Month: April 2024

Pledging Well

Posted on by Ella

In a 2022 study published in the Journal of Sorority and Fraternity Life Research and Practice, sorority- and fraternity-affiliated college students reported higher positive mental health and lower rates of anxiety and depression. While the analysis indicates the need for further research to fully understand this disparity, it is reasonable to observe that fraternities and sororities offer members several key requisites for wellbeing: a sense of belonging, purpose, identity development, and social support. 

The study’s findings are promising and highlight the Greek system’s potential to build positive outcomes for students, alumni, and institutions. But most fraternities and sororities do not open their doors to all students. Many have rigorous recruitment protocols that make pledges compete for limited spots in the most elite organizations. Dangerous hazing rituals, substance use and sexual assault have damaged Greek life’s reputation, which obviates its many benefits. So how can colleges and universities keep the good and discourage the bad when it comes to sororities and fraternities? A look at the systems’ storied history suggests that its expansion into culturally-based organizations may be Greek life’s redemption.  

If Greek organizations cultivate a sense of community and belonging for members, they also dictate who is afforded the social capital of belonging. That social capital and its lifelong reverberations are staggering: 40 of 47 male U.S. Supreme Court Justices since 1910 have been fraternity men, as well as 85 percent of Fortune 500 executives and 76 percent of all Congressmen and senators. It is clear sororities and fraternities offer a range of benefits, including community, networking opportunities, leadership development, social events, and philanthropy. But Greek affiliation does come with a number of drawbacks. Joining a sorority or fraternity costs money in the form of membership dues, event fees, and other expenses, which can exacerbate their exclusivity and may be prohibitive for some students. Critics of Greek life argue that sororities and fraternities can perpetuate social exclusivity, social conformity, and elitism, creating divisions within the campus community. That elitism may even be a contributing factor to positive mental health among members: the 2022 Journal of Sorority and Fraternity Life Research and Practice study notes that “The social class that exists within fraternity and sorority communities is built on social capital that may indicate that the positive mental health experiences of fraternity and sorority members could stem from a community of students who come from more privileged backgrounds.”

A culture of elitism and antiquated gender norms dominates the most public depictions of Greek life, from 1978’s Animal House to TikTok’s “Bama Rush.” But the preppy, chauvinistic, boozy side of sorority and fraternity life is not the whole picture. Since the mid- to late-twentieth century, culturally-based organizations have emerged as sites of belonging and social development for students historically excluded from or underrepresented within predominantly white sororities and fraternities.

If Greek organizations cultivate a sense of community and belonging for members, they also dictate who is afforded the social capital of belonging.

Dr. Crystal Garcia is an associate professor in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research includes critical analysis of culturally-based sororities and fraternities and anti-racist practice in sorority and fraternity life. Garcia says she looks at sororities and fraternities as “microcosms of the greater university.” As an undergraduate student at Texas A&M University-Commerce, Garcia joined a historically white sorority and was an active presence in sorority life on her campus, even being awarded Greek Woman of the Year. As she progressed in her studies and began conducting research on higher education, Garcia found herself questioning why she, as an involved member and leader of her undergraduate institution’s Panhellenic community, never knew about the culturally-based organizations on her campus. That realization prompted a career of academic inquiry into culturally-based sororities and fraternities and the experiences of minoritized college students within those groups.

As an ethnographic researcher, Garcia is interested in the role of “narratives, storytelling, and the power of individual voices and perspectives” to bring light to lived experiences within environmental and cultural contexts and “the ways that power, privilege, and oppression take effect” in student organizations. “At predominantly white institutions, culturally-based sororities and fraternities can provide a space where students’ voices are affirmed, often for the first time within their campus communities,” she says. Garcia also notes that the support systems embedded in culturally-based sororities and fraternities help students persist to graduation by cultivating social, academic, and personal development, all of which contribute to positive mental health and wellbeing. 

The process of joining a culturally-based sorority or fraternity looks completely different from the rush process of historically white organizations, Garcia explains. The Panhellenic recruitment process is formalized, receiving attention and support from the university, while culturally-based organizations typically do not receive the same institutional or financial support.

Garcia has worked alongside Dr. Antonio Duran, a professor of education at Arizona State University, to examine minoritized students’ experiences in campus life. Anti-racist practice in the context of sorority and fraternity life, Garcia says, means “taking intentional steps to recognize historical and contemporary ways that race and racism play a role in our society — and, in turn, in the organizations that we’re a part of.” Garcia urges all student organizations, Panhellenic or otherwise, to think deeply about their practices of recruitment, the events they host, and their membership criteria, interrogating places where race and racism may be embedded into the organizational culture. “The purpose of sororities and fraternities is to foster community and connection,” she says, “and we can’t do that if we are harming our members.”

“At predominantly white institutions, culturally-based sororities and fraternities can provide a space where students’ voices are affirmed, often for the first time within their campus communities.”

Sexual violence is more prevalent among Greek-affiliated students than their non-affiliated peers, with both fraternity men and sorority women reporting higher incidence of sexual assault compared to non-members of the same gender. “For historically white sororities and fraternities, the issue of sexual assault is particularly salient, given that we have created a culture where sorority members are essentially dependent on fraternities for spaces to consume alcohol, since they are usually not permitted to do so within their own houses,” Garcia says. In culturally-based sororities and fraternities, those structures tend to look quite different. 

Often, these organizations do not have formalized housing designated to their members. “Whereas historically white sororities and fraternities were able to purchase land and build homes — more than a century ago in some cases — culturally-based organizations largely did not have those opportunities,” Garcia says, adding that by the time cultural sororities and fraternities had opportunities to purchase homes or land, the price tag made doing so virtually impossible. The conditions that led to the prevalence of binge drinking and predatory sexual behavior in historically white Greek organizations were largely absent from the making of culturally-based ones; however, Garcia adds, no student organization is without flaw, and those harmful behaviors can and do exist in every area of campus life.

Dr. Robin Zape-tah-hol-ah Minthorn is a professor and chair of the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Department at the University of Oklahoma. A citizen of the ​​Kiowa tribe of Oklahoma and a descendant of the Umatilla, Nez Perce, Apache, and Assiniboine Nations, Minthorn co-founded the University of Oklahoma’s first Native American sorority, Gamma Delta Pi, Inc., as an undergraduate in 2001. “We didn’t have a sorority that honored our culture and our ways of being,” Minthorn says. “We did some research on another Native American sorority, Alpha Pi Omega, Inc., which was founded in North Carolina. The tribes are different in North Carolina than they are here, and the tribal composition of our founders was different. We decided to create our own sorority that represented our tribal community and culture.” Students were receptive to the new sorority, Minthorn says, reflecting the need for a cultural space dedicated to belonging and connection among Native American college students. In the decades since its founding, over 300 Native women have joined Gamma Delta Pi. “The impact extends beyond our undergraduate years and into our professional lives,” Minthorn says, “because we develop a lifelong bond of sisterhood that we carry throughout our lives.”

Historically Native American fraternities and sororities (HNAFS) like Gamma Delta Pi have the potential to transform student lives and foster whole-person wellbeing. “We have always been intentional about connecting to the local tribal communities,” Minthorn says, noting that civic and community engagement provides cultural connection on and off campus. Gamma Delta Pi’s philanthropy has previously included organizations working to support Native women experiencing domestic violence and addressing Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in Native American communities. Today, their philanthropic work focuses on missing and murdered Indigenous people. “That visibility helps our sisters feel seen, both collectively and as individuals.” 

For the twentieth anniversary of Gamma Delta Pi’s founding, Minthorn and her sister/colleague Dr. Natalie Youngbull and doctoral students James Wagnon and Amber Silverhorn-Wolfe conducted talking circles with sorority members, as well as interviews with the Elders who serve as advisors of the sisterhood. The founding chapter at the University of Oklahoma has had the same advisors since its founding in 2001, an uncommon occurrence in sorority and fraternity life that speaks to Gamma Delta Pi’s dedication to “fostering intergenerational connection.” Minthorn and her colleagues also collaborated with Phi Sigma Nu, the nation’s oldest and largest Native American fraternity, and Iota Gamma, Inc., a Native American fraternity founded at the University of Oklahoma, to conduct research into the impact of HNAFS on students and communities. Minthorn says their survey data found that “members’ involvement in HNAFS fostered not just leadership, but whole personhood. They create a space of belonging where Native men and women can explore what Indigeneity looks like in sorority and fraternity life and develop a sense of culture on campus — which is, for us, often missing.”

