Author: Dana Humphrey

A Constellation of Support

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

When University of Denver (DU) was named Princeton Review’s #1 “school most loved by its students” this year, junior Libby Williamson was not surprised. She’d arrived as a freshman in 2021, when the school had recently added a student-centered learning pilot called the 4D Experience.  One of the hallmarks of 4D is the peer mentor program, and that mentorship was one of the things that had made the campus feel so accessible and supportive during her first year. Today, that program is central to her own identification as a peer mentor and leader, and to her personal and professional development.

“I think 4D and its emphasis on mentorship is so valuable to the student experience,” says Williamson, a communications major. “It’s this holistic approach to a college education that focuses on more than just academics, prioritizing my growth as an individual and as a confident, well-rounded professional by the time I graduate.”

The pilot of the 4D Experience launched in fall 2020 as an educational philosophy of living and learning, both inside and outside the classroom, based on four dimensions of development. But to understand 4D, and its goals that are simultaneously lofty and practical, it helps to understand the social context. The University of Denver, like many other institutions, was facing the pressures of higher education in flux.

A Turning Point

When DU was designing its strategic future vision in 2016, the message was steeped in positivity: to affirm its strengths and engagement and expand upon them. But it was no small coincidence that the motivation to reconceive the school’s vision was coming at a time of larger challenges, and change.

The chancellor at the time, Rebecca Chopp, believed the university was ready for a turning point, an opportunity to evolve with a new vision within the larger storm brewing in higher education over a host of issues from cost and value to free speech.  In 2014, the school’s Strategic Issues Panel published a report titled “Unsettling Times: Higher Education in an Era of Change.” It cited a growing list of perceived shortcomings in American higher education, from the rapidly rising cost of tuition to the alleged failure to provide a meaningful—or practical—education for students. “The report is intended to appropriately define the urgency of the moment,” states the opening letter from the panel’s leaders, “and also to stimulate the collective creativity of the academic community.”

The resulting strategic vision, DU Impact 2025, offered broad strokes for a rollout in a range of transformative directions. But it was the next chancellor—after Chopp’s tenure was cut short by illness—who nurtured the innovative shape this transformation would take.

In 2021, Chancellor Jeremy Haefner described the 4D vision this way: “DU is rebooting the student experience by retaining the engagement students yearn for while being intentional about the skills they need to build lives of purpose.”

Through a holistic approach to learning and personal development, the 4D Experience identifies four interconnected dimensions for student evolution: intellectual growth, purpose-driven careers, well-being, and character exploration.

Laura Perille, Executive Director of the 4D Experience, collaborated with campus partners to create a taxonomy and build out what these dimensions would mean. “What are the habits of thinking and doing associated with each of these dimensions to help people understand how they were already mapping to this work in their pedagogy and practice, but then also initiate conversations around, how can we further advance this work?” she says.

The program challenges conventional achievement-based educational models by prioritizing reflection, mentorship, and practical application alongside academic prowess—noteworthy, for a R1-ranked doctoral institution. Through its innovative framework, DU nurtures graduates to emerge equipped not only for professional success but for meaningful and fulfilling lives. With an intentional, co-curricular environment, the 4D Experience guides students to connect the dots of passion and purpose, building their educational pathways alongside mentors. Those mentors, advisors, and peers become a new student’s “constellation of support,” based on their unique interests, needs, and goals.

“Why a holistic, 4D experience? Because we want our students to have lives of purpose and careers of fulfillment, and we want them to be servants of the public good,” wrote Chancellor Haefner in his Spring 2021 message. “But the world is complicated. Climate change, increasing wealth inequity and injustice are pervasive challenges. Students need more than just a great intellectual and academic journey; they also need experiences from which they can build comprehensive life skills. This is what the 4D experience aspires to deliver.”

1. Advancing Intellectual Growth

At the heart of the 4D Experience is the belief that intellectual growth is more than a measure of academic performance. It is about fostering curiosity, critical thinking, and interdisciplinary connections that prepare students to navigate complex global challenges.

DU’s First-Year Seminar (FSEM) program was an existing program and opportune environment to introduce 4D, and this dimension. These small, topic-focused seminars are designed to ease new students’ transition into college-level learning while encouraging them to think deeply about their goals and values. Heather Martin, a Writing Program instructor and FSEM faculty member, has reimagined her course to align with the new 4D framework. This approach encourages students to connect their academic pursuits with broader life questions with intention from day one.

“My seminar focuses on transitions, both personal and academic. We use texts like Bruce Feiler’s Life Is in the Transitions and Stanford’s Designing Your Life to think about how we experience transitions,” Martin explained. “What are ways we can reflect and process our transitions and be intentional going forward? It’s a real complement to how we welcome students into the DU community. And it also sets up the conversations that will be incorporated in the course content in different ways throughout the campus.”  

One of the tools DU employs to enhance intellectual growth is the e-portfolio system. Students create digital portfolios that document their learning, track their progress across disciplines, and showcase their academic achievements. They can be shared with faculty for assessments and provide a platform to display their skills to an external audience, such as a job interviewer. The portfolios encourage students to see their education as a whole rather than a collection of disconnected courses. “It’s integrated learning framed around the four dimensional experience as buckets to integrate learning,” says Martin. “It’s really exciting to see them thinking with more intentionality about their college experience.”

The program challenges conventional achievement-based educational models by prioritizing reflection, mentorship, and practical application alongside academic prowess.

Beyond the classroom, DU offers a range of high-impact practices designed to deepen intellectual engagement. Internships, research opportunities, and study abroad programs enable students to apply their learning in real-world contexts. “Across the arc of educational experiences, we look at the kinds of moments that may already be pre-existing, where we can build out additional touch points that are engaging students in conversations about practical applications of their studies,” says Perille.

DU’s commitment to intellectual growth extends to its faculty as well. Professional development workshops provide instructors with tools to incorporate reflective practices and interdisciplinary learning into their teaching, and Infusion Grants support faculty and staff with seed funding for projects that enhance the 4D Experience of DU undergraduate or graduate students. “It seemed disingenuous to talk about student thriving without recognizing that faculty and staff are responsible for delivering these kinds of high impact experiences,” says Perille.

2. Pursuing Careers and Lives of Purpose

The second pillar of the 4D Experience prepares students for purposeful and fulfilling careers. By aligning academic learning with professional aspirations, DU ensures that graduates are equipped to navigate the complexities of the modern workforce. But first, it helps students reflect on their interests and values, guiding them to choose majors and career paths that align with their passions.

The Major + Career Exploration Lab, for example, is a quarterly session open to all students to help them discover strategies for matching their interests and values to potential careers, then determining the major that will best set them on that path. Are you unsure what you want to major in? asks the signup page for the event. Have you declared a major but want to confirm that it’s truly for you?

“We encourage students to think about their ‘why’—what motivates them and how they want to contribute to the world. What are the issues that animate you? What do you find yourself drawn to engage in?” Perille says. “We’re getting them to actually think about their ‘why’ as the driving force of thinking about potential careers and majors.”

When Williamson thought about what drew her engagement on campus, she targeted her experiences as a peer mentor and student coordinator. Those roles have given her valuable skills that have fueled her thinking about careers, including possibly working in higher education. “These roles have taught me leadership, organization, and problem-solving—all of which are transferable to the professional world, whatever I end up choosing to do,” she said.

DU also integrates purpose-driven learning into student employment. Through the 4D Reflective Supervision Model, supervisors help student employees connect their campus work to their broader educational and career goals. This intentional approach ensures that even part-time jobs become meaningful learning experiences. Internships, co-op programs, and community engagement opportunities further enhance students’ career readiness. These experiences provide hands-on learning while helping students build networks and explore potential career paths.

This emphasis on purpose-driven careers aligns with broader trends in education and employment, where adaptability, creativity, and emotional intelligence are increasingly valued. It also serves as DU’s answer to contemporary critics of American higher education by creating a more direct link and intentional link between areas of interest, areas of experience, choice of major, and applications of all three in the workforce.

