Month: July 2026

Learning for the Ages

Posted on by Mollie Ames

When Ezra Hall arrived at Furman University as a freshman, he signed up for the school’s Adopt a Grandparent program expecting a light volunteer activity. In the introductory session, students met residents of The Woodlands at Furman, a retirement community bordering campus, in a kind of speed-dating event. There, they chose whom they wanted to spend time with over the coming year.

Hall connected with retiree Jeanne Christie. At first, they met for meals or campus events. Before long they were attending church together, celebrating birthdays and graduations, and talking about everything from family to books and career plans. Christie eventually encouraged Hall to call her Mimi, the name her own grandchildren use. It stuck, and so did the relationship, which influenced more than his college experience. After interning at The Woodlands while he was a student, Hall decided to work at the retirement community full time after graduation. Now, as the director of philanthropy and engagement, he helps create opportunities for others to have similar intergenerational relationships.

Hall’s was a fortuitous match. But the circumstances that brought him and Christie together are becoming increasingly intentional. Across the country, a growing number of colleges and universities are partnering with retirement communities — or building their own — as an extension of their educational mission. Since the mid-1980s, more than 80 of these types of residences have opened across the U.S., including The Woodlands at Furman University, Mirabella at Arizona State University, University Commons at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. Demand has increased along with the aging of boomers, and waiting lists for openings is common. The Woodlands, for example, has a wait list of 500 people for its 280 residences.

The opportunity starts with the chance to continue learning. Residents can audit university courses, attend lectures and performances, use campus libraries and athletic facilities, and remain connected to an intellectually vibrant community. Some are retired faculty members or administrators, and others are alumni or even relatives of matriculated students. But most are people with no previous affiliation to the institution but want to live in an environment where ideas continue to enliven their world. 

And while the intellectual stimulation is a draw, these communities are increasingly discovering that some of the richest forms of lifelong learning happen outside the classroom — and that it goes in both generational directions. Students and residents mentor and tutor one another and form friendships that span generations. In the process, lifelong learning comes to mean something broader than continuing education. It becomes an ongoing exchange of experience, curiosity, and perspective that continues long after formal schooling ends and underscores the value of age-accumulated experience.

And while the intellectual stimulation is a draw, these communities are increasingly discovering that some of the richest forms of lifelong learning happen outside the classroom — and that it goes in both generational directions.

The experience within these communities also reflects wider evidence on the benefits of intergenerational connections. For older people, being in relationship with a younger person leads to greater wellbeing and quality of life. Likewise, a review of intergenerational programs found that younger participants experience greater empathy, self-esteem, and social and communication skills through their relationships with older adults. Given these benefits increase with stronger connections, the longer-term living/learning arrangements of campus-based retirement living pose to be particularly effective.  

There are a number of compelling practical advantages to these programs as well. A.S.U. graduate student and musician Caleb Bailey is one of a handful of young people living at Mirabella. Initially, the arrangement was actually motivated by a financial issue. Growing up in rural Maryland, Bailey never imagined graduate study in classical guitar was within his financial reach. His mother managed a Lady Foot Locker store; his father’s income came from buying and reselling items on eBay. As a first-generation Hispanic college student with A.D.H.D., Bailey felt talent alone wouldn’t cut it to cover tuition or rent.

“I was trying to figure out how graduate school was even going to be financially possible,” Bailey recalled. At A.S.U., Mirabella houses a few graduate students in the arts free of charge each year in exchange for performances and engagement with residents. Bailey had participated in a similar artist-in-residence program while earning his undergraduate degree at Johns Hopkins University, and the arrangement made graduate school financially feasible.

There, and at A.S.U., he has found much more than affordable housing. Residents attend his recitals and ask about his research. They remember upcoming performances and stop him in the hall to ask how auditions went. Others simply became enthusiastic supporters of a young artist trying to build a career. Casual conversations after concerts often stretched longer than the performances themselves. “It’s like having 300-plus grandparents,” Bailey laughed.

The relationships changed his musicianship as well. Residents weren’t interested only in technical perfection. They wanted music that moved them, comforted them, surprised them, or reminded them of someone they loved. Bailey began thinking less about performing for judges and professors and more about performing for people. Some residents decided to rediscover instruments they had abandoned decades earlier. One resident, a retired engineer, had spent years quietly writing songs for his wife. Bailey worked with him to arrange and perform them. 

