Category: Perspectives

Opinions leading to positive change.

Leading with Wellbeing at NYU

Posted on by Mollie Ames

Rooted in New York City and distinguished by a global network of campuses across 15 other cities, New York University is a composite of the world itself. Its president, Linda G. Mills, is charged with leading this cosmopolitan learning community at a time when many of the world’s problems are reverberating on campus. A therapist by training who is also a lawyer, filmmaker, social scientist, and restorative justice champion, Mills draws from her own diverse background to center wellbeing amidst unrelenting change and uncertainty.  

Before becoming the school’s first woman and first Jewish president, Mills spent many years at NYU, building a mental health infrastructure that has become a national model. In this interview for LearningWell, she is joined by VP of Student Health, Mental Health and Wellbeing, Zoe Ragouzeos, to talk about why that is only one aspect of a larger strategy to make individual and collective wellbeing a part of every student’s experience. In the current climate, that means helping those who come to NYU with mostly homogeneous past experiences thrive in a pluralist society.

LW: How is the uncertainty in the political world today, including on college campuses, affecting the wellbeing of your community?

Mills: When I think about the rapid changes happening at the federal level and their impact on our students, I’m constantly thinking about both the individuals and the community as a whole. What I’m seeing is an undercurrent of anxiety—students feeling deeply unsettled by the sheer velocity of change, regardless of their political perspective.

For those already vulnerable from a mental health standpoint, this uncertainty only amplifies their struggles. But even those who are generally resilient are feeling weighed down, less steady, and often simply confused. And that leads to deeper questions: “How do I process this? Is this something I should bring to therapy?” For some, becoming engaged in a community to advocate for change is an outlet. But if those actions don’t bring a sense of emotional relief, what then? How do they manage that lingering distress?

This moment in time creates a real tension between meeting personal emotional needs and navigating the external events unfolding around us. Finding balance between the two is a challenge we all must confront.

LW: What do you most worry about in terms of how this is affecting people?

Mills: I worry about all of it. In times of intense change, people often struggle to find their footing. That uncertainty can cause them to neglect their own wellbeing—whether it’s their mental health, their academic work, or even just basic daily routines. Reading and concentration become difficult. Decisions feel overwhelming. And stress can lead to choices that may have lasting consequences.

“In times of intense change, people often struggle to find their footing. That uncertainty can cause them to neglect their own wellbeing.”

What I worry about most is students making impulsive decisions—choices that could derail their long-term goals—simply because they feel like they’re being swept up in a tidal wave of external events. What they often need most in these moments is to pause, reflect, and take a step back before reacting. But in times of stress, that’s not always easy to do.

LW: Hearing you talk, I am reminded that, among all of your many distinctions, you are a licensed clinical social worker. How has this influenced how you approach your presidency?

Mills: I think it has been really central. I feel like I need to be aware of the therapeutic and resilience elements of our students’ lives. My background in clinical social work means I don’t just see the importance of seeking support, whether that’s through therapy, group counseling, or student organizations. I think deeply about students’ inner lives and what this particular moment in history means for them.

I also recognize that my position is unique. I don’t know many university presidents who are trained therapists. That experience gives me a different lens. I approach my role with an acute awareness of the mental health challenges our students, faculty, and staff are facing. It informs how I communicate, how I think, and how we develop programs that support not just the community as a whole but the individuals who need specific interventions.

So, in many ways, I am always thinking in two directions: What does our student body need collectively, and what does each student need individually? And that approach fundamentally shapes the way we build our mental health and wellbeing initiatives here.

LW: You recently hosted a national convening of university presidents on student mental health and wellbeing. What were some of the common concerns and challenges you and your peers discussed?

Mills: Zoe and I have been working on these issues for nearly 20 years. We started with a focus on direct services, ensuring that students who needed one-on-one counseling could access it quickly and effectively. That remains a core priority.

But over time, a larger challenge has come into focus: Not everyone will seek out traditional mental health services. Some students avoid therapy for religious, cultural, or familial reasons. Others struggle with the stigma attached to mental health care. So, our work has expanded beyond simply serving the most vulnerable students. It’s about creating a culture of wellbeing that reaches everyone.

The question we’re asking now is: How do we support mental health in a way that meets students where they are? How do we tailor programs that resonate with different backgrounds and lived experiences? That was the heart of our discussion at the convening—exploring innovative approaches that make mental health support accessible and relevant to all students, not just those who walk into a counseling center. And I was truly inspired by the creative solutions my peers are already testing.

LW: What are some of the challenges to that shift in focus?

Mills: One of the biggest challenges is that college is an incredibly demanding time with competing priorities pulling students in different directions. They have academic goals, study abroad opportunities, research projects, career aspirations—all of which require time and energy. So how do we integrate wellbeing into their daily lives in a way that doesn’t feel like yet another obligation?