Culturally-based sororities and fraternities, such as National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) organizations, were created in response to discriminatory practices at a societal level, including exclusionary clauses that barred students of color from belonging in historically white Greek organizations. “They were founded on the principle of access and supporting students who were denied support from the larger institution,” Garcia says. “They have long histories of leading activism efforts, including during the Civil Rights Movement.” 

Garcia says she hopes that today’s students will continue to call upon those histories as they push for inclusivity at their institutions. In order for all students to thrive in their colleges and universities, she says, “Culturally-based sororities and fraternities have to be resourced to ensure that students within them can enjoy their experience. Often, our research finds that these organizations don’t receive the same level of institutional support in terms of personnel; they certainly don’t always have the same financial resources; they simply don’t have the same alumni networks that predominantly white organizations often have.” 

“HNAFS create a space of belonging where Native men and women can explore what Indigeneity looks like in sorority and fraternity life and develop a sense of culture on campus — which is, for us, often missing.”

Additionally, she warns that ongoing legislative efforts to undermine diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in some states may compound the problems of under-resourcing. “Sometimes, culturally-based sororities and fraternities are not housed within a ‘Greek Life’ or ‘Fraternity and Sorority Life’ office,” she explains. “Often, they are designated within a cultural center or an office of diversity and inclusion. In states that have banned those offices, I am very concerned that these organizations will be further harmed and left with even fewer resources, losing the support systems they have in place.”

To Pledge or Not to Pledge

Advocates for banning sororities and fraternities often point to Panhellenic organizations’ history of hazing, substance abuse, discrimination, sexual assault, and academic neglect. Daniel R. Schwarz, a professor of English Literature and Presidential Fellow at Cornell University, wrote in a 2022 op-ed for Inside Higher Ed that Greek life is “an antiquated, sexist, classist, elitist, discriminatory system” that “contributes to long-lasting physical and emotional injuries.” Schwarz echoes some sentiments from Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) CEO David J. Skorton in a 2011 op-ed for the New York Times. 

Despite efforts to eradicate hazing, incidents still occur, leading to injuries and even deaths. Additionally, as Schwarz highlights in his evaluation, Greek organizations continue to be criticized for perpetuating discrimination based on factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status. This can contribute to a campus culture that fosters inequality and marginalization. Excessive partying and alcohol-related incidents are more common on campuses with active Greek communities. And, because sororities and fraternities are often perceived negatively in the public forum, the media attention they receive reinforces stereotypes about privileged, elitist, and irresponsible behavior. These stereotypes can harm the reputation of both individual members and the institutions they represent, though they tend to ignore the existence of culturally-based sororities and fraternities altogether.

It is crucial to recognize that not all sororities and fraternities embody these negative qualities, and many members find valuable social development, leadership opportunities, and lifelong friendships within them. Some argue that instead of banning Greek life altogether, efforts should focus on reforming and regulating these organizations to address their shortcomings while preserving their positive contributions to campus life — and, importantly, universities’ financial incentives to keep them.

For those who get to belong, sororities and fraternities can be a ticket to flourishing on campus and in post-graduate life. Alumni networks, job placement services, and mentorship programs can set members up for career success. Philanthropy encourages nurture civic engagement and finding meaning beyond oneself. But perhaps the most enduring benefit of sorority and fraternity affiliation is the opportunity to form lasting friendships that extend past college and, Garcia says, serve as a “place of joy.” In a system that still shows signs of its troubled past, culturally-based Greek organizations are making joy a place for everyone.

Reading Between the Lines

Posted on by Ella

The average age of a college president today is sixty. That makes them too young to have participated in the major social movements of the 1960s and not too old to be keenly aware of the emotional and mental health problems reported by young people today. These leaders are now navigating the minefield of issues laid bare by student protests over the war in Gaza, including the internal and external political pressures that have pushed them into defensive positions. As they contend with conflict in the most public of ways, they should make a connection amid the chaos to something most have long advocated for: the wellbeing and personal development of their students as they stand in solidarity around an issue for which they care deeply.  

Every protest movement has a wide range of viewpoints, and this does not excuse any of the bad actors or extreme views on any side of this issue. But for someone who has reported on college student mental health and wellbeing throughout the “college mental health crisis,” I cannot help but link the most active campus protests we’ve seen in years with some of the elements of emotional wellbeing we hope our young people will experience – agency, empathy, belonging and sense of purpose. The absence of these elements has created the loneliness and isolation that Surgeon General Vivek Murthy included in his young adult mental health advisory of 2021 and his book Together, wherein he discusses America’s loneliness epidemic and the healing power of human connection. 

For over a decade, college students have reported a significant increase in anxiety and depression, along with high rates of loneliness, plateauing during the pandemic and remaining prevalent today. Gen Z students, who have been dubbed “The Anxious Generation,” are also feared to lack independence, to be overly tethered to their parents, and to be unable to advocate for themselves. College administrators have addressed this problem in myriad ways, from increasing mental health support resources to experimenting with co-curricular programs designed to help students build resilience and a sense of belonging. First-year programs now frequently include reflection about purpose and meaning as a way to center anxious students and give them the grace of seeing themselves in the bigger picture. Affinity groups, often organized by the school, help socially wary young adults find their people. 

The students united in protest, some in traditionally opposing camps, are their own curated affinity group.

There is a connection here between students’ fervent reaction to the war in Gaza and their social and emotional health that is understandably buried in the severity of the issue and the thorny consequences of the protests. Participation in protests can improve students’ sense of belonging and identity, leading to positive mental health outcomes. “In higher education, we want students to feel like they belong to a community. Participating in activism, such as protests, allows students to be in a community with other people who share their same values and can provide them with meaningful connections to others,” wrote Dr. Samantha Smith in an op-ed for LearningWell.  

The literature is particularly robust on the connection between purpose and wellbeing. Research indicates that having a purpose in life is significantly associated with lower levels of depression and anxiety and may increase resilience after exposure to negative events. To the extent that their method of protest aligns with their good intent, we should recognize that the majority of these students are standing up for the humanity of others — and that is a good thing for a generation accused of obsessing about their images on social media. 

The more the movement grows, the more valid these arguments become. Given the momentum, administrators can no longer view this as the predictable behavior of certain student groups. There is something bigger going on. Perhaps most promising is that the movement is entirely student-driven. The students united in protest, some in traditionally opposing camps, are their own curated affinity group. Their passion is evidence that the teenagers who finished high school in their bedrooms and on their screens have learned to find their outside voices. Let this be a positive element in an otherwise complex and difficult leadership challenge.

Happiness, Gen Z style

Posted on by Ella

This month, Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation released a report examining happiness among Generation Z (12- to 26-year-olds), highlighting key drivers of Gen Z’s happiness. The survey revealed that while 73% of Gen Z-ers consider themselves happy (somewhat or very), the percentage declines substantially as they reach adulthood. The report identified the strongest predictors of happiness to be: a sense of purpose in school and work, positive social connections, and having enough time to sleep and relax. We asked Stephanie Marken, the senior partner of Gallup’s education division, to explain the findings and their implications. 

LearningWell: The research reveals that the most influential driver of Gen Z’s happiness is their sense of purpose at school and work. However, just 48% of Gen Z-ers enrolled in middle or high school feel motivated to go to school, and only 52% feel they do something interesting every day. What does that say about curriculum and school-based experiences? 

Stephanie Marken: We know from our research at Gallup, that many students are less engaged in their schoolwork as they progress through schooling. We anticipate much of this is that students are unfortunately not specializing in topics that excite them as they progress through their educational experiences. We need more relevant, applied experiences in the K12 student experience to further engage and excite students about what they’re learning and how it will prepare them for the real world. 

LW: The report also shows a relationship between love and support and happiness, which perhaps isn’t surprising. Combined with the finding on a sense of purpose, do you see a reflection of previous Gallup work in the wellbeing area, specifically the Alumni Survey and the Forging Pathways to Purposeful Work study at Bates College. It seems that a sense of purpose and supportive relationships are key drivers of wellbeing across groups.  

SM: Supportive relationships are difference makers. In our prior, related research we find students who have a mentor and feel cared about as a person are more likely to be engaged in their work upon postsecondary completion and more likely to thrive in their wellbeing. We all need support, but given staggering mental health needs among Gen Z members nationally, we need that more than ever. This will only become increasingly important as this current generation continues to struggle with mounting mental health needs. 