“I realized music is about serving the listener. That shifted my whole perspective,” said Bailey, who is attuned to giving residents a choice in what they’d like to hear. This is especially true of those in a higher level of care. People with limited mobility or serious health issues may have less agency in their daily routines. “It’s always nice to be asked what you’d like to hear.” 

The experience also reshaped his professional ambitions. Today, Bailey is developing a nonprofit organization designed to expand artist-in-residence programs like Mirabella’s to retirement communities around the country, making graduate education more financially accessible while enriching the lives of older adults through sustained artistic engagement. His story illustrates something advocates of university retirement communities have been observing for decades: Meaningful intergenerational learning rarely emerges from occasional programming alone.

“It doesn’t happen by accident,” said Andrew Carle, a nationally recognized expert on university retirement communities who has spent more than 20 years studying their development. Simply building senior housing next to a campus isn’t enough. The strongest communities create intentional opportunities for residents and students to cross paths through academics, the arts, athletics, volunteerism, and everyday campus life. Over time, those encounters accumulate into relationships that no one could have predicted.

Carle describes the model as having five essential pillars, including formal lifelong-learning opportunities, access to campus life, intergenerational engagement, wellness, and a close institutional partnership with the university. Remove any one of those elements, he said, and the experience begins to look less like an extension of the university’s educational mission and more like housing with a convenient address. 

That philosophy has become central to how Mirabella approaches lifelong learning. When the community opened in 2020, administrators expected residents would primarily attend lectures and audit classes. But over time, something more dynamic emerged. 

“I would say the vast majority came in saying, ‘I want to take A.S.U. classes.’ And as they’ve lived here for some years, just about 40 to 50 percent of the residents actually audit classes,” said Lindsey Beagley, Mirabella’s senior director of lifelong university engagement. That’s because there are so many different avenues to intellectual and psychological enrichment. International students are invited to Mirabella to interact with others interested in speaking their language or to find companionship for a Thanksgiving meal when much of the campus empties out. Retired entrepreneurs step in as judges in departmental competitions; mentors in clubs give students a better sense of their profession. 

“There’s 400 residents who have full access to campus, so there’s 400 completely different experiences, and that’s what’s exciting about this model,” Beagley said. “It’s really their own question to answer: How do you want to spend your time? What’s important to you? What do you want to learn?”

For Kathie Zurfluh, a 74-year-old former elementary school teacher, the classroom was what first attracted her to university retirement living. She and her husband had already built what they assumed would be their forever home further away in Arizona. But as they began thinking about the next stage of life, they were drawn to the idea of remaining intellectually engaged.

“The opportunity to take classes was just right up our alley,” she recalled. They put their name on the list at Mirabella and sold their forever home. Today, she continues to audit university courses. But some of her most meaningful learning happens outdoors, in regular conversations with students that offer insight into the lives of young people today. Two mornings each week, Zurfluh has a volunteer shift on a Friendship Bench beneath the shade of a tree with her certified therapy dog beside her. Students know that anyone sitting on the bench is open to conversation (the banner says, “I’m all ears”). Sometimes they stop because they’re homesick. Sometimes they’re overwhelmed by exams or relationships. Sometimes they simply miss having an older adult to talk with. Some conversations last just a moment while students pet Griffy, her Golden Retriever, while others continue for months, with students seeking her out regularly in her expected Tuesday-Thursday place. 

“If they call Griffy’s name when they’re coming out of class, he gets so excited I have to hold onto him,” Zurfluh said. She and Griffy have celebrated acceptances for internships and graduate school and watched nervous freshmen struggling with loneliness grow into confident seniors. In return, the students have introduced her to new music, new ways of thinking, and shared their feelings about school shootings and other realities of growing up in a very different generation.

The exchange is precisely what Carle believes distinguishes successful university retirement communities from traditional senior housing that just happens to be located near a campus. The goal isn’t simply to give older adults access to university resources or proximity to students. It’s to create enough regular opportunities for authentic encounters that relationships can develop organically.

Rick Brackett, the president and C.E.O. of The Woodlands at Furman, has watched those relationships ripple outward in unexpected ways. International students who may be thousands of miles from their own families often find surrogate grandparents in the community. One Japanese student would come share meals at The Woodlands with a former director of Asian Studies. After the student graduated, the former director and his wife traveled to Japan to visit and meet her family.