That’s where I think Zoe has done this brilliantly, weaving mental health and resilience into every part of the student experience. If college is meant to prepare students for life, then wellbeing has to be a fundamental part of that preparation.

Some students arrive with strong wellbeing skills. They’ve been working on this for years. But others come to us with no foundation in self-care or emotional resilience—sometimes even with deeply ingrained stigma around mental health. For them, we’re starting from scratch, or even from a deficit.

So where should this integration happen? In student affairs? In study abroad programs? In the classroom? Faculty are often surprised when we suggest that mental health belongs in academic spaces, but the reality is it’s already showing up there. When a student asks for an extension on an assignment or when they can’t finish a course due to a personal issue, those are mental health concerns manifesting in academic life. Universities need to recognize this and build systems that support students holistically.

LW: Zoe, from your perspective, how do you see this shift in thinking taking shape?  

Ragouzeos: Linda often spoke about “the student in the back of the calculus class”—the person who never raises their hand, who may never step forward to seek help. She instilled in us the importance of not just serving those who come to our counseling services but actively reaching those who won’t. And that philosophy, in many ways, is the foundation of the public health model we embrace today.

So, the real question becomes: How do we reach that student?  Because this work isn’t just about clinical services, though those are critically important. It’s about every touchpoint a student has within our institution. Whether it’s an interaction with a faculty member, a peer, the physical environment, or student services, what messages are they receiving? What are we doing to strengthen their ability to cope?

At its core, resilience is the challenge we must address. While this model was initially built to support our most vulnerable students, we now recognize that every student benefits from stronger coping and resilience skills, regardless of where they start. In fact, we see it as our responsibility. By the time a student leaves here, they should not only have gained academic knowledge and the ability to think critically but also a greater capacity to navigate life’s challenges. That’s part of our mission.

With that in mind, how do we, as an institution, ensure that every student—not just those who seek support—leaves us more resilient than when they arrived?

LW: What’s the most effective thing a university president can do to address mental health on campus?

Mills: Modeling and reinforcing.

I often say that to be an effective therapist, you have to have gone to therapy yourself. The same is true for leadership around mental health. We need to model the idea that seeking support isn’t a weakness. It’s a fundamental part of a productive, healthy life.

That means speaking about it openly, normalizing conversations around mental health, and ensuring that our institutional policies reflect those values. We have to create a culture where prioritizing wellbeing is not just accepted but expected.

LW: What are your thoughts on the current state of higher education? What kind of change do you think is needed, especially in light of public skepticism?

Mills: Despite definite concerns about higher education, people still deeply believe in its value. The sheer volume of applications to NYU—over 120,000 this year—tells us that. Higher education remains the single most important factor in setting individuals and families up for success.

But beyond academic and professional preparation, universities also have a broader responsibility. We need to cultivate critical thinking, civic engagement, and the ability to navigate diverse perspectives.

One of the most urgent gaps I see is in bridge-building. Many students arrive on campus from homogenous communities, whether in the U.S. or abroad, and are suddenly immersed in one of the most diverse environments they’ve ever encountered. That transition can be jarring, especially in today’s polarized world.

Social media and cancel culture have made it even harder to engage across differences. We need to teach students the skills to have difficult conversations, to coexist with people who think differently, and to build meaningful connections across divides.

Interestingly, our research shows that students who study abroad improve their ability to navigate cultural differences. So how do we bring that kind of growth into all aspects of university life? Just as we integrate mental health and resilience from day one, we need to be just as intentional about fostering cross-cultural understanding and communication.

LW: Zoe, do you have any thoughts on that?

Ragouzeos: Resilience isn’t just about personal coping. It’s also about how we engage with the world around us. When we truly listen to one another and appreciate differences, we become more adaptable, more open, and, ultimately, more resilient. The ability to navigate life’s challenges is deeply connected to our capacity for understanding perspectives beyond our own.

“Resilience isn’t just about personal coping. It’s also about how we engage with the world around us.”

This is one of the reasons why study abroad experiences can be so transformative. When students immerse themselves in a different culture, they naturally give themselves permission to accept differences in a way they might not at home. As visitors, they recognize that they are stepping into a world with different customs, perspectives, and ways of life, so they adjust. They observe, and they grow.

Yet, back home, that openness often fades. In familiar environments, people tend to default to expecting things to function as they always have within the norms of their own communities. This can create resistance to difference, rather than a willingness to embrace it.

So the question becomes: How do we cultivate that same openness and adaptability within our own communities? How do we encourage students to bring that study abroad mindset—one of curiosity, acceptance, and resilience—into their daily lives, even in places that feel familiar?

