of Mayerson Academy will increase our capacity to serve our local partners while also extending our work to the 195 countries VIA now reaches,” said Dr. Coppley. “Aligning VIA’s globally recognized research and training operations with Mayerson Academy’s on-the-ground programs in schools and organizations will magnify the positive impact of our shared operations.”
The merger of VIA Institute on Character and Mayerson Academy brings together two organizations Dr. Mayerson founded to fully integrate the research, practice, and real-world applications of the science of human flourishing. Dr. Mayerson envisions a world in which all humans learn to focus on what’s strong instead of what’s wrong by spotlighting the positive aspects of our personality that science has uncovered.
VIA Institute on Character will continue to positively impact the fields of:
- Education. VIA will continue to transform the culture of schools with an emphasis on making schools great places to learn, where everyone can express what is best within themselves. Thousands of individual teachers will continue to be positively impacted by VIA’s programs.
- Leadership. Through our emphasis on character strengths, VIA will continue to develop tools for individuals, professionals (such as coaches, therapists, and consultants) and organizations while also delivering customized consulting engagements that are designed to bring out the best in each person.
- Research. By combining teams, VIA will be able to do more in developing new industry leading knowledge and practical applications. Since its founding, VIA has been a global leader in creating and validating surveys of character strength. The VIA Survey has been taken by 28 million people and is currently available in 42 languages.
- Community Development. Cincinnati will remain the international epicenter for character strength research and practical applications. With the help of our partners, we are committed to growing strengths-based cultures in our schools and organizations, generating proofs of concept locally that can then be replicated globally.
Moving forward, Mayerson Academy offerings will continue under their current brand names. Strong Workplace Solutions will focus on going deeper with select nonprofit organizations. Thriving Learning Communities will provide the opportunity to interested teachers throughout the community and beyond to participate in their social and emotional learning curriculum on an individual basis. VIA Institute on Character will continue to act as a global change agent for the research and application of the best of humanity, centered in its hometown of Cincinnati.
About VIA® Institute on Character
Established as a non-profit organization in 2001, VIA Institute on Character (VIA) is dedicated to bringing the science and application of character strengths to the world to help individuals and communities flourish. VIA creates and validates surveys of character; supports research studying the science of character; and develops practical strengths-based tools for individuals, professionals (such as coaches, therapists, and consultants), and organizations. Over 28 million people in 195 countries have taken the free VIA Character Strengths Survey to learn and apply their best qualities and to improve their lives. Discover your unique strengths at viacharacter.org.
We believe that the rigorous, scientific pursuit to understand the range and dimensions of human goodness, which we identify as character strengths, is the key to generating discoveries and strategies for improving the human experience that will enable and encourage the development and use of tools, practices, and methodologies which will fundamentally shift the trajectory of humankind toward the better.
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