There are paid conduits to relationships, too, with student interns receiving a stipend to work in the dining hall or teach classes at The Woodlands. “Some of the most successful are the athletes that intern in our wellness facility and teach exercise classes,” Brackett said. “The residents love the football players and soccer players that come over — they’re just superstars.” At games, the prime tailgating spots going into the stadium are lined with residents cheering for the players they know who march by. 

The residents can be superstars in their own way, too, with decades of professional experience and connections. Students preparing for careers in medicine, business, education or public service benefit from regular access to people whose professional lives span decades. Residents contribute institutional memory, hard-earned perspective, and even networking opportunities. One retired physician recognized that pre-med students needed a place to talk candidly about burnout, uncertainty and the emotional realities of medicine. He helped launch the Future Physicians Forum, creating conversations that complement what students learn in the classroom.

At the same time, residents remain connected to emerging ideas, technologies, and cultural shifts through daily interactions with younger people studying their field. That reciprocity represents some of the quiet innovation at the heart of university retirement communities.

For decades, lifelong learning has often been understood as continuing to accumulate knowledge through classes, lectures, and books, and through campus-based programs like the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, with 125 chapters on campuses across the United States. But the stories emerging from communities like Mirabella and The Woodlands suggest a broader definition. Perhaps the most enduring lesson these communities offer is that lifelong learning isn’t just the pursuit of new knowledge. It is remaining part of a community where curiosity, generosity, and perspective continue to shape us, regardless of age.

Ten years after meeting Jeanne Christie, Ezra Hall still meets her for lunch almost every week. He continues to be influenced by the vitality of her mind, and through his career path at The Woodlands, he plays a role in future students having personal relationships of their own with future seniors. 

“Retirees still have a lot to offer. Retirement has changed in recent years. No one wants a rocking chair on the porch anymore,” Brackett said. “Students get to see how active and engaged you can be into your 80s and 90s, if you stay healthy and still contributing to a community. It’s inspiring, and it’s a new roadmap for the students going forward.”

What We Bring with Us 

Posted on by Mollie Ames

At a recent talk at Villanova University, the author and commentator David Brooks told students, “Know what you want. Want it well and want the things that are truly worth wanting.” The advice was not original to Brooks but rather to St. Augustine, who believed that knowing what you’re passionate about is critical in a world where human beings are driven more by desire than by reasoning.  

Interpreting the wisdom of St. Augustine is, in many ways, the raison d’être of Villanova. The Catholic university in Pennsylvania is considered the world’s premier institution for Augustinian scholarship. Pope Leo XIV is among its graduates. But while Villanova’s Augustinian roots run deep, one might ask: What does the work of the late fourth century Christian theologian really mean to a modern university with 21st century students? 

This is the underlying question behind a new character education initiative at Villanova called Pilgrim Virtues. The name refers to a central pillar in Augustine’s work — that human life is a pilgrimage. The program seeks to highlight what is distinctly Augustinian about character education at Villanova and share that with the campus community as well as others working in this field.  

“I think the character movement has really tapped into something real, something essential in higher education, and we wanted to become a part of that from our own distinct tradition.”

The initiative began two years ago with a Capacity-Building Grant from the Educating Character Initiative (E.C.I.) at Wake Forest University’s Center for Leadership and Character. In 2025, Villanova received an Institutional Impact Grant of $822,258 from Wake Forest to build out an institution-wide series of character education programs, aligned with Augustinian teaching, both curricular and co-curricular. The idea was to coordinate, catalyze and accelerate the many character education activities that were taking place within three areas at the university: the Department of the Humanities, the Honors Program, and the Augustinian Institute. 

“I think the character movement has really tapped into something real, something essential in higher education, and we wanted to become a part of that from our own distinct tradition,” said Anna Moreland, who heads the Honors Program. 

Moreland and her colleague Michael Tomko, the chair of the Humanities Department, are the driving force and guiding spirit behind Pilgrim Virtues. Moreland’s sought-after “Shaping Initiative” course series (“Shaping a College Life,” “Shaping a Work Life,” and “Shaping an Adult Life”) helps students transition to college and walk through the experience intentionally, thinking deeply about their professional callings and their life beyond campus. 

Courses in the Department of Humanities study the questions that matter most for living a good and deeply human life.  Indeed, much of the work Moreland and Tomko were doing in their classrooms already bore the imprint of both Augustine’s teaching and the character education movement. They were curious about how to connect the two and scale the work so that it touched everyone on campus. But the challenge included engaging an audience that may only be tangentially aware of, or influenced by, the saint himself. First year students are required to read Augustine’s seminal work, “Confessions,” but for many, that will be their only exposure. And while Villanova is a Catholic university, a good percentage of the students are not, or are not practicing. 