LW: The report shows that Gen Z’s sense of love and support declines as they age. It seems like there is a turning point around 18-21, when typically young people would be leaving the house they grew up in, considered to be adults. Is this a pattern that is typical during this age range or is there something specific about Gen Z in that they are experiencing a decline in feelings of support and connection as they get older, more so than previous generations?

SM: We know that launching into the “real world”, whether that be from high school into the workforce, or high school into college, is a very stressful and complicated experience for many students. We should always expect students to report emotional stress, anxiety and worry during this difficult time. However, we also need to make sure they have a net to catch them when they struggle—mentors, and people in their postsecondary pathway and workplace—can be that net. This also reminds us that we need to prepare Gen Z members with resilience building activities and experiences early on in their development so that they can bounce back when they experience these setbacks and challenging times (because they will inevitably come). 

LW: The report also finds that feelings of significance and purpose decline as Gen Z gets older. Survey items like “My life matters” and “My life has direction” go from 69% and 85% for 12-14 year olds to 55% and 65% for 24-26 year olds, respectively. Is that replicating a pattern that you’ve seen in previous years or in previous generations? Do you have any hypotheses about why that may be happening?

SM: Unfortunately, we don’t have historic data on these important questions so we cannot compare generation to generation on these particular items, but we do know that this generation craves purpose in their workplace in a way that we do not find for prior generations. In their workplace, Gen Z workers, as an example, are seeing opportunities at work to learn and grow and looking for opportunities to work at organizations that make a difference. This crave for purpose, impact and significance shows up in these important data, as well as other research we’ve conducted. 

LW: Many young people in Gen Z report that they don’t get enough sleep and don’t have enough time to relax during the week, which are stronger predictors of happiness than physical or financial safety. Are there policies that workplaces or schools could implement to allow for their employees and students to have more time to unwind during the week, which would potentially have great impact on their happiness, thriving and wellbeing? 

SM: We know that technology, and our relationship with technology, is having an impact here. We see a lot of students struggling to manage their relationship with technology—not necessarily social media itself, but sometimes with social media—and that technology can make sleep, restful sleep, and positive sleep habits challenging. We need to teach young people—and older people too—these tools, so that they can detach and reset as we all need to do in order to sleep restfully. 

LW: There is a substantial piece of the report dedicated to social media, and related to that, comparison with others. The survey found that social comparisons have a clear negative relationship with happiness. 40% of happy Gen Z-ers say they often or always compare themselves to others, compared to 55% of those who are not happy. And 12–15-year-olds who spend more than 3 hours per day on social media were two times as likely to exhibit symptoms of depression and anxiety. Those two findings are clearly related. Could you speak to those findings? SM: It’s a great question. The comparison with others is a really critical and concerning finding—we know that social media is a tool that can allow for that comparison which is problematic. Many people who are tuning to social media are comparing their every day to someone else’s best day and that can cause a lot of self-hatred and sadness for many who feel like they are insufficient.

“Embrace Your Freedom”

Posted on by Ella

Philip Glotzbach’s new book Embrace Your Freedom: Winning Strategies to Succeed in College and Life has as many lessons as it does audiences. As its title implies, it is written primarily for graduating high school students anxiously hovering between post-admissions and their first year of college, but it also speaks to their parents, who will undoubtedly read along, with advice about letting go that is not always easy to hear. Those in the field will connect themes such as “why are you going to college?” and “fall in love with your fallback school“ with some of the biggest challenges in higher education today such as skyrocketing tuition, inflated rankings, and student wellbeing.  

With a non-didactic tone, Glotzbach combines the experience and authority of a college president with the hindsight and candor of one who no longer holds the title. His advice to first-year students on making the most of this seminal period has a fair share of practical information, as well as wisdom rooted in philosophy, developmental theory, and political science. As he writes plainly about personal responsibility and pride in achievement, he reminds students we are all shouldered by our communities. Perhaps most distinctive is Glotzbach’s message about freedom itself, something students may first take to be about the absence of external controls, but which the book quickly clarifies as the joy that comes from setting and reaching goals that align with who you are as a person. His book is available for pre-order now (Simon & Schuster, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Post Hill Press, etc.); its publication date is July 9, 2024.

You have been in academia for decades and a college president for seventeen years. What motivated you to write this book and what are your hopes and dreams for it?

I wrote it, frankly, as a labor of love. Over my career, my greatest pleasure came in seeing how undergraduates develop both intellectually and personally over those four years. It was especially satisfying to see that transformation reflected through the joy in their parents’ eyes. This book came out of talks that I gave to new students and parents every year at Skidmore in which I offered my best advice about how to realize this promise of a college education. Following those talks, I would repeatedly get asked for copies of my remarks – which I never really had available to share in any formal way. So, I knew I wanted to capture those exchanges in some fashion. 

In the book, I approach that same audience in a conversational way – not to preach at them or talk down to them, but to talk directly to them in a way that is accessible. At the same time, I wanted to have enough substantive content in the book so that, if a college decided to use it as the common read for the incoming class, faculty members could actually enjoy teaching it. It isn’t just, “Hey, here’s how to do your laundry.” Frankly, I’d love for people to review Embrace Your Freedom and say, “This book should be required reading for all new students.”

You have many important messages in the book, but what would you say is the overarching theme?

I’ve always believed that what students most need coming into college is just to pause and think about where they are at this stage of their life and how to take charge of moving forward toward where they want to go. That’s a major theme that recurs throughout: You’re in charge; you’re responsible for your life. What does that mean? You’re responsible both for what you think and for what you do. I’ve always thought those ideas are very important for new students to consider. 

I think they’re even more important today for a couple of reasons. So many students go through such a frenzy getting into college. It’s just such an anxiety-producing experience with too many thinking that if they didn’t get into their first choice school their life is over. What I am trying to encourage young people to do is look beyond all that, come through to the other side of that angst, and embrace what’s about to happen to them – and a lot of it is going to be very positive. But this is a very anxiety-ridden generation. They have been really closely engaged with their parents (or their parents have been engaged with them). Their parents have probably organized their lives in a very directed way over the years, and with all the right intentions. Given this background, and particularly coming out of COVID – which really threw a monkey wrench into their educational process – I think that the messages in this book are especially important for this generation. 

“Going to college should be an intentional project – not just the expected next step after high school.”

Now, all of a sudden, they’re away at college. What are they supposed to do? And how are they going to do it! I remind them that they are in charge of their life, even if so many cultural and social forces have been telling them that they’re not – even if people have been telling them that they’re victims. Ultimately, they have to take charge of their own life if they’re going to realize the opportunities that are before them. This book makes that case and offers a lot of practical guidance about just how to do so. It suggests ways to deal with the sometimes scary aspects of that freedom.

Given what you’re saying, it is not surprising that you wrote the book for both students and parents. Do you also have a strong message for them?

The two chapters for parents are, first, how to partner with your student and, second, how to let go. And I’ll come back to those chapters in a moment. I’ve always intended to include parents in this book because, when I was giving those talks at Skidmore, they were sitting there too. I very much wanted them to hear what I said to the students. Now I want parents to read all the student chapters, because they tell a coherent story about what their students should be focussed on as undergraduates: understanding some key concepts (like freedom, liberal education, etc.), making big plans, following through to execute those plans, taking good risks, understanding the ethical dimension of their lives, and winning a “victory for humanity.” Parents have always had an enormous investment in their kids’ lives, but even more so today. One crucial role they can play now is to reinforce these ideas with their kids.

And of course, today’s parents have their own questions. How do they navigate the (probably) unfamiliar landscape of their kid’s college? How should they engage with all those different people who are there to try to help their student, without being overly intrusive in their kid’s life? I try to help them think through these issues, in the context of partnering with their student. It may sound paradoxical to say partner and then let go, but the idea is for their partnership with their child to evolve – to take a new form that’s more appropriate for the relationship they will have post-college. So, one of the most important chapters is about letting go and how to do it, while acknowledging that it’s not easy. 

For one thing, we all know that college is enormously expensive. Many parents are literally mortgaging their lives to pay for it, and they want to make sure that this train isn’t going to go off the tracks. And what if it does? Parents are in closer communication with their kids today than in the past. So, if their student is having trouble, they’re likely to hear about it. How should they react to that situation? What’s their appropriate role? Part of what I’m saying in the parent section is, “Give them the space to handle their own problems to learn from those experiences.” But there are times when it is appropriate for parents to become more active in working with the school. I give some very practical advice here as well, such as: “Contact the school at an appropriate organizational level. I.e., don’t call their professors; don’t call their roommate’s parents or the RA in their residence hall.” The primary message is: “Don’t get between your student and the people they should be working with on a day-to-day basis.”