LW: Do you ever get asked about your own mental health? This is a tough time to be a college president, but I’m guessing there’s no support group for that.  

Mills: As a therapist by training, I think about my own mental health constantly. I believe that if I didn’t, I’d be failing my community. We all have to prioritize our wellbeing, especially in leadership roles where the pressures are relentless.

These are incredibly challenging times, and I have to be at my best to lead effectively. Some days are tougher than others, especially when events hit close to home, like my personal experiences with antisemitism. But those moments also deepen my understanding of resilience, making me a better advocate for our students. At the end of the day, I’m not just leading this community. I’m living these challenges alongside them.

Sometimes There’s a Wolf

Posted on by Mollie Ames

In his 2023 book, “Whatever it is, I’m against it,” Brian Rosenberg sums up higher education’s aversion to change. In making his case, the Macalester College president emeritus identifies institutional barriers, such as shared governance and insular cultures, that keep higher education from addressing uncomfortable truths, like a flawed economic model and plummeting public support. He warns that this head-in-the-sand strategy will leave higher education vulnerable to a political take-down, like the one it is currently experiencing. 

Now that external forces of change, led by the Trump administration, are threatening to upend higher education as we know it, Rosenberg is far from gloating. A visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Rosenberg continues to advocate for strategies that will strengthen higher ed—those that will bend the cost curve, improve the student experience, and open up access for people who want to go to college but can’t afford it. He distinguishes this type of change from the unhelpful assaults on higher education he believes will have disastrous effects on the sector he both admires and admonishes. 

In this candid interview, Rosenberg explains how higher education got to where it is now and why this is not the time to stay neutral.  

LW: You have long advocated for change in higher education which, as you say, is very difficult to achieve. Do you think this point in time feels different?

Rosenberg: Higher education has been the most stable industry in the world for centuries. It hasn’t really needed to change in more than incremental ways, and there have been some good things about that. But when you go years and years without change because you don’t have to, you also fall into some really suboptimal practices, and sooner or later those are going to catch up with you. I think right now the pressures on higher education are so strong that incremental change just won’t do it anymore. People have been saying this for a long time, and it’s easy to think of someone like me as a boy crying wolf. But what I say to people all the time is, every once in a while, there’s a wolf. And I think we’re at that moment. 

LW: What would you say is driving the necessity for change?

Rosenberg: First, the economic model is unsustainable. The demographic trends are not on our side. And if it wasn’t clear to people a year ago, it certainly should be clear right now: people don’t like us. If there’s anything that the far left and the far right agree upon right now, it’s that they’re not particularly fans of higher education. They have different reasons, but what we’re seeing is that public discontent translates into public policy and that public policy has the potential to be extremely damaging to higher education, whether it’s an endowment tax or cuts to funding from the N.I.H. (National Institutes of Health) or limitations on what people can teach or services they can provide. 

If people liked us, it would be harder to implement those changes. But because the public regard for higher education has declined so much, we become a politically convenient punching bag, and that’s going to have real impact. If you combine economics, demographics, and public sentiment—you can throw in technology and artificial intelligence—I really do think we are at an inflection point now where same old, same old is just not going to cut it for the next five, 10, 20, 25 years.

LW: Let’s start with the economics of higher education. What needs to change there?

Rosenberg: When people say, change isn’t really necessary, the number that comes to mind for me is 56%—that is the average discount rate now at private colleges across the United States. Higher education in these places is  on sale for more than half off. If you walked into a store and you saw a sign that said everything is 60% off, you would assume it was a closeout sale.

That is the definition of an unsustainable model—when that discount is going up every year and every year you are marking down your product more and more. And sooner or later you’re going to get to 100% and be giving it away for free. So the need to bend the cost curve seems to me inarguable. We cannot continue on this economic trajectory. More people are deciding not to go to college because it’s too expensive, and more people who can afford it are still deciding not to pay it because it’s too expensive. In Boston for instance, the percentage of students in public schools who choose to go directly to college has dropped over the last decade from almost 70% to a little over 50%. In a high education state like Massachusetts, that’s staggering. 

LW: People tend to think of high tuition as the result of overspending or inefficiency. Is there truth to that? 

Rosenberg: The economic problem in higher education is not caused by climbing walls and lazy rivers, and it’s not caused by extravagant residence halls. Sure, at some institutions those are wasteful expenditures, but that’s not what is driving the increase in cost. What is driving the increase in cost overwhelmingly is personnel, which is about two-thirds of the budget. The majority of every college and university budget in the country goes toward paying people’s salaries and benefits because it has always been a very people-intensive industry. And the problem that higher education has faced is that the cost of hiring those people has gone up, but productivity hasn’t changed. It’s a fundamental economic problem called “cost disease,” where your costs of hiring people go up but you see no increased productivity.  Industries that have bent their cost curves have generally done it by increasing productivity. It’s easier to do in manufacturing than in service. If you look at things like the cost of producing an automobile adjusted for inflation, that’s actually gone down because you have so many fewer people. It’s so automated. But in higher ed, that’s not the case. 