3 Promoting Well-Being

The 4D Experience prioritizes a culture of compassion, making mental, physical, and emotional health essential components of student development alongside academic and professional success. DU built in access to resources students need to thrive, from counseling services and wellness workshops to programs in meditation, fitness, and stress management.

Faculty members like Martin also address well-being in their classrooms. “We talk openly about thriving—what it looks like, how to achieve it, and how to sustain it,” she said. By normalizing these conversations, DU reduces the stigma around mental health and fosters a supportive campus culture—and makes it less surprising when 4D topics arise in core classes. “I think sometimes it can be challenging for students who are high achieving, and they’re accustomed to a certain model of learning that they’re really good at,” she says. “I’m pushing them to think a little bit outside of that previous experience.”

In addition to being a source of academic support, peer mentors are trained to be personal and professional sources of support, and to recognize signs of stress or burnout. On the national level, peer mentorship has been linked to positively impacting student outcomes and addressing systemic barriers to success, and programs are on the rise. Just last month, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) launched a mentorship initiative, designed to support APLU member universities in developing and implementing sustainable peer mentorship models using technology-enabled solutions.

The university has also developed initiatives to support faculty and staff, recognizing that their well-being is essential to creating a thriving campus community. Workshops on topics such as compassion, collaboration, and stress management provide employees with tools to care for themselves and others.

4 Exploring Character

Character exploration is a vital dimension of the 4D Experience, encouraging students to reflect on their values, develop resilience, and cultivate a sense of purpose while navigating the complexities of modern life with integrity.

DU’s Kennedy Mountain Campus is a unique asset in the university’s toolbox that provides students a place to go—up into the woods—for targeted learning and personal character development outside the classroom. The 724-acre property, a gift from a donor, had previously been the largest Girl Scout camp in Colorado. Now part of DU’s facilities, the Kennedy Mountain Campus is home to the First Ascent Program, an immersive weekend retreat for first-year students that challenges them to step outside their comfort zones and reflect on what matters most to them. The Mountain Campus bordering Roosevelt National Forest offers opportunities for hiking, mindfulness, and community-building, encouraging students to recharge and reflect, strengthening their overall resilience, and connecting with their peers on a deeper level.

In academic settings, character exploration is woven into courses like Martin’s FSEM seminar, which includes reflective writing assignments on topics such as personal values and life philosophy. “The 4D framework makes it easier to bring these discussions into the classroom,” Martin said. “It helps students see the connections between their academic learning and their personal growth.”

Character development is also a dimension that grows out of the mentorship program. Libby Williamson, a junior and peer mentor, was so inspired by her experience, and having absorbed the character modeling by her mentor, that she applied to become a mentor herself, and eventually rose to the role of student coordinator. Mentoring peers, she explains, requires a unique set of skills. “It’s not just about giving advice—it’s about building trust and having meaningful conversations. You’re helping someone discover their own solutions rather than handing them answers.” The mentorship program also provides a space for students to develop leadership, with training in communication, conflict resolution, and emotional intelligence, all of which contribute to their personal and professional growth. For Williamson, these experiences have been transformative: “Mentoring has taught me so much about empathy, patience, and the importance of listening.”

Thinking Today about the Student of the Future

When Perille and others worked to build out the 4D Experience from its pilot stage, they wanted to make sure it reached across all sectors of the campus, and that it be more than a program—something more ingrained, as a shared philosophy.

“We were always thinking, how do we do this at scale in a way that doesn’t exist just in one program, but becomes part of the ethos of the institution? How are we advancing culture change in this vein of holistic student learning and development?” she recalls.

One goal is to generate widespread buy-in, creating a shared language. That would indicate more than a collection of people participating in a program; it would be a community creating a prototype for the student of the future. 

“Ultimately, I would say my role is more than curriculum, or education,” says Perille. “It’s one of change management.”

Influencers for Life

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

In a new series for LearningWell, we ask a variety of college graduates, of different backgrounds, ages, and professions, “What experience or person in college most influenced your development as a human being?”  Our aim is to share stories that show the different influences that shape people’s lives during their education and as they navigate the process of becoming adults.  In doing so, we hope to gain insight and guidance, whether it’s identifying common themes or abandoning long-held beliefs.  

We hope that you, as readers, ask yourselves the same question.  For me, it was an invitation from a fellow student to join a group traveling to New York City to attend a meeting of what is now called the Young Democrats of America. I was a freshly minted political science major immersed in the required curriculum when I found myself off campus with peers who were discussing the direction of the country during the Reagan era. When the conversation turned to me, I spoke up, despite my shyness and the fact that my knowledge on the subject was largely limited to political theory. But something about that experience made me think  “I am someone who is politically active.”  It remains part of who I am today.

We start our series with Richard Miller, President Emeritus of Olin College of Engineering and the founding director of the Coalition for Transformational Education. Miller has dedicated his career to strengthening and expanding higher education’s influence on personal formation and is fond of saying  “A good education changes what you know.  A great education changes who you are.”

Richard Miller and Mel Ramey

LW: “What experience or person in college most influenced your development as a human being?” 

There are several people throughout my education that shaped who I am as a person, but the most relevant is Professor Melvin R. Ramey of the University of California at Davis, where I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in 1971. Mel and I arrived at UC Davis at the same time, in the fall of 1967. He had just finished his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon and was a new assistant professor of civil engineering, and I was just enrolling in college, having graduated from Tranquillity Union High School in June of that year. I was assigned to Mel Ramey as my faculty advisor, and I was in his first cohort of student advisees.

Mel was the second  African American faculty member at UCD. While this had some relevance to his personal faculty responsibilities, this had very little effect on me. What was much more significant was the fact that Mel had been a nationally competitive athlete at Penn State in two sports (basketball and track and field), was simultaneously an athletic coach and faculty representative to the NCAA at UCD. Mel coached track and field and several of his mentees won national medals for their performance. While this might seem irrelevant, it is central to his impact on my life and career.

He changed my life and contributed to my lifelong commitment to student wellbeing.

I grew up on a farm with almost no one in my extended family on either side who went to college. Our rural high school did not even offer calculus (and only occasionally offered a weak course in physics) which are both the prerequisites for engineering. About half of our student population at TUHS were migrant farm laborers. While I graduated #2 in my class and got into UCD, Mel knew I was not prepared.  He did, however, see potential in me and drove me to take the most challenging classes which eventually prepared me for a fellowship to MIT for my Master’s degree. I would never have made this journey without his inspiration.

Mel understood that to be an effective teacher you need the same mindset and motivations as a coach. To him, these were essentially identical. A coach takes responsibility for inspiring and mentoring each athlete in his care to achieve their full potential. This can at times involve invasive questions, pushing you when appropriate, and supporting you when appropriate, and never letting you give up. He certainly did this for me and was such an important part of my life that although I changed majors 5 times as an undergraduate (and I did not graduate in civil engineering) I retained Mel Ramey as my undergraduate advisor. My respect for Mel was such that I would rather die than disappoint him.

Mel’s interest in me was authentic and permanent. His values and his example were widely recognized among many students at UCD. His example inspired me to want to pursue a Ph.D. and become a faculty member. I learned so many important life lessons from Mel. For example, every time you walk into a classroom and pick up a piece of chalk, you are not just teaching engineering principles; you are also shaping the attitudes, behavior and beliefs of the students in your class. Later, I learned many other UCD students and athletes were similarly inspired by Mel. One of his former students was a 3-time Olympic medalist in long jump. At a public ceremony in Mel’s honor, he credited Mel with always filling him with joy and wisdom and helping him become all that he is today. While he never shared with me the personal hardships he may have faced due to his race (our conversations were never about him), his life inspired optimism, hard work, and resilience. He changed my life and contributed to my lifelong commitment to student wellbeing .

We became good friends. He visited me in Iowa, after I became Dean of Engineering there, and played ping pong in the basement with our daughters.  I Invited him to be a member of the President’s Council when I was at Olin and we taught a course together in structural analysis and design when he took a sabbatical to Olin about a decade ago.