Can you explain the title “Embrace your Freedom” – it’s not what most people, particularly students, would think, is it? 

For the traditional age student, when you go off to college, all of a sudden you have a lot more freedom or autonomy than you did even a few months ago. But becoming a mature, fully-functioning adult doesn’t happen automatically…or overnight. There’s a lot you have to learn and go through. And so my contention in this book is that if you start off thinking about some of these ideas – beginning with the concept of freedom – you will be better positioned to do the work of becoming a mature adult.

“You’re in charge; you’re responsible for your life. What does that mean?”

That’s why I talk about two different ways of interpreting freedom – beginning with the “negative interpretation,” which is just the absence of constraints. Which is our typical way of looking at it, right? Freedom means nobody’s telling me what to do. Well, that’s fine; it’s important. But the more meaningful and mature concept of freedom is what I call the “positive interpretation,” which is freedom as self-regulation. It requires taking charge of yourself and deciding what you want to do and how you do it, which is more difficult than just throwing off the constraints of your earlier life. 

In the book, I quote the Eastern European physician and poet Miroslav Holub, who says that “a marathon runner is more free than a vagabond, and a cosmonaut than a sage in a state of levitation.” To be a marathon runner, you have to devote yourself to an extended program of intense training and preparation to get ready to run your race. It requires a whole lot of self-regulation. But when you get to the point where you actually can run 26.2 miles, you experience a level of freedom or ability that you never would’ve had if you hadn’t put in all that work. And the second part of this message is that you’re necessarily doing this in the context of a community. You can’t do these things alone. And that fact, in turn, entails certain obligations to that community.

The notion of embracing your freedom really has to include this positive sense of freedom. And as you go through the book, that idea recurs as a motif. Every time I talk about taking charge of this or that aspect of your life, it’s another example of embracing your freedom. So again, it’s moving beyond the limited conception of freedom in which you no longer have anybody to tell you what to do, and finding out what it is that you want to do. What are your goals? What are you trying to get out of this college experience? Then what do you need to do to accomplish those objectives? What sequence of events has to occur? And, by the way, what does all that have to do with your decisions about drinking and sex and other aspects of your life (e.g., eating well and getting enough sleep)? How do those choices affect your ability to do the things you most want to do?

I also say to the students, “Look, you don’t have to have all the answers right away. You don’t need to have worked out all your big plans in your first year – and certainly not in your first semester/quarter. And be prepared to change your mind as you go along. But do start thinking about all this from day one. In Chapter 9, “Begin Now!” – which I think is one of the most important ones – I urge students to realize that their college career begins on that very first day. Not next semester or quarter. Not next year. That’s a good moment to begin thinking about where you want this journey to take you. 

One of the most vivid ways to do so is to envision yourself at your college commencement, the beginning of the next phase of your adult life. At that point, as you look back over your undergraduate career – and as people are asking you questions about how you’ve spent your time – what will you be proud of? What might you regret? What will you have done to gain the maximum benefit from this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

One of the questions you ask students upfront is “Why are you going to college at all?” – what are you getting at here? 

Going to college should be an intentional project – not just the expected next step after high school. So ask, “Okay, just why am I going to college? What do I hope to get out of it – especially given what it’s going to cost in time, energy, and money? How do I expect my college education to help me move to the next step in my life?” Again, it’s not at all necessary – or likely! or even desirable! – to have all the answers at this point. And whatever answers you might have are likely to change. But it really helps focus your mind to ask these questions – and to realize that there are other options (e.g., a gap year, military service, volunteer service, trade school, and many others). Let’s be clear: I’m not in the least trying to discourage anyone from going to college. But they will be much more likely to succeed – to come away feeling proud of what they’ve accomplished – if they do it on purpose.

Why do you begin, in Chapter 1, with liberal education?

This book emphasizes the various dimensions of what an undergrad career should offer to students. The first chapter talks about the power of becoming broadly educated. For one thing, this outcome is enormously important if one is to thrive in the professional world today’s graduates will be entering. I include several stories of students I have known whose life pathways illustrate this point. For example, one young man who initially wanted to be a writer ended up working on the New York Times’ digital site as a senior software engineer. Today he’s running his own software company. He didn’t study computer science in college, and he certainly didn’t think about it as a potential career. But he gained a broad liberal education, and above all he learned how to keep learning.

My argument is that in the context of today’s professional world, the more narrow your course of studies in college, the shorter its shelf life. Because when you get out there, the professional world is going to continue changing. It’s evolving at a pace that is hard for any of us to wrap our heads around. So, you have to be intellectually flexible. You have to be able to access – and synthesize – knowledge and information from a variety of areas. And once again, you have to be able to continue learning.

In sum, the traditional skills you learn in a liberal education will set you up for life: critical thinking, reading, drawing upon different areas of knowledge, understanding how different areas of inquiry create knowledge in their own ways, appreciating what different cultures have to teach us and valuing the humanity of people who might present as being different from us, developing your creative imagination and the capacity to communicate effectively, and so on. 

“Colleges and universities don’t just create personal good.  They also create social good.”

Another idea I emphasize is the value of studying a subject – choosing a major, minor, or concentration – that inspires your passion. If passion drives what you’re doing, you’re more likely to excel. Studies have shown that students who choose a major based on their interests do better in college (and they do better in the rest of their lives, as well!), as opposed to students who choose a major just because they think it’s going to get them a well-paying job. Choose a course of study based on your interests so you can really get into it and get the most out of it. Be fortified with the complementary capacity to think broadly. Then you’ll be prepared for whatever the professional world throws at you. 

You talk in the book about the responsibility of becoming a good citizen as part of a student’s education. That’s not always the first thing today’s students are hearing from their administrations.  

As a college or university president, it’s easy to succumb to the temptation of saying “let me tell you about the great jobs our graduates are getting.” That’s not unimportant. Sure, we want our students to be gainfully employed. But if that’s all we are saying, we’re ignoring the other critical goal of a college education, which is why the second half of Chapter 1 addresses the topic of citizenship. And why I quote Thomas Dewey who wrote, “Democracy needs to be reborn every generation. And education is its midwife.” 

Colleges and universities don’t just create personal good. They also create social good. The people who graduate from colleges and universities in this country become citizens of our democracy, often leading citizens in both private and public life. And, in fact, the intellectual abilities and knowledge that position a graduate to thrive as a professional are precisely the same as those required to function as an informed, caring, and responsible citizen. We need them to do so today, perhaps more than ever before. So, as I’m advising students to become intentional stewards of their own education; I am also challenging them to educate themselves to become effective citizens of our democracy. 

And what does that mean? You should be able to participate in political discussions in a constructive way, including listening actively to what someone else is saying, and not just shouting across the room at them. You should be intentional about accessing good sources of information. You need to know what it would take to change your mind on a given political topic. And college should be the best place to develop those skills. If you look at the mission statements of most colleges and universities, you’re likely to find some reference to responsible citizenship or leadership. But that doesn’t mean those values are automatically prominent in the experience of their students. 

So, what I’m saying to students is, “Yes, it’s really important that you prepare yourself for the professional world. But it’s equally important – and in some ways, even more important – that you prepare yourself to be an informed, caring, responsible citizen. And you may have to do that work yourself. Your college or university may not show you what you have to do. But if you pay attention to what I’m talking about in the book, you will be well positioned to claim that part of your college education as well. You will graduate as someone well prepared to participate as an effective, caring, responsible, informed citizen of our democratic republic.”

You have two chapters dedicated to wellbeing – one on the body and one on the mind – and it also seems to be a theme woven throughout the book. What are some big takeaways there?

One of the places where I really expanded the book (beyond those original talks) was in thinking about the notion of wellbeing. I have no illusions that any book for new students will “fix” all their problems or guarantee they won’t make some mistakes along the way. That’s just part of what happens at this stage of our lives. What I am trying to do, however, is first, to provide as much science-based information as I can about a range of topics relating to physical and mental wellbeing. And second, to encourage students to use this information to make good choices as much as they can…and to get help when they need it. 