The second largest cost driver is the physical plant. Institutions tend to have big, old physical plants that cost a fortune to maintain. They almost all have gigantic deferred maintenance budgets that they’re not really addressing. The only way to make it cheaper—and people don’t like to hear this, but it’s true—the only way to make it cheaper is to do it with fewer people and fewer buildings. And that’s very, very hard to accomplish in higher education because it’s not wastefulness as much as it is things that we prize. Things like student faculty contact are exactly the things that drive our costs. We haven’t found the right balance between doing things that we think are effective and doing things that we think are economically affordable. And so that’s the situation that the vast majority of colleges that are not places like Harvard find themselves in right now.

LW: What is at stake here if higher education does not change?

Rosenberg: I think what’s at stake is that you’re likely to see high quality higher education become a luxury good reserved for the few and much lower quality, less expensive higher education become something that most people experience. At one extreme, you have places like Harvard and Williams and they’re not going to go anywhere, but I think we run the risk of seeing a lot of very good, much less wealthy institutions go away and be replaced by institutions that are far less effective and consumer-focused. 

I’m someone who believes that essential public services are not best served when they are provided by for-profit entities because the profit motive and the motive of social good can come into conflict.  Worst case scenario is that higher education becomes taken over by for-profits and it stops being a public good and starts being a revenue source and a way to return money to shareholders. And I think that would be a disaster.

LW: The title of your book suggests you know something about resistance to change in higher education. You’ve lived it and studied it. What is your theory?

Rosenberg: If I had to boil it down to the simplest formulation, I’dborrow a phrase from Larry Bacow, who was the president at Tufts and then the president at Harvard for five years. He has said, “Virtually none of the internal actors within higher education have incentive to change it.” There’s certainly a lot of incentive for people outside of higher education—families who want to pay for college, students who want to attend college, states that want to educate more people. But inside higher education, if you think about the key actors, you have college presidents, and any college president who wants to keep their job knows that if you push for dramatic change, you’re likely looking at no-confidence votes and a short presidency.  If you want to keep your job as a college president, the easiest thing to do is not rock too many boats. Steer the boat, but don’t sharply change direction because you’re probably not going to survive. 

Boards of trustees certainly at private colleges are made up of alumni whose vision of the college is from the past more than it is the future. And so they hold on very tightly. And this is true of alumni in general. They hold on to the past version of the college that they experienced. Any college president you ask will tell you that any kind of change beyond what is very small is going to get pushback from alumni. If you’re a tenured faculty member and you have a job for life and your institution isn’t about to go under, why in the world would you change anything? You have a privilege that no other worker in the American workforce has, with the exception of federal judges. 

People often point to students, but when students push for change, it tends to be around things like political issues or better food in the dining hall. Most students don’t want the college that they enrolled in to go through disruptive change while they’re there. That’s not comfortable. The only people within the system who I think are incentivized to change it are the people who have no power to change it. I would say that’s staff, non-tenure track faculty and graduate students. They all know the system’s broken, but they have no power in the governance instruction. And so you have power located with people with no incentive to change, and you have incentive to change located with people who have no power. And that is a recipe for stasis. And of course then there are all these structural impediments like shared governance.

Anyone who studies change will tell you that two of the conditions that are necessary to change an organization are the right incentives and alignment, and you don’t have either in higher education. The desires and the priorities of a history department and the priorities of a college president are not necessarily going to be in any way aligned. And colleges, if you think of a metaphor, aren’t like highways. They’re like those bumper car rides that you used to go to at amusement parks, where everybody’s driving into each other and nobody goes anywhere because everybody’s driving in their own direction. That’s kind of the way decision-making at a college happens. We prioritize participation over outcomes. And that has a history that goes back more than half a century now, and it’s very hard to change when consensus and innovation don’t sit easily together because innovation by its very nature is disruptive and consensus by its very nature is not.

LW: What other things about higher ed do you think need to change that may or may not be related to the economic model but may be contributing to the decline in public sentiment or the questioning of its value?

Rosenberg: Higher education has tended to be extraordinarily insular. Just think about the typical college campus: it has sometimes literal walls between itself and the rest of the community, and it certainly has figurative walls. One of the things that needs to change is that higher education needs to start looking outward more and stop looking inward, asking itself, “What does society need?” People who teach at liberal arts colleges or research universities don’t like to hear this, but we need to be asking, “How can students get jobs?” This is for most people the largest investment they’re going to make other than maybe buying their house. Especially for first generation students, getting a job is not a luxury. It’s kind of a requirement.