Mel’s family also remained close. His wife, Felicenne, who recently passed away, was Dean of the Business School at Sacramento State University, and his daughter, Daina Ramey Berry, has become Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at UC Santa Barbara, where I began my career on the faculty in 1975. She has sought my mentorship from time to time as a form of “full circle” payback and a way for me to honor her father’s contributions to my life.  Mel passed away from brain cancer a few years ago. This memorial/obituary posted on the UC Davis website, available here is a fitting tribute to a remarkable person whose life greatly impacted my own.

“Higher Education Builds America” 

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

On the first two Sundays in October, the American Council on Education ran a full-page ad in the New York Times targeting both presidential candidates with the tagline “Higher Education Builds America.”  In what was both a PR campaign and a policy brief, the ACE ad was part of a larger effort to promote higher education’s economic value within a bipartisan message meant to withstand either election outcome.  Now that the candidate less likely to embrace their agenda heads to the White House, ACE continues the fight with renewed vigor. 

The face of the campaign is ACE president Ted Mitchell, but the person in charge of it is  Nick Anderson, former long-time higher education reporter for the Washington Post, now ACE’s vice president for higher education partnerships and improvement.  As a former journalist who has observed the highs and lows of a sector considered the bedrock of the American dream, Anderson does not seem defeated or discouraged by the political situation. More than most, he knows that higher education isn’t going anywhere. 

While this may be true, innovation in higher education is something Anderson says is part of the campaign’s message. But messaging is different than policymaking, and it remains to be seen how ACE’s left-of-center advocacy agenda performs in the Republican legislative lock-down. In its open letter to candidates, ACE laid out  a set of priorities that include increasing federal aid for students and research, repealing the taxability of scholarships, reforming the endowment excise tax, and improving the visa process to better support international students. 

As the non-profit’s government affairs professionals work the agenda on Capitol Hill, Anderson and his colleagues will be in forums, and on social and traditional media, getting policymakers and thought leaders to look at the bigger picture.  

Here is an excerpt of our interview for LearningWell.

LW:  Let’s start at the beginning.  What motivated ACE’s new campaign? 

We started the campaign a little before September when we were thinking about what to say to the presidential candidates.  We wanted to articulate some core principles.  We wanted to say to the campaigns: “This is who we are, this is what we do, and here’s what we’d like you to look at when you take office.” 

It’s been a rough year for higher education.  Arguably, it’s been a rough few years for higher education and yet, here we are, definitely wanting to be part of the conversation – the policy conversation and the political conversation and we’re not going away.  Higher education has been part of the country since the beginning, for all of our flaws.  We have grown with the country and helped the country grow.  And now in the 21st century, we’re here to help it grow some more. In September, we wrote an open letter to the candidates – which was the basis for the New York Times ad – that articulated this vision of our history and our connection to America with a strong message that whoever wins the election we are ready to work with you. 

LW: What is it you hope to communicate through the campaign? 

From a message perspective, we wanted to draw the big picture for folks. We wanted to step away from the controversies of the moment – and there will always be controversies – and remind people that higher education is simply part of the American story. It has been here from the beginning. Thomas Jefferson went to William and Mary and founded the University of Virginia. Abraham Lincoln signed the Land Grant Act that created land grant institutions throughout the country.  There’s the establishment of the HBCU’s, the national enterprise of the community college movement, the GI Bill, the Higher Education Act of 1965, the Pell Grant and on and on. This historical through line of higher education is something we need to really emphasize to President Trump now and to Congress.  

We are not a sector that sprang up yesterday. We are here and we have always been here. When you talk about national security, when you talk about public health and medicine and lifesaving medical breakthroughs, when you talk about the regional economies of this country and the national economy, we have always built America and we will keep on building.  These are the kind of big picture messages we want to advance because, frankly, that often gets lost in the public narrative.

“We have always been part of the American story”

LW: Is ACE concerned about the election of Trump and the anti-higher education rhetoric his campaign employed? 

The rhetoric around the campaign season can get pretty heated, but there are campaigns and then there is governing.  We’ll see what all this means.  Trump hasn’t taken office yet. The new Congress hasn’t been sworn in. We are extending our hand to every national leader from the president to the Senate majority leader, the Senate minority leader, the House speaker, the House minority leader. We obviously will stand up for ourselves but wherever there is opportunity for advancing, we will advance. 

Regarding the attack on higher ed, I would say we are big enough to weather critiques. If there are people outside or inside of higher ed who are labeling us as “woke” or “elitist” or any particular adjective, we have to reckon with that. What does that mean? I would argue that we can absorb those critiques and evolve and take necessary steps if need be, but, more importantly, we need to simply be there and listen so that people understand that higher ed is hearing them. We have to avoid being defensive. We are institutions that promote, elevate and value the marketplace of ideas and political debate. As such, we have to be big enough to absorb any criticism and listen to it.  At the same time, we have to continue to promote our values.  We value academic freedom.  We value free speech. And we value institutional autonomy. 

LW: As part of the campaign, you acknowledge the need for change along with the value that higher ed brings.  What are some examples of that?

We have real work to do on the affordability front. I think it’s two things at the same time. There’s plenty of data that shows that college opportunities are affordable and available in many ways and we need to do a better job at communicating that. We are champions of access and champions of policies that promote affordability. We are champions of the Pell Grant. We are champions of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which had a disastrous year, but it’s now on the road to getting better. 

We want very much to promote the message that college is affordable, and yet we know that there are things that must be done to make it more affordable to more people and to have the value of college be elevated so that families, when they’re thinking about making a significant investment of money, and time, that they think it’s worth it. 

I also want to be crystal clear that what we’re saying here is meant to be maximally inclusive and has relevance for those who choose not to go to college.  Your life could have many paths that intersect with college at different points.  Our fixation with the education of 18 to 22 year olds is well grounded because we all care about our children and their emergence as adults in the economy and in their communities. But that traditional pathway has been shown many times to be too narrow to define what higher education is. There are a lot of people who intersect with higher education after age 25, and we need to capture that in our conception of who we are.

LW: What changes to do you see coming?

The sector is really a vast field of institutions and I think there’s a real value in partnerships between different types of institutions – community colleges and research universities, for example. Universities are an obvious example of fertile ground for partnerships and coalitions that would bring home to average folks that, “Hey, I’ve got college everywhere available to me. It’s not just that distant state flagship or those private universities off on the coast somewhere.”  Promoting community colleges and the wonderful work that they do and their accessibility is critical to that. But promoting the linkages between colleges that can be very different is really essential as well. 

We also have to promote different modalities.  Online education is here to stay. It’s not the enemy, it’s part of our fabric right now. I think the pandemic accelerated that and raised some questions about how it fits with residential higher education, but there’s no question that online higher education is real and important and potentially a crucial area for higher education to expand access to more Americans. There’s also a really important movement of credit for prior learning that we are very interested in helping to integrate into our thinking about higher education.  Innovation is part of higher education. To go back to my theme, I want to emphasize to the thought leaders and policymakers the vastness of who higher education is, what higher education is. 

LW: You have covered higher education for many years.  What is your observation about the state of higher education today? 

I literally covered higher ed directly for the Washington Post for 12 years. And every one of those years there were burning issues that were perceived in some way as an existential crisis for higher ed.  And in the last decade there have been plenty of crises of the moment. Certainly Covid was an existential crisis. There were crises related to “Me too” scandals and questions about sexual misconduct and sexual assault on college campuses that were really crucial to acknowledging the age-old problems of securing safety for students and creating an environment free of harassment and free of intimidation. The last year seemed to have very acute challenges, with the protests (over the war in Gaza) and the congressional hearings, but it’s not the first time that colleges have been rocked by challenges.

LW: What excites you about this new role?