To explore all of these considerations more deeply, Moreland did something unusual in higher education: She looked outside her university for partners. There, she “stumbled” upon the E.C.I. “We work in our silos so effectively that sometimes we reinvent the wheel,” she said. “But through the E.C.I., I realized there are all these good people around the country who are doing similar work. What we needed to do was get to know one another.” 

Moreland and Tomko drew on the expertise of the E.C.I. to examine other character education customs, including the more recognized Aristotelian tradition. In doing so, they quickly realized they had something to offer as well as to gain. “Through our work with the E.C.I., we were able to bring the Augustinian framework — those insights and experiences — to the broader field of character education,” Tomko said. 

The leaders believed that the examination of what Villanova had to offer required introspection and input from a wide cross-section of the university. Fortunately, the Capacity-Building Grant Villanova received covered a faculty and staff workshop pilot that would be the first foray into bringing diverse voices together on campus to revitalize Augustine’s teachings in a meaningful and visible way. The method they used was emblematic of the tradition they were reawakening.  

“We were drawing on the knowledge and inspiration of this group we had assembled,” Tomko said. “We not only had ideas but also the practical experience of how to live well in community.” Moreland said coming together to understand what it meant to teach character at an institution like Villanova was the most profound experience she had had at the university. “We brought our whole selves to those conversations,” she said. 

An important voice in the discussions was Paul Camacho, the associate director of the Augustinian Institute at Villanova and an associate professor of philosophy in the Humanities Department. The institute exists to promote the study of Augustine and his legacy within the pedagogy at the university. As an Augustinian scholar, Camacho helped clarify the distinctions within traditions. 

“A lot of what has emerged in character education is based on Greek philosophy, which sometimes presents a list of virtues that could be somehow obtained like credentials, as Benjamin Franklin famously attempted in his virtues checklist,” Camacho said. “Augustine reminds us that virtue is not something that you acquire but rather is a dramatic and dialogical narrative unfolding across the whole of your life.” 

St. Augustine of Hippo was a Late Antique philosopher, theologian, and bishop known for his insights into the human condition and one’s relationship with God. He argued that human beings are fundamentally desiring rather than reasoning creatures and that we are shaped by what we love. Augustine’s pilgrimage through life, his self-examination and conversion as captured in the “Confessions,” is perhaps his defining characteristic. 

“Augustine believed the good that we are striving for is always something that’s in process, always on the move, and always in relationship with other people,” Camacho said. “The task of being human is never really accomplished.” 

It was this journey through life that resonated most with the Villanova community and its students navigating their own education and personal growth. In identifying the pilgrimage theme, the initiative’s leaders explored what virtues would be critical for students traveling this road. If, for Augustine, love is the beginning and the end, what do you need along the way? 

“Augustine believed the good that we are striving for is always something that’s in process, always on the move, and always in relationship with other people.”

The five virtues they arrived on are: humility, forgiveness, patience, wonder, and conviviality. While the first three are more easily understood, wonder and conviviality, as seen through an Augustinian lens, merit definitions. Wonder, for Augustine, was an impassioned search for beauty “so ancient and so new,” as written in “Confessions.” Conviviality, from the Latin term con-vivere or ‘to live together’ binds its members in a common project, toward a shared goal.

The Journey Continues 

As the early work of the initiative laid the philosophical groundwork for the pilgrim virtues, the Institutional Impact Grant is bringing theory to practice. The new grant covers a series of programs, courses, lectures, and fellowships that are all ultimately student-facing. This fall, a new course called “Augustine the Pilgrim,” to be led by Camacho, will follow the footsteps of Augustine’s life, culminating in an actual pilgrimage to Italy. 

The faculty and staff workshop pilot is now an established program with a waiting list. The year-long workshop supports professors and practitioners in incorporating the virtue framework into classrooms and co-curricular activities. In bringing together diverse professionals from all areas of the university, the workshops have yielded positive results, both intended and unintended.  

Sunny Gaye Hallowell, a professor in Villanova’s nursing school, often wondered what the world was like for her colleagues in the humanities. She felt her students, while proficient at the scientific material, had limited opportunities to connect the meaning of nursing practice to who they were becoming as adults. When she heard of the Pilgrim Virtues workshop, she was the first to sign up.