I’m not saying that it all needs to be vocational, but are we teaching the right skills? Are we teaching the right competencies so that the people we are sending into the workforce are the people that employers want? Right now, the message back from employers is you’re not doing a very good job, that there’s not a great alignment between what we’re seeing in your graduates and what we want in our employees—things like creativity, being able to work in teams, resilience, adaptability. There are certain hard skills like being able to communicate well, work with numbers, work with data sets. I would describe it as a set of hard and soft skills that higher education has neglected in its focus on disciplinary expertise and on research. I mean, most college and university majors are still designed as if their graduates are going to become college professors, and that’s not what they’re doing. 

I also think about the method of instruction. There have been, at this point, countless studies that have shown that passive learning is not very effective. And yet higher education still relies very heavily on things like large lectures, when we know that students learn very little in that setting. You get a grade, you move out of the class, and then within a year, you don’t remember anything that you learned, whereas learning through doing—experiential learning—teaches you a lot more. And higher education has been incredibly slow to embrace the importance of learning-through-doing rather than learning-through-listening ,so I think the pedagogy could be improved as well. And that means that faculty members like me who were trained in a certain way have to rethink how they teach. And it’s hard to get people to do that. 

LW: Without those incentives, other than being a good person who cares about the post-graduate lives of your students, what is the motivation for professors to change their teaching? 

Rosenberg: I think the incentive is going to come from the bottom-up and not from the top-down. All of these schools now are facing incredible constraints and challenges, and you have a choice when you’re in that situation. For most schools, the incentive is survival. If you’re going to survive, then you’re going to have to offer something different than what you’re offering now. I have to believe that there are going to be some schools that take a look at a failing model and say, “All right, we have nothing to lose. We’re going to try something different.” My old AP biology teacher used to say that the nature of change is adapt, migrate or die, and migration is not a real option for colleges. But adapt or die is going to be, I think, the thing that sparks change In higher education. 

LW: You mentioned experiential learning, working in teams, some of the other high-impact practices that have proven to lead to things like wellbeing, fulfillment, and flourishing. These outcomes are also important to employers. Do you think embracing these kinds of experiences would help improve how people view higher ed?

Rosenberg: I think they would. And again, even if you look within very well-resourced institutions, there are departments that are struggling. Everybody points to the humanities. And so if you’re in a department where you’re just bleeding students, it seems to me you should be incentivized to look at what you’re doing and say, “All right, what can we do to make what we’re doing, what we’re teaching, more attractive to students?” And that would mean adopting some of those high-impact practices that we know work very well. 

We’re not talking about the French Revolution here. I think that there are things that could be done without completely blowing up the system that would begin to incorporate some of these high impact practices and conceivably could help bend the cost curve a little bit. For example, if you have more students doing group work, then maybe you don’t need quite as many TAs, or maybe you don’t need quite as many instructors because students are working in groups. So certainly, it could improve the quality, and it might actually even help with the cost.

LW: As you say, the wolf is at the door. Is there anything positive about what we are witnessing from the Trump administration in regards to changes in higher ed?  

Rosenberg: Is there anything positive here?  Sometimes it takes a major jolt to the system to change something for the better. If you’re in the habit of driving while intoxicated, and you get into an accident, and you narrowly escape with your life, maybe you say, “I’m not going to do that anymore.” And I would say higher education needs to start looking outward more and stop looking inward, asking itself, “What does society need?”

I don’t know what’s going to happen with this cut in indirect cost from the NIH, but if it stands, no university, even places like Harvard and MIT, is going to be immune. It’s certainly a message that if you don’t pay attention to the world outside the campus, sooner or later, that’s going to come back and bite you. And so if we get through this without complete disaster, maybe colleges and universities will rethink how they engage with the world beyond their campuses, do a better job of making the case for their value, and actually provide more value.  I think it’s waking people up to the fact that whether we like it or not, it’s not going to look the same in 10 years as it looks now. The question is: to what extent do we want that forced upon us? And to what extent do we want to try to have some control over that?

“The question is: to what extent do we want [change] forced upon us? And to what extent do we want to try to have some control over that?”

LW: What would you offer as suggestions to people like Vice President JD Vance who have called higher education the enemy?