I spent a couple of decades covering education and now I’m fighting for it. That, for me, is a wonderful pivot. There’s a lot of work to do. People in this country care about the American dream and getting ahead. And I think they also care about the free exchange of ideas and all those good things that higher education provides for us.  

Learning from President Cauce

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

Ana Mari Cauce has been president of the University of Washington for nine years. During that period, she has steered the public research university through rising rates of mental health issues among college students, a global pandemic, student protests over war and injustice, and declining public faith in higher education. But while these challenges have made many higher education leaders justifiably reticent, Cauce remains forthcoming and remarkably clear.  

In an interview in her office on the Seattle campus, Cauce considers a host of questions within a context drawn from research as well as her own experiences in life. She weaves stories about her family, her early career, and her own education through serious topics like free speech, DEI and careerism in higher education. In doing so, she demonstrates the important skill of learning one’s truth, which has earned her a reputation for being the real deal.

Cauce believes guaranteeing free tuition relieves a psychological barrier for students and families who are fearful of “sticker shock” and the debt students incur as a result. In addition to free tuition, most Husky Promise students receive additional aid to cover cost of attendance, including housing, transportation, and books. However, none are offered aid to cover the full cost of all expenses and are responsible for some costs, although they can be covered through jobs, which can be provided on campus. Cauce says it helps with retention because students have skin in the game and is an important message for taxpayers who support the school.

Low-income students also have a host of supports at UW from basic needs to academic advising. Cauce is adamant that getting in is not enough. “We are serving a class of students that weren’t making it to the university, and they need more help,” she said. The support is paying off. When asked what she is most proud of at UW, Cauce mentions closing the graduation gap. There is very little difference between the school’s Pell-eligible and non-Pell-eligible 6-year graduation rate.

Struggling to pay for college is something Cauce has personal experience with growing up in a college-going home with financial challenges.  Her father was the minister of education in Cuba before the family fled to Florida in the 1960s where he then got a job in a factory. Cauce lived at home and worked while on scholarship at the University of Miami.  Her brother started out in community college and eventually earned a full scholarship to Duke only after a mentor recognized his talent and helped him apply for aid.

“There was no question that we were going to college,” she said. “The real question was how were we going to pay for it. My parents didn’t understand the system.  School was free in Cuba.”

When she graduated from university, Cauce intended to take on the world as an investigative journalist a la Woodward and Bernstein but changed course when a good paying research job emerged in a lab.  Her love of research and human development led her to a career in clinical psychology and a PhD from Yale.

But Cauce says her experience as a minority student in an elite institution left her with “zero self-esteem,” and no doubt contributed to her passion for inclusion.

“I say to students all the time, the world is not small and private. It is big and public,” she said.

Indeed, Cauce’s down-to-earth style is refreshing for someone working in a sector increasingly viewed as out of touch with everyday people. While she defends the support students of marginalized identities receive through DEI programs– “That’s what those offices are there for.  This work must be done” — she is less concerned about how they are organized. She also sees the need to view diversity more broadly.  “I’m not sure higher ed has done a good enough job at that,” she said.

As a clinical psychologist, Cauce addressed the rising rates of mental health issues among students early on in her presidency with increased clinical supports. But in discussing mental health, she also emphasizes the need for coping skills. 

“Nine out of ten times what messes you up is not the problem itself, it is the way you cope with it,” she said.

I say to students all the time, the world is not small and private. It is big and public.

The university has a Resilience Lab which promotes wellbeing through research, education and strategic programs and initiatives. It includes a six-week program which equips participants with cognitive skills to manage stressful emotions and situations, and mindfulness skills to strengthen self-awareness and empathy.

Asked how to create a sense of belonging in a school so large, Cauce says there are myriad ways for students to “find their people” and believes navigating large environments like a public university teaches important life skills.  “I wonder if we don’t do our students a disservice with too much handholding,” she said. 

Cauce is predictably pragmatic on the debate about the value and purpose of college.  “We do have to justify what we’re doing and why it makes a difference if we’re getting public money, and all of us do,” she said. 

As to the question of whether you go to college to get a job or to grow as a person, Cauce said, “I think this idea that it’s careerism versus knowledge for life is a false dichotomy. It’s really important not to be narrow-based in our teaching because we need to be giving people an education where they are life-long learners and informed citizens.  But there is nothing wrong with the fact that our students want jobs. As DuBois said, ‘It’s not just about making a living, it’s about making a life. But if you can’t make a living, you can’t make a life.’”

Ana Mari Cauce will retire from UW in June of 2025.

The Flourishing University

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

What if higher education made student wellbeing a goal on par with graduation rates and GPA’s? That is the organizing vision behind the Flourishing Academic Network (FAN), a group of centers, institutes, and universities across the United States and Canada dedicated to embedding flourishing throughout higher education for the benefit of students, communities and society.

The idea to gather like-minded institutions into a flourishing collaborative grew from the pioneering efforts of four big thinkers at three separate universities. David Germano, a religious historian at the University of Virginia and former Director of the school’s Contemplative Sciences Center, was determined to connect the work he was doing in mindfulness and flourishing to the emerging crisis in college student mental health.

Germano was joined in this purpose by colleagues Richard Davidson, William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry and Director of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin; Mark Greenberg, former Director of the Prevention Research Center at Pennsylvania State University; and Rob Roeser, the Bennett Pierce Professor of Caring and Compassion at Penn State. The scholars came from different disciplines but shared a common belief that embedding flourishing concepts into the college experience was both a pragmatic approach to addressing mental health issues among students and a moral imperative for higher education.

A major contribution of the alliance was the creation of “The Art and Science of Human Flourishing,” an interdisciplinary course they created that helps students develop skills and perspectives that support individual and collective flourishing, defined as “living a fulfilling life of meaning, purpose and a sense of belonging.” 

The course was launched in 2017 at all three universities. With consistent outcome data showing significant improvement in mental health symptoms among participants, the collaborators soon formed what they called “The Flourishing Academic Network” to welcome more colleges and universities into the learning community. But like so many initiatives thrown off course by the pandemic, the 2020 national conference of interested universities was delayed until 2022. The changes within FAN schools that occurred during that gap brought starts and stops to the new network but the desire to work collaboratively to apply the science of flourishing to the lives of college students remained strong among the group.

While still nascent, the Flourishing Academic Network is now finding its footing with plans for in-person convenings and ongoing collaboration among 20 or so members.  Some believe the current vulnerabilities within the sector may be an opening to include student flourishing as a primary goal of higher education, though not without disruption.

The FAN charter underlying the organization’s mission states, “We believe centering student wellbeing and flourishing, bridging the gap between student affairs and academics, and changing how higher education systems operate and are designed can establish new pathways for flourishing.”

The following is the first in a series of features on FAN member institutions.

The Renée Crown Wellness Institute:

The administrative backbone of the FAN is now at the Renée Crown Wellness Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder.  With a mission “to promote the wellness of young people and the systems and adults who support them through interdisciplinary research-practice partnerships,” the Institute is one of 12 research centers within the university.  It was founded in 2019 just months before the onset of the pandemic and while many organizations immediately shut down, the Crown Institute went to work providing resources that were in high demand. In the fall of 2020, undergraduate students within schools at CU Boulder were required to take a course, developed by the Crown Institute and its collaborators, called “Health, Society and Wellness in COVID-19 Times.” 

Designed by faculty members of diverse disciplines working collaboratively with undergraduate students, the course not only supported the CU Boulder community during stressful times, it put on display the methods and mission of a very different kind of university research institute. 

Some believe the current vulnerabilities within the higher ed sector may be an opening to include student flourishing as a primary goal, though not without disruption. 

Dr. Sona Dimidjian is the Director of the Crown Institute, and a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at CU Boulder. She has both a PhD in clinical psychology and master’s in social work and worked as a therapist with adolescents for many years. “Our research is really focused on action,” she said. “We are interested in changing systems in classrooms, in healthcare settings, in living rooms and dorm rooms because we want a bigger and faster change in young people’s lives.”