I also bring up the subject of happiness. There’s been no shortage of commentary about happiness in popular culture, and it’s very much on the minds of today’s students. But it’s so important to realize that genuine happiness – as opposed to, say, pleasure – is elusive. If you pursue it, it’s likely to run away from you. And you’re not going to catch it. The way we become truly happy is by finding a purpose in life and doing meaningful work with other people. That’s how we make it possible for happiness to find us. So that’s why I encourage college students to think in those terms – to find a cause to embrace (along with their freedom). Chapter 8, specifically, talks about giving back and paying it forward. I tell them that, as a college graduate, you’ll be part of approximately 40% of the American population who has a bachelor’s degree. Only 40%. That alway sounds like a pretty small number to me. And if you look to the world at large, there are about 8 billion people out there, and probably fewer than 10% have a college degree. This means you’re in a position of privilege – not entitlement, but privilege – just by virtue of having this opportunity. So my challenge to students is: “What are you going to do with it?” Or, as I asked before (quoting Horace Mann), “What ‘victory for humanity’ are you going to win?” This is a question all of us should consider, but it’s particularly relevant for college students. If we go to college to realize both personal and social goods, then it’s incumbent upon us to ask: “What am I prepared to do to leave the world a better place than I found it?”

Questions to Live By

Posted on by Ella
Read by Laura Walker, President of Bennington College and former CEO and President of New York Public Radio

It is 8th period at the Bronx Latin School and twenty or so sophomores are taking turns attempting to answer some of life’s biggest questions: “What is purpose?” “Is life about me or is it about others?” “Why does it take courage to be yourself?” As hands go up and down across the classroom, some common themes emerge: vulnerability, interconnectedness, and acceptance. There is not a phone in sight. 

These students are taking the QUESTion Class, an evidence-based course offered in public high schools in low-income neighborhoods that gives young people the opportunity for self-reflection and personal development. Now in 10 schools in New York City, the curriculum uses a method whereby a series of questions — categorized by theme and developmentally sequenced — help students explore and form their own identities and strengthen their sense of agency in school and life. With superlative outcomes, both formal and anecdotal, the QUESTion Class may be one answer to how to prepare children to become adults in a complex and challenging world. 

“I think the class allows students to realize they can be resilient and that they have these inner strengths to make it through difficult situations,” said Matthew DeLeo, the students’ teacher at the Bronx Latin School and a trained QUESTion Class instructor. “It helps them realize that they’re stronger and more capable than they might otherwise have thought.”

The class is part of a larger effort known as the QUESTion Project, an initiative of the Open Future Institute, a non-profit founded by Gerard Senehi and his wife Francesca Rusciani. The project is, in many ways, the result of the founders’ personal quest to provide better support for the emotional development of emerging adults, something he says “allows them to understand themselves and what they choose to do rather than simply follow a script.” The class was designed for students with less of life’s advantages but its ability to build character and confidence is widely applicable and, many would say, universally lacking. 

“I know from my own experience, there’s not enough support out there to figure out who you are as a person and how that influences your decisions in life,” said Senehi. 

Senehi is an academic and entrepreneur who, himself, has held a number of identities. An alumnus of Amherst College with a master’s degree in education, Senehi has been a social worker, a teacher, and a successful entertainer doing mystery shows to help off-set his non-profit work. His role as a mentalist has made him appreciate the process of discovery that students experience in taking the QUESTion Class.

“One of the things we learned early on was the importance of making room for the unknown,” he said. “Questions about purpose and identity are really profound and intangible and we need to let students know they don’t need to have an answer but to be true explorers.”

The questions themselves are designed to empower the agency of students by encouraging intrinsic thinking as opposed to skill-building.

The QUESTion Project includes the QUESTion Academy, in which teacher training, professional development, and coaching take place and the QUESTion Leadership Program where students take leadership roles including co-teaching the class. The curriculum took four years to develop and was originally co-created and piloted with college students at the Florida State University and Amherst College, as well as students from public schools in the South Bronx where word spread to other public high schools. All of them are “Title I” schools that receive federal assistance to provide quality education to children from low-income families. A portion of the schools are college prep, where principals often look for tools to support first generation students in their transition to college. 

“What principals tell us is that it helps students with motivation for college but also with the skills needed to stay in college, which is a big issue for public school students,” he said. 

Senehi says the program’s approach – and the questions themselves – are designed to empower the agency of students by encouraging intrinsic thinking as opposed to skill-building. An advocate of learner-centered pedagogy, he differentiates this work from other social and emotional programs that might recommend the right choices, versus connecting them with the agency to understand those choices for themselves. It is a dynamic that can be jarring, but ultimately transformative for students. 

“I remember in my first QUESTion class I was like ‘whoa, why am I speaking more than the teacher?’ ‘Why are other kids telling me how they feel?’” says Alexander, a graduate of the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics, now at SUNY Purchase studying acting. “In American education, we don’t really get to see students as the captains of their learning.” 

The QUESTion Class curriculum is 80 lessons, divided into five core units with different themes, topics and perspectives. They are Choice, Purpose, Fearlessness, Interconnectedness, and A Bigger Picture. In Choice, students might explore aspects of freedom and responsibility, and how the choices they make may affect others. Within the Fearlessness section, students begin to understand their fears within the context of others and explore the role of fearlessness in being true to themselves. Each curricular unit builds upon the others, and by the end of the course, students consider “a bigger picture” with a closing session in which they explore their place in a larger world. 

If there is a foundational pillar, it is purpose, or bringing meaning to your life in a way that is outside yourself, for which there is a well-documented connection to wellbeing. Purpose scholar William Damon, whose team from Stanford did a formal assessment of the program, wrote, “Alumni demonstrated that the QUESTion Class was effective in nurturing their sense of purpose and their feeling of being connected to others through their shared humanity. They learned to see purpose as a driving force now and throughout their lives.” Damon called the students he observed in the Bronx “as insightful, engaged, thoughtful, and articulate as any group of students I have ever seen.” 

The principal of the Bronx Latin school, Annette Fiorentino, said she had been searching for the QUESTion Project long before she knew what it was. Bronx Latin is a public high school in a low-income neighborhood of New York City with a large percentage of college-bound students. 100% of them are students of color, largely Latinx and Black. 

“When we share our opinions, we don’t divide ourselves.”

“Some of our top students, going to top universities, would come back to the Bronx in between terms and just seem so lost,” she said. “Some of them wanted to drop out of school. They weren’t sure who they were. They weren’t sure where they were going or what they wanted to study. I knew I needed a program to better prepare them emotionally for college and a principal friend of mine said, ‘Annette, you need the QUESTion Class.’” 

Fiorentino says the class gives students confidence in who they are and builds a resilience muscle to flex when things get tough. The process helps prepare students for the real world of college, particularly in PWI’s (Predominantly White Institutions) with cultures and norms that are unfamiliar to first generation college students whose families can’t tell them about the sudden discomfort they might experience. 

“I grew up with mostly Black and Brown people,” said Alexander. “The way we speak to each other is very different than the way I do now, now that I am in a PWI. There are certain things I need to be mindful about within this community and certain things I need to advocate for myself about. Taking the QUESTion Class gave me the fearlessness I need to be able to go up to someone who is different from me and be able to have those conversations that may be difficult or uncomfortable.” 

For Fiorentino, what started out as a college transition tool became so much more. She is particularly impressed by the value of the interconnectedness unit which was critical in addressing loneliness during the pandemic and helps students learn to see others through their shared humanity, not through their labels. 

“I think after they go through this program, they really understand that we’re more alike than we are different,” she said. Asked if she was familiar with other types of social and emotional learning programs, she said, “nothing as powerful as this.”

In a review of the program by Stanford’s Center for Adolescence, Senior Researcher Heather Malin wrote, “Students who participate in the QUESTion Class gain confidence in their ability to navigate a path forward through their choices, while becoming more comfortable with an uncertain future. As they engage with their most important questions with peers, their feelings of isolation start to dissipate. They connect with a sense of direction based on their own understanding of the meaning of life and the purpose they hope to fulfill. Most striking to us has been seeing their fears and concerns for the future replaced by a sense of joy, positivity and confidence about the possibilities ahead.”

Among the results of the report’s alumni survey, 89% of respondents said the class provided opportunities to think deeply about the future choices they were making, take responsibility for their choices, or explore the unlimited choices available to them; 78% said the class provided opportunities or greater capacity for being open to or accepting of perspectives of others, recognizing the humanity of others, and seeing connection with others despite our differences; 100% said it helped them improve their autonomy and agency. 