Rosenberg: If in some alternative universe, someone like JD Vance were reasonable enough to actually listen to how to improve higher education, my response would be pretty simple and that is to double the Pell Grant—double the size. That is one tool that could make a major difference tomorrow. The Pell Grant has been stuck in the $6,000 to $7,000 range for decades. When it was first designed, it mostly covered the cost of college. Now, it doesn’t even come close, unless you’re talking about a community college. If you dramatically increased the Pell Grant, a) the money would be going to people who need it—lower income students and families—and b) it would make college much more accessible. I don’t believe everybody should go to college. What I believe is anyone who wants to go to college should be able to, shouldn’t be prevented by economics from not being able to. As with our infrastructure, we’ve neglected these kinds of investments because we’re so fixated in this country on low taxes.

I would also acknowledge that one major weakness is that higher education has become too ideologically uniform and that that’s not helping students. We need to figure out a way to make sure that people with all reasonable views can express them on college campuses without fear of reprisal or being shouted down. And that’s on colleges and universities. We haven’t done as good a job as we might have. That said, the answer to one form of censorship is not another form of censorship. And what we’re seeing now, in response to the soft power of students shouting down a speaker, is the hard power of the government telling you what you can and cannot teach and what you can and cannot do. That’s exactly the wrong thing. People like JD Vance and Musk talk about all the woke things that they’re rooting out. What we’re seeing now is that if you’re not on board with that particular ideology, then the law’s going to come after you. And that’s a lot scarier. 

You can say all you want about student protestors or about student demonstrators, but their power compared to the power of the state is minuscule. And right now, we’re seeing the enormous power of the state being brought to bear to shut down the open exchange of ideas on college campuses. And that is infinitely more dangerous than anything that’s come from within colleges. So I would acknowledge the failures, but I would also say that this prescription for correcting it is worse than the disease.

LW: I am guessing this is not the kind of change you talked about in your book.

Rosenberg: That Dear Colleague letter from the DOE, I’ve never seen anything like that come from any agency of any government in my entire life — state, local, federal. It read like an editorial in the New York Post. I mean, it was crazy—not just in terms of  its language, but its interpretation of the law was also just completely wacky. In some ways, it was directly inconsistent with the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action, where Justice Roberts said, for example, that schools could use the students’ essays to make judgments about their life experiences. It went way beyond what was a fairly narrow ruling about affirmative action and admissions. I have yet to see a legal expert, right or left wing, that says this is actually supported by the law. There’s nothing about it that’s helpful. It’s just a standard playbook: overreach and scare people. And it’s a standard authoritarian playbook. What you get is a lot of what historians have called anticipatory obedience. People obey without you having to force them to do it because they’re scared. We’re seeing a lot of that right now. It’s a very effective way of exerting control when you can’t actually do what you’re threatening to do, but just the threat causes people to cower and to change what they’re doing. 

LW: Are you disappointed in the way that higher ed leadership has responded?

Rosenberg: The short answer is yes, I’m disappointed. But I do understand. I’m sympathetic to the notion that we should become more neutral. It’s probably true that higher education over the last decade has gotten too embroiled in political issues. I don’t think that’s entirely unreasonable because I think it coincided with the rise of Trump and so many actual or proposed policies that go against everything that higher education is supposed to stand for. That led higher education to get much more politically active and opened it up to a lot of these attacks.

“I believe that more leaders have an obligation to speak about what parts of the university we will not compromise on.”

I’m also sympathetic to the fear of reprisal. If you’re a college president and you’re dependent upon the legislature for funding, you don’t want to do harm to your institution. But having said all that, we need to have a different response. This goes back to something called the Kalven Report from the University of Chicago in 1967, which talks about institutional neutrality. It says the exception to that is when society or some segments of society propose or do things that threaten the mission of the university. In these instances, you have an obligation to speak—not an option, an obligation. And I really believe that we’re at that point now. I believe that more leaders have an obligation to speak about what parts of the university we will not compromise on and we will fight for and what things being done to our students in particular are unjust.  

I am sympathetic to the caution, but I’m also somewhat disappointed in it. I think that one of the things you learn when you’re in a schoolyard is if you keep getting punched in the nose by a bully, they’re going to keep punching you until you punch back. If you think that someone like Donald Trump or Elon Musk is going to stop punching you because you hide behind neutrality, you haven’t been paying attention. 

Invented Here

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

Sukhwant Jhaj, Vice Provost for Academic Innovation and Student Achievement at Arizona State University, spoke with Dana Humphrey, co-host of Invented Here, about ASU’s Work+ program, a bold and transformative initiative redefining how we think about student employment. Sukhwant shares how Work+ evolved, its impact, and the lessons he’s learned in bringing the initiative to where it is today. Learn more about the Work+ Collective here: https://theworkpluscollective.asu.edu/.

Influencers for Life

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

Maggie Messina graduated from the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in 2022. She works in Private Client Business Development at Cambridge Associates in Boston. Here is her response to the question: “What experience or person in college most influenced your development as a human being?”