The term the Crown Institute uses to define its work is “interdisciplinary research-practice partnerships.” In this sense, the Crown Institute is less of a lab than it is a workshop where those for whom the research is intended (young people, parents, educators) are involved in solving real world problems. Collaborative design is informed and influenced by the expertise and experiences of community partners who work alongside the university researchers. Its intent is to disseminate and apply that research back into the community and on behalf of the partners who have been engaged.

“We believe that our research products are much more sustainable, meaningful, and equitable when the intended audiences of research are included in the design,” said Dr. Leah Peña Teeters, Outreach and Education Director for the Crown Institute and point person for the FAN at CU Boulder.

The Crown Institute has three research strands: children and young people; families and communities, educators and schools, all of which apply the same approach. Consider “Alma,” a peer-to-peer program for new and expectant mothers who are struggling with anxiety and depression. Moms and their peer mentors meet six to eight times utilizing peer support strategies that are informed by the science of behavioral activation. The Alma team developed the program collaboratively, grounded in Dimidjian’s many years of conducting research on the mental health of parents. In assessing their interventions, Crown Institute researchers have found a significant reduction in anxiety and depression, leading to the program’s expansion in other communities.

The children and young people research strand is at the center of the Institute’s work and its primary connection to the FAN.  Here, active initiatives like The Mindful Campus Program have broad appeal among Gen Z students who, as a cohort, continue to report significant mental health issues. Co-designed with undergraduate students, The Mindful Campus Program aims to increase access to mindfulness and compassion-based practices that have proven to support the mental health and wellness of students.  Other programs include the mind.body. voice. program, which promotes body acceptance, belonging, and leadership while reducing vulnerability to disordered eating among girls and young women in middle, high school, and college. Another program, The CU Well Brainstudy, examines how CU Boulder undergraduates experience wellness and cope with stress.

Each of these initiatives includes the deep participation of young people.  According to the Crown Institute, young people serve as both participants and designers of its work, providing vision and feedback to inform the iterative design of its programs and practices. The Crown Institute directs an Undergraduate Research Fellows Program where Psychology and Neuroscience students begin a three-year research journey at the start of their sophomore year, leading to independent research projects in their senior year.  Students, who are given a stipend to compensate for their time apprenticing and working in research labs, are matched with faculty and work closely with them as mentors.

“We are focused on training the next generation of researchers, scholars, and practitioners with the skill sets that really center wellbeing and flourishing across disciplines,” said Teeters. 

The Crown Institute is less of a lab than it is a workshop where those for whom the research is intended are involved in solving real world problems

Alison Ofori is a third-year integrated physiology major at CU Boulder.  She joined the mind. body.voice. project as a peer facilitator after one of her favorite professors suggested she would be a great addition to the team. As a pre-health student, she had always been interested in doing research but felt like working in a lab or a hospital fell a little flat. 

“When I heard about this opportunity, I was like ‘Yes! this is really different.  I get to work with real people.’”

Orofi is particularly energized by the work she is now doing with high school and middle school girls on external vs internal beliefs. 

“We have the girls come in and engage with our curriculum and we ask specifically tailored questions that help them connect with their mind and then what society may be telling them.  For example, we might ask ‘what do you think the perfect woman is?’  A lot of times they’ll answer first with everything society tells them. And then we’ll reframe the question and ask it based on what they think is suitable for them, not society, and we’ll get different answers.”

Orofi, who is the eldest of three sisters, says the work she has done with the Crown Institute has helped her evolve personally.

“I am very mindful now of how I speak to myself, how I talk to other people,” she said. “What Crown is trying to remind us about is that we all go through these struggles and it’s important to bring some conversation to that.”

Like many institutions within the FAN, the Crown Institute also focuses on the teaching of flourishing through specifically designed curricula.  Dimidjian teaches a course through the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience called Flourishing, Belonging, and Liberation that is anchored in the work of other institutions in the FAN as well as the Mindful Campus Program in the Crown Institute. Specifically, the course is an adaptation of The Art and Science of Human Flourishing course, adapted at the Crown Institute at CU with doctoral student, Caitlin McKimmy, and Professors Donna Meija and Natalie Avalos. It examines psychological science to explore, define, and apply the construct of human flourishing, defined as “an existence filled with wellness, purpose, connection, and justice.” 

Dimidjian says the feedback she receives from the students who take the course is consistently inspiring.  “I have had so many students say to me ‘I’ve never had another class like this in my entire time at college’ or ‘I’ve been waiting for a class like this.’ I had one student say to me ‘I can’t wait to come to this class. No matter how exhausted I may be from work and classes, I always feel rejuvenated.’” 

Dimidjian believes the FAN connections have been important to the design and offering of the flourishing course: “We rely on the expertise and generosity of our friends and colleagues in the FAN. It is exciting to share our learning about how to bring a focus on flourishing into all the facets of our campuses.”

The Crown Institute’s mindfulness work closely aligns with the FAN, which has strong roots in contemplative science. Teeters underscores that mindfulness is only part of the pathway to what she calls “the crosswalk between the inner and outer resources needed for flourishing.”

“We recognize that in human flourishing, we can support individuals with contemplative practices, and we also need the systems change work that supports the creation of more just systems in which to practice and thrive. The two go hand in hand and can be mutually informing.”

Teeters sees her coordinating role for FAN within the Crown Institute as a natural extension of her work in outreach and education. She hopes with more opportunities for interaction and scholarship, each institution will learn from one another and enhance their own work as a result.

“I think there’s a lot to be learned from what works and doesn’t across institutions and across settings and one of our hopes in the next iteration of FAN is to bring more youth and undergraduate voices to the direction and leadership of student flourishing.”

Dimidjian concurred.

“There are amazing colleges and universities represented in the FAN currently and deep dedication among all the individual members to the flourishing of students, staff and faculty on our campuses. This work is just at its beginning in many ways, and I think everyone is enthusiastic about the potential for moving from intention to action.”

The Best Schools for Mental Health

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

A new Princeton Review survey examines colleges and universities’ mental health services, giving students and families an idea about the extent to which their choice of college supports their mental health.  The report, sponsored by the Ruderman Family Foundation, is the first, readily available review of college mental health resources nation-wide, and will now be included in The Princeton Review’s “Best College Guidebook” commonly used to help students make decisions about where to go to college. 

The three-part survey polled college administrators, current students, and prospective students on the availability of, and opinions on, their college’s mental health services. Results reflect a significant variation in the availability of mental health programs and services among institutions and a strong desire on the part of students to know what those are.  Among the near 11,000 college applicants that were surveyed, “89 percent of respondents said information about the health, mental health, and wellness services would contribute to their decision to apply to (and/or attend) the school.” 

While stopping short of offering “rankings,” the survey report did include a “Mental Health Services Honor Roll” of 16 schools deemed to have a distinctively strong mental health support system.

“This is a crucial step to raise greater awareness among students and their families regarding the mental health landscape at the schools they are applying and enrolling,” said Jay Ruderman.  “This will enable prospective students who prioritize mental health to get a keen sense of which campuses offer the strongest resources and programs that will meet their needs.”

The Desire for Data

The mental health survey initiative reflects the public’s growing demand for more transparency in higher education overall given the soaring price of attending college. But while the focus on public data has largely been on ROI-related metrics like job placements and first year earnings, the survey initiative indicates a growing concern about how a student’s mental health will be supported while they are in school.

This will enable prospective students who prioritize mental health to get a keen sense of which campuses offer the strongest resources and programs that will meet their needs.

“For many students, the college experience brings challenges that strain their overall well-being, their mental and physical health, and their ability to succeed in school,” said Rob Franek, The Princeton Review’s Editor and Chief. “With reports of high levels of stress, anxiety, depression and other issues among college students, campus mental health and wellness services have never been so necessary.”

David Soto, The Princeton Reviews’ Senior Director, Data Operations, and the lead on the project, said that the education services company was uniquely well suited to collect and communicate this information.