The report cites additional research on the value of purpose education among students, particularly those who’ve grown up in poverty and the added benefit this holds for others and for society. “Society benefits when individuals pursue a life of beyond-the-self purpose. Communities benefit from the prosocial activities of their members, and from being made up of individuals who are living lives of purpose.” 

Matthew DeLeo doesn’t need an assessment report to understand the impact the QUESTion Class has on his students, or on others. He sees it every day during 8th period when they file in ready to get to work. Sometimes students who aren’t even in the class will ask to sit in. Now in his eighth year of teaching the course, Deleo said the class has been a learning process for him personally. “It was the students’ growth and development – and the way they express what the program has done for them – that has enabled me to learn and grow as their teacher.” 

One afternoon in March, Gerard Senehi visited DeLeo’s class to ask, “What has this class helped you with?” The first indication may have been the level of seriousness the students gave to Senehi’s question. The room was silent. All eyes were on the visitor. Slowly, the hands went up. Some students asked for clarification: “What do you mean by helped me?” Others jumped right in: “It makes you OK with who you are, who you were, and who you want to be.” Another student added, “It opens up more doors to get to know yourself.” 

Asked if the class is a little like therapy, some answered yes, in that it allows them to share thoughts they have inside that they can’t always speak with their families about. Hearing other students share similar thoughts lets them know they are not alone. Other links to mental health and wellbeing include comments such as “there is no judgment here” and “it is a place of comfort.” 

Senehi’s last question moves the conversation from the individual to the collective. “How is it different here than what you see happening in the world outside in terms of polarization?” The answers to this are eerily spot-on and reflect a wisdom beyond their years. “When we share our opinions, we don’t divide ourselves.” “We’re not judging and we’re able to listen.” “In this class, it feels like there is no right or wrong, just people sharing their point of view,” all said with a remarkable lack of self-importance. 

As they burst into the crowded hallway after class, it is impossible not to hope that what they take with them that day will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

A Collective Approach to Wellbeing

Posted on by Ella

In 2015, colleagues at the University of Washington designed a novel framework to promote wellbeing on campus. The UW Resilience Lab aims to cultivate a culture of resilience that goes beyond the individual and reaches across the university’s three campuses and surrounding communities. A member of the Flourishing Academic Network (FAN), the lab drives systemic change through pedagogy and curriculum, interdisciplinary collaboration, research, strategic projects, and community engagement – all designed to help students thrive. 

The lab’s collective approach joins faculty, staff, and students with a wide range of academic backgrounds — Buddhist studies, economics, medicine — into conversation with one another. It is a living example of how, when bringing different people and departments together, colleges and universities have an opportunity to transcend individualistic ideas of wellness and instead engage community members in productive dialogue. At the University of Washington, that dialogue is driving systemic change.

Kizz Prusia, MPA, is the Community Impact Manager at the UW Resilience Lab. He describes a resilient campus as one that embodies a quality of spaciousness. “Is there space and psychological safety for students to engage in dialogue with each other and with faculty across disciplines and status or levels of hierarchy and power?” he asks. “Are there tools available to practice wellbeing and compassion?” Prusia’s work, much like the work of the lab as a whole, extends into many areas of campus life. The lab values collaboration and fosters symbiotic relationships with other offices and programs — the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance; the School of Social Work; the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity; and the Center for Child and Family Development, to name a few. That collective approach sets them apart, Prusia says. “I’ve seen centers and groups, here and at other institutions, that are insular and siloed. In the Resilience Lab, we think about individual wellbeing, but we also think about our collective ability to adapt and learn together; to shift wellbeing from an individual responsibility to a community effort.” 

Institutional Memory

Interdisciplinary initiatives maximize the Resilience Lab’s reach and impact across a large, multi-campus university. They also generate a new “institutional memory,” Prusia says, by embedding the culture of compassion and resilience into all domains of the student experience, planting the seeds of lasting change.

One such initiative, Resistance through Resilience (RTR), is the product of a collaboration between the Resilience Lab and the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity. RTR is a new training and speaker series that engages community members on and off campus in the application of mindfulness practices to interrupt racism and its intersections. One example is discussions on examining the meaning of resilience in the lives of minoritized students, for whom resilience often connotes “toughing it out” through challenging circumstances — “muscling through,” Prusia says, sometimes at great costs. Working to change that definition, Resistance through Resilience expands the conversation around what resilience looks like for students of color, LGBTQ+ students, and other marginalized groups by exploring “different ways to resist what exists,” Prusia explains.

“We are looking at how systems operate, how we can make sense of an organizational culture, and where individual actors fit inside that broader context.”

“Those conversations have talked about joy, about rest, about resilience, and about radical listening,” he says. RTR promotes wellbeing through conversations around power, privilege, and the environments in which students and community members develop, learn, and thrive. The initiative highlights the Resilience Lab’s commitment to understanding the roles of both individuals and systems: with regard to anti-racist pedagogy, whole-person wellbeing, and community engagement, Prusia explains, “We are looking at how systems operate, how we can make sense of an organizational culture, and where individual actors fit inside that broader context.”

The Resilience Lab also provides seed grants in partnership with the Campus Sustainability Fund. The grants are an opportunity for anyone in the community, including students, faculty, staff, and community partners, to apply for grant funding for a proposed project relating to sustainability, mindfulness, resilience, or anti-racism. Examples of recent grant recipients include the Critical Conversations Collective (CCC), a space for interdisciplinary doctoral students of color to engage in peer mentoring, and Embodying Abolition, a faculty-led project designing innovative pedagogy and curriculum that challenge systems of incarceration.

The Be REAL initiative is a collaborative project from the Resilience Lab and the Center for Child and Family Development. Be REAL (REsilient Attitudes and Living — the name predates the popular app) got its start as a research project in undergraduate residence halls studying the efficacy of “preventative tools to help students manage stress, understand their own needs and relate to others with compassion,” Prusia explains. The six-week program equips students and staff with cognitive skills and mindful techniques that help them flourish in their daily lives and respond mindfully to challenging situations. In partnership with the Center for Child and Family Development, Be REAL’s curriculum is in the process of being adapted to fit the needs of high school students and extend the culture of wellbeing beyond campus.

As faculty, staff, and students across the country gradually returned to in-person learning as pandemic restrictions lifted, the Resilience Lab published Well-Being for Life and Learning, a guidebook organized around four pillars of an engaged and resilient university: teaching for equity and access, nurturing social connectedness, building coping skills, and connecting to the environment. The guidebook represents a community approach to taking resilience and wellbeing from optimistic concepts to fully-realized, implementable practices. While the guide provides a framework for best practices, the Resilience Lab’s work is, by design, not one-size-fits-all. 

“Is there space and psychological safety for students to engage in dialogue with each other and with faculty across disciplines and status or levels of hierarchy and power?”

“We don’t expect that every department will implement the guidebook in the same ways or at the same time,” Prusia says. “Instead, we try to work with faculty and staff in a way that works for them. Maybe it’s not the whole guidebook — maybe it’s taking one practice and building a skillset around that.” This adaptability makes wellbeing tools practical and accessible to all community members.

Pedagogy and Curriculum

Integrating resilience into university curriculum “can be a light lift and as manageable  as professors implementing a mindfulness practice at the start of class, being intentional about co-creating the learning environment with students, or just bringing resilience into the classroom as a topic to consider,” Prusia explains. Most recently at UW, this integration has involved guest speakers and visiting artists who engage with questions of wellbeing in its many intricate forms. For some faculty, this approach has taken off — and taken their curriculum down unforeseen paths. 

Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a poet, dancer, and artist-in-residence at the University of Washington’s Meany Center for Performing Arts for the duration of the 2023-2024 academic year. Joseph brought to campus his original Carnival of the Animals, a multimedia performance that “navigates the reality of the political jungle by embodying shifting societal values and our relationship to democracy” through poetry, dance, and music. Joseph’s residency at the University of Washington explores “what it means to go from art to wellness, from artistic joy to collective wellness,” Prusia says. Through multimedia performance art, Joseph hosts a conversation that asks viewers to consider art’s place in creating collective change. One professor in the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance saw a resonant connection between Joseph’s art and her coursework and invited her whole class of graduate students to the performance. From a government course to a multigenre stage production, the professor cultivated a nimble, adaptive, and innovative learning experience that embodies the Resilience Lab’s vision of the compassionate campus. 