“In my discipline, we teach to competency-based learning objectives. We give students challenging questions and case studies, so they can develop necessary skills to become amazing nurses,” Hallowell said. “But what are we doing in the classroom to cultivate a human being? I wanted to blend art and science to help students explore the human experience of health and healthcare through the eyes of both patients and providers, and to help them form a professional identity.” 

Hallowell said attending the workshop and learning the virtues gave her the language and structure to do that. Exposure to colleagues across multiple disciplines was an added benefit. “The chance to cultivate a classroom where we can walk through the virtues to think and engage independent of our own disciplines has been transformative,” she said. “It has given us a point of connection as faculty, and it has introduced me to colleagues and friends that reinforced the presence of an academic community I belong to.”

An important goal of the initiative is the direct engagement of students, both through the classroom and through programs like Augustinian Ambassadors, which was introduced through the Capacity Building Grant. Modeled after the faculty and staff workshops, the Augustinian Ambassadors program brings together interested students to deepen their understanding of Augustine’s teachings through texts and reflection. 

Kate DiLella was one of the first Ambassadors and will continue in the program this upcoming year. The rising senior was originally drawn to the Ambassador role because of her Catholic faith and interest in deepening her understanding of Augustinian character, and she believes the program has the potential to benefit anyone on campus. “Many of the students in the program seem to have a similar idea of what we are striving for, but through studying St. Augustine, we are reminded that life is a pilgrimage and part of the beauty is that we can’t foresee all the bumps that will come along the way.”

Once they have become reintroduced to Augustinian virtues, Ambassadors are expected to encourage their peers to participate in numerous ways. The well-attended David Brooks lecture was one option. The hope in offering these character-building onramps is that students may be particularly receptive to them at this point in their lives. 

Camacho has a theory on the subject based on what he sees as most prevalent in today’s students: a desire for security. “The culture, their parents, the job market are all telling them, ‘Everything is precarious out there.’ So the decisions they are making are based on fear,” he said. “But when you do that, you become smaller. You are no longer curious, and your relationships with other people become temporary.” 

Camacho said the pilgrim virtues offer another way of relating to the unknown. “These virtues tell us we are all on this journey together. If we are willing to grant that we fall short and that other people fall short and have the humility to accept that, we can loosen up a bit. Character formation isn’t another checklist of perfection but instead this wonderful opportunity to expand our attention to become curious about the world and what we love.” 

Asked if she believes that exploring the kinds of questions that lead to character development is unusual for students of her generation, Kate DiLella said, “I think questions about life and purpose and who we are and who we are called to be are likely on more students’ minds than it may seem, and through Educating Augustinian Character, students are guided in how to think about these bigger questions in life.”

You can reach LearningWell Editor Marjorie Malpiede at mmalpiede@learningwellmag.org with comments, ideas, or tips.

Mental Health Access Is More than an Appointment

Posted on by Mollie Ames

A young person can have a counselor’s number saved in her phone, a clinic ten minutes from campus, and an insurance card that covers the visit — and still not go. Some young people go to counseling or therapy once, sit across from someone who doesn’t understand their language, culture, or lived experience, and never return.

That gap between a service being available and a young person being willing to use it is a part of “access” that is frequently overlooked.

We tend to measure access by supply: how many providers, how many appointment slots, how short the waitlist. Those things matter. But for young people, especially those from underserved and under-resourced communities, access is also a feeling. It’s whether they feel or believe the person across from them can be trusted. Whether the space feels like it was built with them in mind. Whether reaching out will be met with understanding rather than judgment. A service you don’t feel safe using is not, in any meaningful sense, accessible.

More than 7.5 million young people from underserved and under-resourced communities in the United States are struggling with their mental health and emotional wellbeing, which amounts to more than one in five. Three-quarters of mental health conditions emerge by age 24, during the period when young people move through the transitions that shape the rest of their lives: adolescence into higher education, college into the workforce. The care that could help isn’t reaching them evenly. Black and Latinx youth are 14 percent less likely than their white peers to receive treatment for depression. Just 8 percent of the lowest-income communities have a mental health specialist at all.

That gap between a service being available and a young person being willing to use it is a part of “access” that is frequently overlooked.

These disparities reflect a set of systems that were never designed for underserved or under-resourced patients. Cost and logistics put care physically out of reach, while a shortage of professionals who share their communities’ language and lived experience makes it harder to trust the care that does exist. Stigma — a major barrier to care — makes the first step towards help seem harder. Too often, the models that mental health care is based on feel disconnected from the realities young people actually live. When care doesn’t reflect who someone is, “available” and “usable” turn out to be very different things.