College is a formative experience for all. It’s a time when you leave the safety of your hometown, the friends you’ve known forever, and all that is familiar to you. Amidst the unfamiliar faces and places, you begin to search for belonging. For me, during my first two years of college, an unexpected yet incredibly meaningful place of connection was the dining hall. 

At the heart of my dining hall experience was Derek, the welcoming presence at the swipe station. Derek wasn’t just the person who checked my student ID as I walked in—he became a constant source of positivity and encouragement during my transition to college life. As a freshman finding my footing, Derek always greeted me with an enthusiastic high five and hello. During the whirlwind of sorority rush week, he congratulated me when I got into my top-choice sorority, Tri Delta, even throwing his hands into a triangle to represent it everytime I walked through the doors wearing all my new merch. 

Derek wasn’t just the person who checked my student ID —he became a constant source of positivity and encouragement during my transition to college life. 

But it wasn’t just the celebratory moments that made Derek special—it was the way he showed up for me during the tough times. When I felt homesick or defeated by a bad grade, Derek was there with encouraging words and a hug that always made the day seem a little brighter. 

What I learned most from Derek is that kindness matters. Small gestures—like smiling and waving at someone as they pass, holding the door open for a stranger, or offering a pencil to your classmate when they forget—can have a ripple effect far beyond what we can see. Today, as a young professional, I strive to embody that same sense of kindness. It’s one of my current firm’s values, and I take pride in representing it every day. 

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.

Invented Here

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

LearningWell Radio co-host Dana Humphrey talks to Dr. Joe Tranquillo, Associate Provost for Transformative Teaching and Learning and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Bucknell University. Tranquillo is the driving force behind the Thrive Framework, which aims to fulfill the promise laid out in Bucknell’s strategic plan – “to educate individuals and, through that education, change people’s lives…. to offer students a transformative experiences that prepares them to thrive not only at Bucknell but throughout their lives.” The framework has been used to generate over 300 university-wide initiatives that enhance the student experience, addressing the ways students struggle – meeting their basic needs, enhancing their sense of belonging, improving access and use of resources and enabling holistic growth. This episode is part of LearningWell Radio’s series “Invented Here,” which spotlights innovative, transformational learning programs at colleges and universities across the country.

Listen now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

The “weird” attack on higher education

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

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In a season filled with political one-uppmanship, the word “weird” has become a catch phrase for all things suspicious or “dodgie,” effectively putting a spotlight on views outside the mainstream. The highly politicized attacks on higher education might well fit into this same category, considering the fact that the many criticisms against colleges and universities are, indeed, bizarre and unsupported by the majority.

While the most aggressive denunciations of higher ed are catnip for the media and burrow into the public consciousness, many of these criticisms come from a vocal minority. Even some of the most politically charged topics, where one might suspect the arguments to have persuaded a larger share of the public, aren’t producing these outcomes. Consider the aggressive anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) stance that has gripped the attention of the media and the public: despite the buzz, banning programs that help students feel they belong on campus is incredibly unpopular. Only 27% of Americans, and less than half of Republicans, oppose DEI initiatives in colleges, according to a 2023 YouGov poll. The same goes for controlling what subjects students can learn in college, another pervasive yet unpopular battle cry. Only 33% support government regulation of public college professors’ classroom speech, according to a separate YouGov poll.

The reality is that most of our friends and neighbors still want their kids to go to college, where they hope they’ll grow personally and intellectually, finding a sense of identity, agency and purpose that sets them up to flourish throughout their lives. It’s time to embrace the fact that, despite its flaws and the genuine need for improvement (particularly in affordability), college remains a positive force for young people and society at large.

Also, in the realm of the “weird” is the notion that college exists solely for skills training and job placement, an idea that doesn’t align with the wants of students, their families, or employers. According to Pew Research Center, 73% of college graduates with two- or four-year degrees found their degree very or somewhat useful for both personal and intellectual growth. Additionally, 90% of employed adults emphasized the importance of interpersonal skills such as patience, compassion and getting along with people to their work – attributes cultivated by a well-rounded college experience that includes mentorships, teamwork, and applying what is learned in the classroom to real world problems. Monster’s Future of Work report highlights that employers value dependability, teamwork, flexibility, and problem-solving – skills often honed through a well-rounded education.

To reassert the value of the college experience and restore public trust, we must provide the type of higher education experience that people want.