“We talk to a lot of guidance counselors, and we tend to know what’s going in in high schools that translate directly into college. We saw the effects of the pandemic on mental health, the stress and anxiety students feel about getting into their top choice and we believed we were the best resource to collect and surface this data for our profiles.”

The overall effort was advised by a group of mental health experts, including Dr. Sarah Lipson, co-principal investigator at the Healthy Minds Network, who identified criteria deemed to be essential for a strong mental health support system on campus. These include both responsive and preventative considerations from education and training for students and staff and accreditation of counseling centers, to how well the school serves students of varying identities and whether or not an institution has a Chief Well-being Officer. 

The data collection phase was three-fold: the college administrator survey was distributed to about 2,000 schools, 250 of which responded completely; The Princeton Review’s annual survey of college students included four questions about campus mental health services; and The Princeton Review’s 2024 College Hopes and Worries Survey which polled 10,800 college applicants and their parents included the topic of mental health services.

Among the results:

87% of the colleges have a website that consolidates information about the school’s mental health; 13% do not.

56% of the colleges have a fully staffed counseling center open year-round; 44% do not.

29% of the colleges have a counseling center that is accredited; 71% do not.

28% of the colleges conduct formal wellness screenings of their students; 72% do not.

Among student responders, 78% agreed with the statement “If I needed to seek professional help for my mental or emotional health, I would know where to access my school’s resources.

61% agreed with the statement “My college prioritizes students’ mental health; 10% disagreed with it; and 29% neither agreed or disagreed.

The “Mental Health Services Honor Roll” identified schools that, according to the report, displayed, “1. Overall administrative support for campus mental health and well-being through its policies including commitments to staffing and student support. 2. Students have a campus quality of life that is both healthy and attentive to overall well-being; 3. How well a school is empowering its students to address their own mental health through education programs and peer-to-peer offerings.”  

Dr. Zoe Ragouzeos is the Executive Director of Counseling and Wellness Services at New York University, one of the 16 Honor Roll schools. She appreciates the recognition of years of hard work but notes that student mental health is an ongoing and evolving challenge for colleges and universities.  “Mental health and well-being are primary components of university life,” she said.  “It needs to be part of everything we do, inside and outside of the classroom.”

In addition to the “Best Colleges Guide,” the information is now available for free on PrincetonReview.com  For the schools who chose not to participate in the survey, their summary indicates they “did not respond” which Soto said sends its own message.  He hopes the obvious lack of information will encourage schools to be more forthcoming with their information next year. 

“This is the start of an important effort that we hope continues to improve and strengthen each year,” he said.

Western Governors University

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

When Kevon Pascoe decided to apply for a part-time job at Kentucky Fried Chicken, it wasn’t primarily about the paycheck. He was nearly finished with his contract with the Marine Corps, which had paid for his bachelor’s degree at Norwich University in Vermont. He knew he wanted to pursue an MBA. And he’d just heard about the partnership between KFC and Western Governors University (WGU), an online-only institution.

“I heard about a new program that if you’re an employee at KFC, they will pay for you to go to WGU,” says Pascoe, who emigrated from Jamaica with his brother in 2010. He’d always had a clear vision for his future, and it involved education, hard work, and hustle. When he looked into the details of WGU, he discovered a program that would allow him to work at his own pace, and complete courses quickly based on proving competency in the material. He got the job at KFC working nights while working days in the Marine Corps, and then completed his MBA—as well as a second master’s degree, in Management and Leadership—in one year.

“Some would say that that’s impossible, but it’s because of how flexible WGU is. The concepts that I had within my MBA really kind of correlates with what I did in the Marine Corps as a logistics officer,” says Pascoe. “If I already knew the material, I could test out of it quickly. If I needed help, help was there. Everything was on my pace, on my terms, and that allowed me to find a rhythm and complete it on my own time.”

Pascoe now works for Pfizer full-time as an Incoming Material Testing Manager and is taking advantage of a Pfizer benefit that enables him to pursue an online PhD in organizational management. “That’s kind of who I am, in terms of challenging myself,” he says. “I’m always in a state of learning.”

Kevon Pascoe’s story reflects the effectiveness of WGU for non-traditional students who are drawn by its flexible pacing, flat-rate pricing, and engaged mentoring. But additional evidence came to light when the university began partnering with Gallup to survey its alumni: The survey results revealed satisfaction levels that rival, and often exceed, those of traditional universities—both online and in-person.

WGU alumni, it seems, are not only pleased to have had their needs met with career-ready programs and a commitment to affordability. They are reporting higher levels of satisfaction with their career and calling their degree a worthwhile investment—noteworthy at a time when that investment is sometimes called into question by those mired in debt.

What is WGU?

In 1997, Western Governors University was conceived by 19 U.S. governors who envisioned a flexible university structure for underserved student populations—working adults and mid-career professionals who needed a flexible pathway to their degrees, particularly in high-demand fields such as nursing and IT.

Instead of relying on the traditional credit-hour model, WGU adopted a competency-based education (CBE) model, allowing students to progress by demonstrating mastery of material. This model was designed with flexibility in mind, ideal for adult learners managing jobs or family responsibilities who needed alternatives to on-campus programs to get the degree they were lacking in order to boost their responsibility, title, and earnings. The result was a fully online institution that could cater to students regardless of geographic location or time constraints.

WGU’s flat-rate tuition model enables students to complete as many courses as they can within a six-month term for a single fee. That plan is attractive to this motivated demographic; 93% of its students are over 24 or older (compared to 38% of those at U.S. bachelor’s-granting institutions), 95% are financially independent (compared to 29% nationally), and 57% are married (compared to 11% nationally)​. The average WGU bachelor’s degree student spends around $6,600 per year on tuition—nearly 40% less than the national average—and after graduation, carries an average loan of $8,228, compared to $18,775 for graduates nationally ($21,335 for those in private universities). On average, they finish their degree in 2.4 years, typically while working—a shorter path that translates to significant savings for adult learners, and an express lane to the job advancements they were seeking with those credentials. In 2021, WGU’s Michael O. Leavitt School of Health produced 17% of the nation’s registered nurses earning a BS in its hybrid prelicensure program (60 percent of the work completed online, 40 percent undertaken in hands-on clinical work in community-based settings).

Gallup Poll: WGU Restoring Confidence in the Value of a Degree

Pascoe’s sentiments towards WGU is not unique. The most recent Gallup survey reflects a level of alumni satisfaction unusually high for any type of institution, both online and traditional.

Gallup surveyed nearly 2,800 WGU alumni who completed their undergraduate degree between 2018 and 2022, collecting information about graduates’ experiences while enrolled, as well as data on postgraduation metrics related to employment and wellbeing. The survey found that WGU alumni were nearly twice as likely to recommend their alma mater as graduates of other schools. Specifically, 76% of WGU alumni reported that they would “highly recommend” the university, compared to the national average of 41%​​. Three-quarters of WGU graduates trust their university to make decisions with students’ best interests in mind, compared with 39% of graduates nationally. The relationship WGU students have with the faculty and staff at the university is tangible, even though they are not physically together in the classroom: Eight in 10 graduates say they had a mentor at the university who encouraged them to pursue their goals and dreams, which is 28 percentage points higher than the national average (52%). And 73% of WGU alumni strongly agreed that their degree was worth the cost—compared to just 34% of graduates nationwide.

The relationship WGU students have with the faculty and staff at the university is tangible, even though they are not physically together in the classroom.

“Findings show that WGU alumni are far more satisfied with their undergraduate experience than bachelor’s degree holders nationally,” the report concludes. “Graduates are positive about WGU’s student support system, caring and committed faculty, inclusive learning environment and career‑relevant curriculum. Collectively, these factors contribute to why WGU alumni are twice as likely as other college graduates to recommend their alma mater.”

WGU graduates also go on to report high levels of well-being and workplace engagement. Gallup data reveals that 77% of WGU alumni rate their lives positively, a significantly higher proportion than among adults without a degree (50%)​ and are more likely to be enthusiastic and invested in their work, with 44% of alumni engaged at work compared to 35% of bachelor’s degree holders nationally​.