If the University of Washington is any indication, that vision, when rigorously explored and thoughtfully implemented, can blossom into tangible change. Where wellbeing is a collective responsibility and a shared opportunity, the culture shifts to embrace it.

Wellbeing Curriculum: A Student’s Perspective

Posted on by Ella

Nestory Ngolle is a sophomore at Georgetown University, a biology and global health major, an EMT, and a member of the Engelhard Project Student Advisory Council. The Engelhard Project for Connecting Life and Learning is Georgetown’s curricular approach to integrating whole-student learning and wellbeing into academic contexts — and, as Ngolle sees it, creating an environment where students can connect what they learn about the world to what they learn about themselves. 

Bringing health and wellbeing into the classroom increases engagement, encourages collaboration and self-reflection, and cultivates a sense of purpose that helps students flourish across all facets of college life, he says. In late March, Ngolle joined Joselyn Schultz Lewis, Director of Inclusive Pedagogy at Georgetown’s Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship, for a presentation on Engelhard’s innovative, student-informed pedagogy at the Coalition for Transformational Education’s national conference in Washington, D.C. LearningWell caught up with Ngolle to see what his experience can teach leaders and learners in higher education.

In his first semester at Georgetown, Ngolle took a foundational biology class that happened to be an Engelhard course. “Rather than memorizing information and applying it to problems, we were applying what we learned to ourselves and our experiences. It helped students feel connected to what they learned and reflect on their own lives in relation to the academic material.” The following semester, Ngolle enrolled in a medical anthropology class, another Engelhard course. “From there, I think I sort of fell in love with the Engelhard mission,” he said. “You can see the positive impact in the classroom, in student participation, and in how students approach the work.” 

Bringing health and wellbeing into the classroom increases engagement, encourages collaboration and self-reflection, and cultivates a sense of purpose.

While we tend to look to college counseling centers, peer advising, or support groups as the first frontiers of student mental health, Ngolle emphasizes the transformative potential of acknowledging and promoting wellbeing within the content and culture of academic life. In the classroom, that means inclusive pedagogy and exploring the relationship between student wellbeing and engaged learning. Engelhard’s course model invites faculty to redesign existing courses by identifying an area of wellbeing that is relevant to the curriculum. Engelhard courses exist across academic disciplines, so students of philosophy, mathematics, business, or medicine have opportunities to enroll in courses that incorporate topics such as substance use, depression and anxiety, sleep, social media use, or sexual assault into their curricula. 

Crucial to this integration is getting students to understand that good grades, even superlative grades, are not at odds with wellness. Rather, Ngolle says, academic success and wellbeing can coexist and complement one another. For students like Ngolle on the pre-medical track, academic rigor and ambition have a reputation of souring into severe stress or competitive, unsupportive peer relationships. Professors can be active in dismantling this process before it begins, Ngolle says, by creating a sense of community and belonging among classmates. “Those are the people we are going to walk across the stage with in four years,” Ngolle said of classmates, who often see each other as opponents rather than as peers. A spirit of unconditional individualism, he argues, can get in the way of finding community and belonging, an essential ingredient for good mental health in college. 

The end goal, as Ngolle sees it, is to arrive at a point where “all classes are centered around students and strive to cultivate a sense of health and wellness in the classroom.”

Ngolle believes that healthy behaviors, improved memory and information retention, positive peer networks, and the confidence to talk to professors or speak up in class all reinforce one another. He hopes to dismantle the narrative that students, in order to achieve a good GPA or ace their exams, must compromise their sleep, suffer under stressful conditions, and work themselves to the point of burnout. The Engelhard Project has taught Ngolle that wellbeing and care can extend into every aspect of a person’s college existence, including academic life. He now amplifies his peers’ voices as a Student Advisory Council member for the Engelhard Project, and he hopes to see the program’s reach grow. The end goal, as he sees it, is to make every course an Engelhard course, eliminating the need by arriving at a point where “all classes are centered around students and strive to cultivate a sense of health and wellness in the classroom.”

Ngolle’s experience as a student in classes that prioritize wellbeing has affirmed and shaped his ambition to pursue medicine. “Healthcare is more than just prescribing medication to a patient. It can mean connecting with patients on an individual level, being there to just sit and talk with them. These courses have led me to see patients as people: the goal is not to treat a disease; the goal is to treat a patient.” 

For Ngolle, the pre-med student experience has expanded his definition of what it means to be well, both for himself and for all medical patients receiving care. His professors have “challenged student perspectives of what it means to be healthy and well. That means that going to the doctor or talking to a psychiatrist are not the only settings where we can talk about our health and wellbeing. In the classroom, we can achieve wellness — not just through grades, but through the knowledge we acquire.” Students connect more meaningfully to course material when they are able to see its relevance to daily college life, Ngolle says. That connection not only leads to better academic outcomes, but to better lives.

How to Build a Global Citizen

Posted on by Ella
Listen to this article, read by Ezza Naveed.

The year is (sometime in the future), and a network of global leaders are working together across continents, languages, and disciplines on some of the world’s biggest problems. Be they scientists, artists, industry executives or NGO directors, they are particularly well-equipped with the skills needed to navigate a world with diverse cultures and common threats. Within their toolbox of competencies are empathy, agency, open-mindedness and grit. 

This is not a utopian fantasy, but rather the strategic vision that centers Mike Magee, PhD, and his students at Minerva University, a recently formed, selective institution aimed at developing the global leaders of the future. 

“Our mission is to develop leaders, problem-solvers, and entrepreneurs from every corner of the globe and to weave them together as one community committed to a world that is safe, sustainable and equitable,” said Magee, President of Minerva. 

Accredited in 2021, the university was originally called The Minerva Schools at Keck Graduate Institute, founded by Ben Nelson and operated by the Minerva Institute for Research and Scholarship, where former US Senator and President Emeritus of the New School Bob Kerry served as executive chairman. Based in San Francisco, Minerva utilizes a hybrid platform of online learning and study away to engage high achieving students from around the world in a different kind of education. Within their regular studies, students work on location-based assignments in seven international cities. 

By design, it is the world’s most diverse university: less than 15% of its 600 students are from the US, and many come from low-income communities. Minerva has also been ranked “the world’s most innovative university,” and for good reason. To achieve a goal as ambitious as Magee describes within a system as traditional as higher education, Minerva had to reinvent pretty much everything. With minimal infrastructure, an unusual faculty profile, and a unique pedagogy, Minerva offers a fresh approach to higher education at a time of deep frustration with the status quo. 

College — reimagined 

One of the most obvious differences between Minerva and its elite peers is the environment in which students learn. Large, theater-style lecture halls do not exist. In fact, the school has minimal infrastructure which keeps the tuition about half that of many colleges. Classes of no more than 20 students are live and online and involve pre-class work and full participation. The goal is to create intimate learning environments that are dialogue based where students build relationships with peers and professors, even as they are mostly remote. After spending their first year in San Francisco taking the same general education curriculum, students move in cohorts to an additional 6 cities each semester: Berlin, Buenos Aires, Seoul, Taipei, and London.

“It’s a very special type of person who wants to work here.”

“From the beginning, we decided we were not going to build beautiful campuses. We were going to intentionally teach young people to treat economically and culturally vibrant cities as their campuses – to use their libraries, museums and labs and to immerse themselves in their cultures.”

Another feature that sets Minerva apart is the kind of people it attracts. Michael Horn is a trustee at Minerva and has been involved with the school since the beginning. “I see Minerva as a disruptive entrant into the elite higher education segment,” said Horn, who has authored several books including one with Clayton Christenson, considered the father of disruptive innovation theory. “It puts the learner and their needs first and prepares them for a complex world in a way that’s much more front and center than other higher ed institutions who are often asking themselves ‘Are we a research-first institution? Why do we exist?’ At Minerva, we are very clear. We are a learning institution.” 

A former international relations professor at the University of Southern California, Dollie   Davis taught in one of those large lecture halls and eventually left higher ed feeling unfulfilled. She worked in the non-profit sector until the chance to join Minerva lured her back to teaching. She is now Minerva’s dean of faculty.

“It’s a very special type of person who wants to work here,” she said. “We don’t have a publishing requirement and we don’t have tenure. Without the requirement to publish, we focus primarily on teaching. We care about our specific model of teaching and being engaged with our students.”

Davis says everything about Minerva is intentional which translates into a collective “buy-in” of the unusual culture. 