Belonging is a protective factor in its own right. Research points to a consistent set of protective factors: a strong sense of self, supportive relationships, and, above all, a sense of belonging that help young people stay well and navigate challenges as they arise. Culturally responsive care is what activates protective factors. It’s the difference between a young person being treated as a case and being seen as a whole person in the full context of their family, culture, and community.

What does that look like in practice? It starts with mental health professionals who come from the communities they serve and bring cultural fluency into the room. Quality mental health care treats identity and community as strengths to draw upon. It means meeting young people where they already are in peer communities, on campuses, in the spaces they already trust, so the first conversation doesn’t require a leap of faith into an unfamiliar system.

For colleges, employers, funders, and community organizations, these expectations reframe the work. The goal is to add capacity and more counselors and to build an environment that young people will trust enough to use. That means investing in a workforce that reflects the communities it serves and designing programs alongside the young people and their families. It also means treating belonging as a real outcome of care.

When care is built around trust and grounded in culture, young people show up, stay in care, and achieve better healthcare outcomes. The challenge is to build services in a way that makes them worth walking into.

This work requires collective action from schools, providers, families, funders, and young people themselves committed to the same vision: that every young person is supported by people and places that understand them.

Access is the door. Trust is what gets someone to walk through it.

If you or a young person you know is struggling, support is available. Text STEVE to 741741 to reach a crisis counselor, or call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Dr. Annelle Primm is senior medical director of The Steve Fund, a leading nonprofit dedicated to promoting the mental health and emotional wellbeing of young people from underserved and under-resourced communities.

Love Things That Don’t Love You Back

Posted on by Mollie Ames

I pole vaulted in high school. For your reference, I stand a mere one inch above five feet, and I’ve got the build of a gymnast rather than a jumper. I was atrocious. I skewered myself semi-regularly, and my most spectacular failure involved a nine-foot pole ending up in some seven different pieces. 

I absolutely loved it. 

When I moved across the country before middle school, and then again before high school, and then again to college, my mom said the same thing every time: “Join things.” Importantly, she forgot to tell me to be good at them. I became a pole vaulter, debater, figure skater, choir singer, volunteer, and even a defensive end on a flag football team. (Let us remember again that I am 5-foot-1.) I met my people in these activities and found the things I loved, outcomes not at all correlated to my natural aptitude. 

The third time I started over, I was alone, beginning my freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania. I had my formula down. I threw myself into everything I could: a capella, spoken word poetry, club figure skating, chamber choir, consulting clubs, campus tours, tutoring. Two weeks later, I was bawling into the phone telling my mom I had chosen the wrong school. No matter how hard I tried, what angle I approached from, I was rejected from everything. 

This was new for me. Not because I had been talented at everything I had tried before, but because I had never encountered such high barriers to extracurricular activities. I had only ever needed two things: a willingness to walk in the door, and a willingness to fail on the way to being better. At Penn, that was not enough. In fact, those skills weren’t even recognized. 

In an institution that prides itself on education, the true learning that inevitably involves failure was nowhere to be found.

Trust me, I ran the gauntlet in terms of getting in: Four rounds of interviews, 10 essay questions, and a name-drop-who-you-know competition were the bare minimum. But I could never figure out the system. I spent my entire freshman year activity-less. Woe was me. But it was less my personal experience with a lack of extracurriculars that discouraged me, and instead the broader attitude towards failure — or even just non-perfection — within the Penn community. It was truly frowned on to be bad at anything. Embarrassing, actually. In an institution that prides itself on education, the true learning that inevitably involves failure was nowhere to be found. I was incredibly disappointed to be surrounded by brilliant, qualified, astounding peers, none of whom were excited to leap into something they weren’t already good at. 

That is not to say, however, that I blame those peers. The atmosphere of the East Coast, Ivy League schools, and higher education in general, carefully avoids promotion of failure. In a school where everyone already seems to have a head start — something that “got them in” — you’re better off leaning into where you’re already talented rather than playing the field to find something new. Consulting clubs who work for real clients need students who know what they’re doing. Firms start recruiting sophomore year. Connections are made from the first time you set foot on campus. No one has time for failure. This is compounded by the fact that all 10,000 Penn students absolutely ran the schools they came from, and no one wants to go from the top of the stack to the bottom. Starting all over is not only intimidating but terrifying in this peer group, comprised of people who are no longer impressed by anything you’ve ever done. 