Stephanie Marken, a senior partner at Gallup who led WGU’s research, sees the university’s high satisfaction rates as a direct result of its pragmatic competency-based education (CBE) model, and the type of goal-oriented students who are aware of what they want from it.

“I think when you’re designing curriculum with career in mind, you’re designing very strategically to fit the student’s need. We know empirically, through the survey that Gallup had in partnership with Strada Education Network, that the relevancy of curriculum was one of the strongest predictors of self-reported value of experience,” she says. “And it’s a simple reason, right? That people feel like, ‘I am going to be able to use this information. It is going to be inherently valuable to me in my career.’ And I think WGU is just very laser focused on that.”  

For many prospective students, and first-generation students in particular, higher education is a mystery: How is admission decided, how are scholarships determined, how do you quantify how much is worth spending, and how do you know if there’s really a return on investment?

“Higher ed feels like a little bit of a black box. And anything we could do to make it clearer, to show the average outcomes, and what people expect when they graduate, demystifies things,” says Marken. Whenever students can draw a clear line to what was enabled because of a degree, they are going to report greater satisfaction with that degree, and with the choice they made to pursue it. “WGU prioritizes that clarity, which I think help explains the alumni satisfaction rates and self-reported wellness value.”

The Power of Mentorship

While the competency-based model is at the heart of WGU’s appeal, there’s more to it than just flexibility. One of the distinctive features of WGU’s model is its compulsory mentorship program, which provides each student with a dedicated mentor who offers personalized guidance and support. This mentor is solely focused on helping students navigate their academic journey, offering advice on coursework and even helping them manage personal challenges that might impact their studies—say, food assistance, childcare, housing, or other issues that can impact the ability and confidence to be successful.

“Every single student, when they start their program, is assigned a program mentor, and that mentor knows what your goal is. They know what classes you need to complete to get there, and they’re going to help you out all along the way,” says Robert Sullivan, Senior Director of Alumni Engagement. “We are serving a lot of people who arechoosing their education for very specific outcomes, and we are very good at providing the support to make sure they get there.”

For Pascoe, this mentorship was crucial. Jeremy Little was assigned to be his mentor for the MBA, and Pascoe requested Little again for his MSML degree. “That man is awesome. He cheered me on in every aspect. He was there to let me know the results of a practice test, always checking up on me, there to remind me of the motivation, it doesn’t matter what time of the night,” he says. “His care, his commitment, and really his compassion in his job really helped my success in both degrees.”

After a year of an online mentoring relationship, Pascoe and Little were able to meet in person when both traveled to the WGU commencement ceremony. “It’s one thing to create a relationship virtually, but another thing to see that person in real life. Amazing,” he says. “It was just one of those moments where everything just fit together.”

Avoiding debt, aligning values

Students who are able to secure a degree without incurring significant loan debt know full well the bullet they are dodging.

An estimated 42.2 million Americans hold federal student loan debt with a total national balance of over $1.6 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve. Higher education is supposed to improve quality of life, granting access to high-quality jobs that provide greater stability, higher salaries, and critical benefits like healthcare. But the burden of debt risks capsizing the benefits, while causing prolonged stress, anxiety, and feelings of shame.

A 2023 Gallup-Lumina study found that 41% of enrolled bachelor’s students had considered dropping out in the past six months, many citing concerns about paying for their education. And almost 40% of middle and high school youth say they are not interested in pursuing a postsecondary degree.

Helping students avoid that debt, and not be scared away from higher ed, is central to WGU’s mission. “Individual economic outcomes for students is critical,” says Marken. “A lot of their students tend to be underserved populations, and that makes affordable higher education an actual lever for economic mobility when it could have been a significant burden.” The relief and gratitude of alumni of not shouldering tremendous debt, she says, is a further reason for their high levels of satisfaction.

WGU commencement ceremonies take place seven times a year in locations around the country, Sullivan says, and represent the convergence of a few thousand people who have made a conscious choice to prioritize their higher education in a self-paced, self-motivated way. First-generation families. Students and mentors meeting in person for the first time. The first graduate of the KFC Foundation program, Kevon Pascoe, honored with a KFC bucket with his face on it.

“Watching these people walk across the stage to get their degree, it’s a pretty special moment, seeing these students and mentors meet. And the student speaker talking about their life and experience, will make you cry 100% every time, it doesn’t matter how many you’ve seen,” says Sullivan. “When students achieve this degree that made the difference in getting them over the hump to where they wanted to be, it’s no wonder they’re satisfied.”

A Way Forward

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

There is finally some better news about student mental health: this year’s Healthy Minds Study shows for the second year in a row a drop in depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among college students. While the overall rates remain alarmingly high–more than a third of students say they struggle with mental health issues–this two-year decline suggests that increased pre- and post-Pandemic attention and support may be making a difference.

More robust services alone, however, will not solve the student mental health crisis. I’ve witnessed it up close, as a faculty member and administrator at Bennington College, and at a remove, as a higher education program officer at Endeavor Foundation. It is very real. A college is not a treatment center, nor can it reasonably provide everything that students and their families require as they grapple with a tangle of issues.

Colleges and universities must simultaneously reinvest in the most powerful educational contributions that college can make to fortify student mental health: helping students discover their purpose and see beyond themselves.

Finding purpose–once understood as a primary aim of college–has been steadily squeezed out by the gradual and insistent equating of education and career preparation. Intense pressure for return on an ever more costly investment has changed the face of U.S. higher education. The liberal arts, in particular, which emphasize discovery of self and the world, continue to strain under perceived lack of relevance to careers, despite plentiful evidence to the contrary. Unsurprisingly, the study of the humanities, the lifeblood of the liberal arts, is in precipitous decline.

Further, we are compelling youth to determine ever earlier what they will study. Uncertainty has become a proxy for the waste of time and money. But many teenagers do not know what they want to do and–crucially–have not had enough exposure to the possibilities to make such determinations. College is meant to foster this developmental process through exploration and the ignition of interests and passions. This discovery has long been advanced by the liberal arts as essential to well-being, in service of both the student and civic and social good.

A recent Gallup survey found that the happiness and satisfaction of Generation Z is directly linked to the belief that their life has significance. Yet, today, more and more students are making the choice of a major based on the salary that related jobs command, rather than freely choosing the fields they are most drawn to making their own. Across higher education, the number of bachelor’s degrees in computer and information sciences, engineering, health, and business has more than doubled over the past ten years.

the content of higher education is shrinking, and with it a primary pathway to finding well-being through fulfillment.

Declines in arts and humanities majors are leading, on a macro level, to consolidations and cuts of disciplines at all but the best resourced institutions. Concurrently, liberal arts-focused colleges are disappearing at a steady clip. Both dramatically and quietly, the content of higher education is shrinking, and with it a primary pathway to finding well-being through fulfillment.

The contraction of the liberal arts and humanities is also robbing students of opportunities to understand what it means to be human. While there is debate as to whether the youth mental health crisis can be directly attributed to social media addiction and technology use, there is also widespread acceptance that both have radically changed how young people know, experience, and respond to the world. A stunning portion of teen’s social interactions are mediated by tech companies, their time displaced in the repeating reels of Tiktok and Instagram. The development of broad perspective, something at the heart of the liberal arts and humanities, is critical to releasing them from this algorithm.

Students need the span of knowledge, breadth of understanding, and portals to past human experience that a liberal arts orientation offers, whether at a small college or a large university, both for themselves and for society. Such far-reaching intellectual anchoring nurtures the ability to wrestle with the large, open questions that frame our existence and situate ourselves within them, individually and collectively.

Disciplines such as literature, history, and the arts are sourced from the human condition itself and particularly suited to opening the mind to new ways of understanding it. At the same time, to combat social isolation, students need common curricular experiences and co-curricular opportunities for engagement, debate, and dialogue. They need to be able to locate their very different individual selves as part of something larger, together.