“The students know they are coming into a challenging university where classes are taught in the active learning style,” she said. “They know that they are going to be called on so as soon as they log on, they’re ready to go. It’s on us, the faculty, to promote a strong sense of community and a safe space in the classroom so they feel comfortable sharing new ideas. That’s a big part of our training.” 

Minerva professors are trained in an active learning pedagogy and the technology that enables it. With students and professors throughout the world, Minerva’s digital platform is critical, and the university is quick to distinguish it from the online accommodations colleges were forced to make due to the pandemic. The platform delivers real-time information to faculty and students during classroom discussion, which allows them to display material for the purpose of informing the conversation. Students and faculty see one another on a digital “stage” and can be moved around the screen. If students have worked together on a pre-class project and need to present, the professor can visually pair them with their material alongside them. Davis believes a digital theater can be more intimate than an actual classroom where it is easier to hide. 

Magee says many schools use online learning simply for knowledge transmission when they can be working the technology around the science of learning. “The technology should enable the pedagogy you choose. What do we want the classroom experience to be like? What type of outcomes are we trying to achieve for students?” In Minerva’s case, it is the evidence that emerging adults retain more knowledge from experiences and dialogue than they do from simply receiving information. 

An important distinction in the curriculum is the relevance of real-world problems which students work on in location-based assignments. Students in Buenos Aires taking Dean Davis’s economics class, for example, will attend a financial museum and discuss the history of the city’s economy and policies with the local experts there. Students who take sustainability courses on topics like energy or water can apply what they learn to projects they will work on in Seoul or Berlin. The variation in these experiences teaches students how different people and systems respond to similar challenges. 

To build their cultural competencies, students learn to master what the school calls “HC’s” – 75 habits and concepts that are basic tools for critical thinking and effective communication that students will use across their lifetime. They are particularly important when working across differences – a foundational principle in global citizen-building. Students are introduced to the HC’s in their first year and are assessed on them throughout their time at Minerva. Davis says the HC’s are continuously “pulled” throughout class and are referenced by hashtags that get students to think instantaneously. 

“When talking about a geopolitical conflict, I might say “hashtag – audience” to remind students of how what they’re saying affects others; or “hashtag – break it down” when we are working on problem-solving,” she said. 

The HC’s include personal characteristics such as purpose and resilience, which are linked to improved mental health and wellbeing, something that is highly valued at a school that asks a lot of its students. “Our curriculum is intentionally designed to build resilience in students and have them grow in those ways,” said Horn. “Resilience is incredibly important to wellbeing because things aren’t always going to be great, and it is how you respond that is important.” 

Magee said the challenges students face in becoming global citizens are not minimal. “I don’t want to give the impression that any of this is easy,” he said. “It’s really hard when you have young people who are by and large between the ages of 17 and 22 and they’re wary of one another and they’re still trying to develop their own sense of how the world works. And there’s a lot they still need to know about history and politics and identity.”

“If anyone wants to ‘do Minerva,’ you should be prepared that it will upend much of what you know about the world,” said Ezza Naveed, a Minerva alumnus of the class of 2021.

Naveed was a highschool student in her native Pakistan when she told her guidance counselor she was not interested in a traditional four-year university. “If it were up to me, I would have traveled the world instead of going to college – I think it would teach me more,” she said. But her mother had other ideas and so her guidance counselor suggested an alternative — Minerva. Naveed was an excellent student, though her grades had slipped that year due to a significant personal loss. She had achieved much in her young life including working on class poverty within her community, which she wrote about in her application. She was overjoyed when she was accepted.

“I think Minerva saw in me someone who, if given this education, was going to run with it and make a difference in people’s lives,” she said.

Naveed now says Minerva was the exciting, soul- searching, transformational experience she had hoped for, building her sense of empathy and understanding of different cultures and helping her discover new parts of herself. 

“The most formative experiences in my life happened in all of these cities around the world, in all these unique cultures where I learned new customs and made best friends for life,” she said. In Seoul, she joined the local debate team at Hanyang University and was amazed that she became a quarter finalist for the Seoul National Debate Tournament. During her trek to Patagonia whilst living in Buenos Aires, and doing solo hikes by herself, she realized something. “I, as a woman, can compete and do anything, anywhere in the world,” she remembers thinking, countering the cultural narrative she grew up with about the inferior capabilities of women. 

“For me, Minerva was about ‘unlearning that,’” she said. 

Naveed wrote her Minerva capstone on gender immobility of Pakistani women. “I was always passionate about this issue, but I wasn’t confident in my ability to bring that forward,” she said. “Minerva gave me that toolbox. I lived in 5 out of the 7 countries where I got to see what ‘normal’ was like for women in different parts of the world.”

When she returned to Pakistan after graduation, she sensed that her peers did not get the same opportunities and had not grown in the same ways, even those she considered “really smart.” She attributes that to a systemic and personal investment gap in their education. “At Minerva, my professors knew me so well, the staff knew me so well. They were so invested in my success, and they really cared for us, my friends cared for me, it was just a deeply caring community. I realized that’s not a universal thing.” Shortly after graduating, she formed a partnership with Codematics, a tech company in Pakistan to teach low-income students, aged 18 to 25, for her project “Young Leaders Program” at Urraan, both hard tech skills like coding but also personal, pragmatic skills like public speaking, how to pitch an idea and networking. She is particularly proud of the outcomes she has seen in her female students.

“I think Minerva saw in me someone who, if given this education, was going to run with it and make a difference in people’s lives.”

Naveed is now a student at Harvard Graduate School of Education where she runs the student organization, Women’s Education Movement which recently hosted a leadership forum for School of Leadership Afghanistan, Afghanistan’s first and only boarding school for girls.  She continues to feel the personal growth that occurred when at Minerva – “My friends and I can literally go anywhere and figure it out” — but she cautions that the school is not for everyone.

When asked about the challenges she encountered, Narveed is candid about the emotional toll it can take on students, particularly those, like her, who had suffered a loss or were emotionally vulnerable.

“The mental, emotional load of it was really tiring,” she said. “We had to uproot and reroute and establish community from scratch in all these places — and then there was the pandemic — it really took a toll on me, mentally, emotionally and physically.” Naveed said students, particularly in the early classes, felt particularly dependent on one another and their professors. “The only sense of stability came from our own friendship and community.”

The school has worked on strengthening its mental health services platform which included coordinating therapy appointments around countries and time zones which Naveed said was a problem early on. Her ability to put these challenges in the context of her overall experience hints at the resilience Minerva believes is a part of global leadership.

“It can be challenging but it is extremely worth it. If I could go back and do it all again, I absolutely would.” 

Expanding the pipeline

If there was one thing Magee would change about Minerva it would be to make it available to more students around the world which reflects a deep personal commitment to and experience with educational equity. An academic for many years, Magee left higher ed to found a network of new, racially integrated public schools in Rhode Island before coming to Minerva. 

“Since I was a child, I’ve been really fascinated by and passionate about the role that schools can play in bringing young people together from lots of different backgrounds and across many lines of difference into community and belonging with each other.”

Magee acknowledges that the rigorous pedagogy and international campus require a certain level of skill and maturity, (as Ezza Narveed points out, it’s not for everyone), but he hopes to open Minerva up to more students for whom the unique method would be beneficial. Last year, the school grew its student body by 20% and plans to do the same in the coming year. With faculty that can be onboarded anywhere in the world and ample real estate available in their host cities, Minerva’s model makes it easy to expand.

“I think it’s fair to say that none of us is satisfied with limiting this to 600 students,” said Michael Horn. 

In regard to being a prototype for change, Magee hopes other institutions will acknowledge the value of low capital costs to solve one of higher education’s biggest barriers, the rising cost of tuition. Magee blames the current unaffordability of higher ed for many Americans, and the resulting decline in public support for it, on a growing trend toward a business model more akin to a luxury brand or a country club membership. “The elite institutions started this trend by intentionally constraining supply, astronomically raising prices, emphasizing their elitism and not thinking about how to create an experience that is more available and less alienating,” he said. Magee believes the strategy pays off for the relatively few institutions whose alumni will enjoy a lifetime of social capital but is a debilitating trend for the rest. 

“It has really broken higher education in America.” 

If Minerva can offer an alternative path, one that can be scaled to reach far more of the future global citizens the world needs, Magee is happy to share it. His focus on growth also reveals a desire to prove something to those who may interpret “innovative” as “experimental.”  

“I think we can do a real service to higher ed by growing to a size where we’re a little less easy to dismiss.”