These are the conditions, unfortunately, that pose a problem for someone like me, who happens to enjoy things that she’s terrible at. I don’t mind being the first person to fall down and laugh at themselves, and I like improving almost more than I like succeeding. I’ve always been “coachable” rather than talented, well-rounded rather than a prodigy. I’m a math major while simultaneously being someone whose worst subject was always math. I started teaching myself the piano because I can’t read music for my life. In every group I had belonged to before college, I just needed to be brave enough to take the first step — fall the first time. Then, inevitably, others who were just as eager as I would follow. At Penn, I took that step, embarrassed myself, and ended up alone. People turned the other way. If something already comes naturally, if you’re already praised for it, why try anything that wouldn’t get you the same results? 

My closest friends at Penn are a Japanese pop star, a Wharton student who has yet to be rejected from anything, and an influencer. In that friend group, I’m the “well-rounded” one. I’m the only one without a trademark. And you know what? I think well-rounded-ness is underrated. I think failure is underrated. 

At a school of 10,000, people have incredibly diverse experiences and natural aptitudes. This diversity conceals the fact that no one has reached outside of their comfort zone to find something new. 

I love the University of Pennsylvania, and I am consistently awed to be surrounded by such a diversely talented peer group. But I wish more students loved things that didn’t love them back. Auditioned for a play in college with no theater experience. Sang at an open coffee house for no personal gain other than a fun time. Chose classes based on their interests instead of their future G.P.A. It’s not their fault that these things seem intimidating. As we get older, I believe people tend to mistake talent for adventurousness. At a school of 10,000, people have incredibly diverse experiences and natural aptitudes. This diversity conceals the fact that no one has reached outside of their comfort zone to find something new. 

Every year, thousands of students apply to elite institutions, all with their own astonishing applications. From admission onward, students feel a continuous pressure to excel. Trying something new means falling behind. Stepping out of your comfort zone means ostracizing yourself from peers who all have “found their lane.” We are 18 years old when we arrive on campus. Screw the lane. 

As I head into my sophomore year, I am proud to say I have learned absolutely nothing. (Kidding, kidding. I learned incredibly valuable lessons.) But I’m not going to change my formula. I will continue to throw myself into things I am generally worthless at and then get better. 

Grace Burke is a rising sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying math and sociology. She’s originally from Denver, Colorado.

The Grading Game

Posted on by Mollie Ames

This spring, Harvard announced its decision to begin limiting the number of A’s faculty can grant in any given class. Starting in 2027, only 20 percent of students in a course, plus four additional ones, will be eligible to receive the top mark. 

The move is the result of long-standing concerns about the rise of grade inflation at America’s oldest college. Since the pandemic, Harvard students have been more likely to receive an A than any other grade. In the 2024 to 2025 year, more than 60 percent of grades were A’s, up from around 25 percent in the 2005 to 2006 year. 

The upwards trend of A’s is undeniable, and not just in Cambridge. But where there’s less consensus is about what, if anything, to do about it. The debate is complicated because the crux isn’t really how many A’s is too many, but whether the modern grading system as a whole is functioning as it should. And answering that question first requires settling another: What is the purpose of grading? 

Jack Schneider, the director of the Center for Education Policy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has a few ideas on this topic. His 2023 book, “Off the Mark,” which he co-authored with Ethan Hutt of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explores the various goals of academic assessment, as well as new ways of approaching it.

According to Schneider and Hutt, there are three central purposes of grading: motivation — to incentivize students to complete their work and do their best; communication — to provide feedback on student performance for students and others, like employers; and synchronization  — to be able to compare students across programs and institutions.

Each of these functions of grading has importance, Schneider and Hutt suggest. The trouble is, there may not be any one system that can accomplish them all. “We don’t think that trying to assess student learning is the problem,” the pair writes. “We think the problem is that our present technologies are too clumsy for the work we want them to do.”

In other words, landing on a single approach to grading requires some weighing of priorities. Focusing on one function, Schneider said, may well end up undermining others.

This is the problem Schneider imagines Harvard encountering. The cap on A’s elevates a particular purpose — distinguishing between students — but also opens up new vulnerabilities. It could de-motivate students who no longer see the point in striving towards A’s that feel unattainable. It could give students information about their learning relative to their peers, but not necessarily beyond that.

“Not even 50 percent of a class should achieve extraordinary distinction, if those words are to have meaning.”