But general education, the vehicle for delivering common content, has lost its vitality over time, weakened, in part, by demands for greater career preparation. Even at liberal arts institutions, core curricula—rendered fraught by decades-long political and ideological debates about their makeup—now largely privilege individual choice over shared, common experiences. As a result, students have fewer bridges to each other through common historical and societal knowledge, when what they need are more and stronger ones. Recognizing the opportunity to rebuild their educational frameworks around understanding of our shared humanity is one of the most significant steps that colleges and universities can take to strengthen student mental health.

At Endeavor Foundation, we are supporting a project at eleven small liberal arts colleges to do exactly that through collaborative efforts. Together, these colleges are infusing the personal and intellectual discovery they catalyze with new forms of support and inquiry. They are introducing initiatives to help students metabolize stress and build resilience, as well as bolster their real-time connection to others and draw out purpose through their studies. And they are helping students identify, prepare for, and secure future work born of what matters to them.

There is no doubt that policy makers and educational leaders must address the skyrocketing cost of higher education. Students, most especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, can no longer be left with crippling debt or, worse, excluded from the very social mobility that college promises and–ultimately–delivers. At the same time, we must reset the narrative that career preparation is college’s main function and re-value students’ future mental health as an equally vital outcome.

Isabel Roche is the Executive Director for Special Programs in Higher Education for the Endeavor Foundation.

Power Play

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

This year’s Hazing Prevention Week brought more than just an important public awareness message about the dangers of a pervasive yet under-examined ritual.  On September 27th, the bipartisan “Stop Campus Hazing Act” passed the House of Representatives, edging the country closer to eliminating hazing on college campuses where its strong hold on Greek life and other membership organizations has led to trauma and tragedy. 

But while anti-hazing advocates applaud the new legislation, experts warn that enforcement efforts must be paired with evidence-based prevention strategies.  Doing so requires an understanding of the complex context within which hazing occurs and proliferates.  

The Timothy J. Piazza Center for Fraternity and Sorority Research has been working on this challenge for several years. Founded in honor of a young man who lost his life to hazing in 2017 at Penn State University, the center engages researchers from several universities to examine how to prevent hazing while promoting a healthy and safe environment within fraternities and sororities as well as student groups and athletics.  In September, researchers at the center published a new report in New Directions for Student Services:

Volume 2024, Issue 187
Special Issue: Understanding and Addressing Hazing: Contextual Perspectives, Prevention Strategies, and Case Studies

The monograph offers a literature review woven through eight articles, exploring the motivations for hazing and the complicated challenges involved in preventing it, including the lure of belonging and acceptance.  “There is a human nature element to this problem that we really haven’t yet attacked” said Dr. Patrick Biddix, one of the lead authors on the report. “It is about people’s desire to belong – especially young and vulnerable people who will do whatever they feel is important to fit in.  Hazing takes advantage of that vulnerability.” 

Biddix is a research fellow at the Piazza Center, a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and an advisor to a national sorority organization.  In college, he held leadership positions in his fraternity and, later, spent many years as an advisor to fraternities and sororities at Washington University in St. Louis.  The experience helped him both understand the nuances of hazing and conclude it needed to be prevented, not mitigated.

“In the past, we’ve approached hazing as helping students understand the difference between what is acceptable and what is high-risk behavior,” said Biddix.  “But we quickly realized that it was confusing for students to pick and choose what may be ok. That is why we are now so focused on prevention.” 

Another co-author on the report is Dr. Emily Perlow, Assistant Vice President and Dean of Students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). She says a key part of her day job focuses on “ensuring that students are having a positive experience on campus that keeps them whole and helps them feel a deep sense of belonging.”  As a student, Perlow was also a leader in her sorority and says she was motivated to produce the report to help support student leaders and practitioners on campus who are working on these issues.  

“We wanted advisers, coaches, and all those working in student organizations to have evidence-based information that was more widely accessible than a series of academic journals,” she said. 

In doing their research, Perlow and Biddix soon found that the hazing literature, which was only a few decades old, provided information about the incidents of hazing and the demographics involved in it, but had very little in the way of prevention practices, unlike the prevention literature of other public health problems on campus such as sexual violence and excessive drinking.   Adding to the lack of evidence-based guidance on prevention, was the inconsistency in both the definition of the term “hazing” and the way in which people understood and perceived its risk.  

As the authors point out, hazing has “a storied past” reinforced by media images depicting romantic notions of young people bonding over shared adversity as a means of acceptance.  But what is presented as “good old-fashioned college fun” is a significant safety threat on college campuses.  Hundreds of families have experienced the unthinkable grief that the Piazza’s endured from “bonding gone bad” where life-threatening alcohol use and high-risk behaviors have injured, traumatized or killed young people in the spirit of belonging.  In sororities, “mean girl” behavior and practices of exclusion cause emotional abuse. And yet, the practice persists. 

The report states “At the college level, hazing, which includes high-risk drinking, social isolation, personal servitude, and humiliation, occurs across a range of student groups.”   

And while hazing is wide-spread – more than 55% of college students involved in clubs, teams and organizations experience hazing – few students acknowledge or even understand they have been hazed.   In other research cited in the report, “26% of students belonging to clubs, teams, and organizations indicated experiencing at least one hazing behavior, yet only 4.4% identified it as hazing when asked directly. This dissonance between student experiences with hazing and their ability to label it is problematic for prevention.” 

For the authors, this is where words matter.  Differing and sometimes contradictory definitions of hazing have been unhelpful at best with legal terms or policies pertaining only to one organization leaving students with mixed or unclear messages. With misunderstanding comes an opening to sidestep accountability.  The report quotes students as concluding, “if everything is hazing, then nothing is hazing.”  

Hazing is fundamentally about power. It’s about exerting power over less powerful individuals. 

With the input of experts like Perlow and Biddix, the Piazza Center has developed a definition for hazing that captures its complexities and motivations.

 “Hazing is a power dynamic behavior aimed at screening, fostering bonds, or establishing standing in an organization that risks the health and safety of individuals, causing deliberate or unforeseen physical and/or emotional harm counter to organization purposes.”  

Perlow reiterates the message saying, “Hazing is fundamentally about power. It’s about exerting power over less powerful individuals.  And it is not just about the joining process. It is also a way to establish status in the organization.”  She believes the Piazza Center definition has distinct components that strengthen its effectiveness when used in prevention strategies, largely because it resonates in some way with students.  

In including “unforeseen” harm, the authors allow for the many cases where carelessness or lack of maturity drive the behavior.  “A lot of times students are not thinking about the risks inherent in some of the activities they are engaging in,” said Perlow. “It doesn’t take them off the hook – there’s still responsibility, but in some cases, it is important to understand there is not an intentional effort to harm.” 

Another distinction written into the definition is aimed at getting students to understand that hazing practices are inconsistent with the organization’s mission and goals.  In defining “counter to organization purposes” the authors offer an example.  “You are not an athletic organization so why are you ordering forced calisthenics in a fraternity house basement?”   

Perlow says students understand when the negative consequences of hazing overtake the desired  intent. “I think there are some components of the hazing process that achieve really powerful outcomes,” she said.  “You go through a really difficult, adverse situation and you feel a sense of closeness with others who went through that with you, but we really don’t need to be enacting trauma to create bonds with one another.” 

In working with students, Perlow validates their desire to achieve positive outcomes from hazing – like having strong relationships with others — while getting them to question and change their hazing behavior. “Students can wrap their brains around the idea that if they are not taking away the outcome they care about, they’re pretty receptive to changing the tactic.” 

Perlow’s behavior change example is part of a public health approach to hazing prevention that is outlined in detail in the new report. Like other public health challenges, hazing is largely affected by environmental factors including messages that include the tacit approval of authority figures. The authors argue that with the clear definition of hazing, “stakeholders can develop preventative strategies that empower students to challenge, reject, and reshape environmental messages that mischaracterize hazing as positive, normalized or expected.”