Harvard would contend there’s more to gain from distinctions than to lose. By raising the standard for excellence, refined distinctions send students stronger messages about what they’re truly good at or, more often, when there’s room to grow.

“Not every student can achieve extraordinary distinction,” said Alisha Holland, a government professor at Harvard who served on the subcommittee that helped craft the new grading policy. “Probably not even 50 percent of a class should achieve extraordinary distinction, if those words are to have meaning.”

Others struggle to see the point in these distinctions at all. For Peter Felten, the executive director of the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University, the most important part of grading is communicating quality feedback to students. Comparing or ranking students, by contrast, doesn’t signify much.

In an ideal world, Felten said he could even let go of traditional grading altogether. “Personally, I think grades are not particularly effective means of feedback. They’re too blunt. They’re not formative enough. And they tend to be a single mark in time.”

In many ways, people’s stances on grading tend to come down to whether they think it’s possible to motivate learning intrinsically, or just extrinsically. Can students be inspired without the promise of outside recognition, like grades? What would it take for them to be driven more by a personal desire for knowledge and growth? 

In the age of A.I., the prospect of intrinsic learning takes on additional weight. After all, students who don’t see the value of working for the sake of broadening their minds seem more apt to offload their burdens to a robot helper.  

The truth is, of course, that students are extrinsically motivated, as well as quite clear-eyed about that fact. The most energizing reason to perform well in a class, many students agree, is to earn the type of grade that will look good on their transcript. 

One rising Harvard junior offered her thoughts on the recent grading policy change on the condition of anonymity. Generally more than any other concern, she said, her peers are worried about the way the cap on A’s will affect their future. 

“At the end of the day, that’s, I think, why people care so much about their grades,” she said. “It’s not necessarily about how confident it makes them feel or things like that or how validated they feel because they got an A versus an A minus. I think it’s, ‘How is this going to set me up for success?’”

Arbaaz Karim, who graduated from Harvard this spring, affirmed that grades were always most important to him in so far as they informed his competitiveness for an uncompromising job market. Since May, he’s relocated to San Francisco to work at Mercor, the startup helping major AI labs train their models and currently looking at a $20 billion valuation.

“In a perfect world, of course we would want learning to be the main priority,” Karim said. “But unfortunately the way that the real world is going to work is that jobs and employers or even grad schools are going to be looking at your academic history and how well you did.”

Peter Felten is perhaps daunted but not defeated by what he recognizes to be students’ more extrinsically-minded goals. He said his role, however herculean, is to help cultivate the sense that the learning process is as meaningful as any results. 

“I wouldn’t say, ‘This class is hard, and not very many of you are going to get an A,’” Felten said. “I’m going to say, ‘This class is hard. You’re going to learn things. You’re going to think. You’re going to develop skills and capacities that you didn’t have before.’”

“The best courses I’ve ever taught, students earned A’s because they cared, not because they were going to get an A.”

Felten is willing to lower the emphasis on grades in favor of lifting up the importance of the course content itself. He still wants students to strive at the highest level, but he wants them to do it for the right reasons. He knows this shift isn’t impossible, nor futile, because he’s seen it happen and felt the impact in real time.

“The best courses I’ve ever taught, students earned A’s in that course because they were working so hard and they cared so much and they did such good work — because they cared, not because they were going to get an A,” Felten said.

The work of intrinsic motivation is notably more difficult for both faculty and students. Teachers need to think through the kind of materials and assignments that will immerse students deeply and challenge them thoroughly. Students won’t find shortcuts or workarounds for engagement.

Jack Schneider maintains it’s never going to be a single, standardized grading rule or system that places the ultimate emphasis on learning while motivating students at the same time. That’s why he’s reluctant to call grading a problem, as opposed to a dilemma. 

“Problems have solutions,” he said. “But dilemmas can only be managed.” 

You can reach LearningWell Reporter Mollie Ames at mames@learningwellmag.org with comments, ideas, or tips.

The Future of Holistic Higher Education with John Volin and Dan Currell

Posted on by Mollie Ames

On this episode of LearningWell Radio, John Volin, the president of Gustavus Adolphus College, and Dan Currell, a Gustavus trustee, pair up to discuss the major changes coming to higher education and what they might mean for colleges and universities that prioritize personal growth and development.

You can reach LearningWell Editor Marjorie Malpiede at mmalpiede@learningwellmag.org with comments, ideas, or tips.