Just as the idea that higher education should simply deliver skills is out of step with the American public, so too is the belief that college is no longer worth it. Polling shows that 75% of people believe there is a good return on investment in a college degree, and nearly 70% say a close family member needs at least an associate’s degree for financial security. In a 2024 Gallup-Lumina poll, 94% of adults said at least one type of postsecondary credential is “extremely valuable ” or “very valuable.” Moreover, research shows that higher education is linked to improved health and wellbeing, including reduced risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, anxiety, and depression. College graduates exercise more, drink less, and are more likely to seek preventive healthcare. They report higher levels of self-esteem and job satisfaction than high school graduates who do not go on to earn higher education degrees.

But just as the data show we cannot believe all of the anti-higher education rhetoric, we must not ignore that people are upset with the sector, and for valid reasons. We must address the affordability issue, a major driver of the anger and frustration directed at colleges and universities. And we must work harder to make a stronger case for the value of higher education on human development, workforce development, and society overall that can be embraced by Americans of all viewpoints. Forty-five percent of Americans believe colleges and universities have an overall negative impact on the country – this in spite of the data showing that college graduates are more likely to vote, volunteer, donate to charities, join community organizations, and participate in educational activities with their children than non-degree holders.

Rather, to reassert the value of the college experience and restore public trust, we must provide the type of higher education experience that people want: one that fosters personal and intellectual growth, offers a transformational experience, and lays the foundation for a lifetime of flourishing.

Dana Humphrey is the Associate Director of the Coalition for Transformational Education. The Coalition for Transformational Education is a group of leaders in higher education dedicated to evidence-based, learner-centered education that lays the foundation for wellbeing and work engagement throughout life. Through assessment, collaboration, and best practice-sharing with our member institutions, we strive to inspire the academy to prioritize lifelong wellbeing.

Dr. Estevan Garcia is at the Table

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

Given his background, Dr. Estevan Garcia might be considered an unusual member of a college president’s cabinet. But as Dartmouth’s new Chief Health and Wellness Officer, the physician and public health expert works directly with President Sian Beilock on an issue she has made a well-publicized priority in her first year in office – protecting the mental health of students, faculty and staff. Garcia, who is a pediatrician specializing in emergency medicine, came to Dartmouth from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health where he helped led the effort to address the behavioral health crisis in emergency departments during the pandemic.

It is now Garcia’s job to lead Beilock’s health and wellbeing agenda, most specifically through the implementation of the school’s comprehensive strategic mental health plan called the “Commitment to Care.”  The origins of the plan predate Garcia’s arrival and was informed by a collaboration with the Jed Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting emotional health and preventing suicide in young people. Beginning in 2020, the Dartmouth community lost several students, including by suicide, as the pandemic eclipsed college life.

Dr. Estevan Garcia

Four years later, the Jed Foundation featured Dartmouth as a success story in its impact report and Garcia is now focused on the longer term outcome data that will provide a more precise evaluation of their recent work.  He views the plan as a pathway to a wellness culture at Dartmouth that prioritizes self-care, community care and mental health innovation. With an increased staff and budget behind him, Garcia is addressing a number of wellbeing issues often associated with elite institutions, particularly ones like Dartmouth, located in remote areas with less community resources.  These include the stress of perfectionism among high-performing students and the lingering lack of belonging many students feel, particularly those with mental health issues and/or those with diverse identities. As the fall semester brings new and familiar challenges to students’ wellbeing, Dr. Garcia is ready and at the table.

LW: What was the thinking behind having a new position in this area reporting directly to President Beilock?

EG: I think her vision for the role was to elevate student mental health and wellness as a high priority but also to bring under one umbrella campus-wide health and wellbeing. Part of my portfolio is faculty and staff health and wellness so it was important to President Beilock to have that direct communication on all of the activities in this area across campus.

LW: How has your background in public health prepared you and/or motivated you to take on the position of Chief Health and Wellness officer at a college? 

EG: What brought me to this work came from what I saw in emergency departments during, and predating COVID, with adolescents and young adults in crisis. To me, that was really shocking.  When I started in the Department of Public Health {in Massachusetts} I partnered with the Mass Department of Mental Health through the community behavioral health programs, providing options that would divert the mental health crisis from emergency departments when appropriate.  I spent those two years heavily involved in the work we were doing to create an actual road map for behavioral health in Massachusetts. 

My background is in emergency medicine.  I useasthma as an example of the way we look at illness in the emergency department.  You would come to the emergency department after you had gone through your asthma action plan – “I’m a green, I’m a yellow, I’m a red,” — here’s how I step up my care so by the time you came to us, you had exhausted your plan.  Westarted to view behavioral health in the same way.  “I’m at home fighting with my parents, or “I’m depressed, I can’t leave my room” or “I’m in crisis, potentially I’m suicidal” – all of those scenarios have varying degrees of illness and severity.  Ifwe treated them all as emergencies, we would be failing our patientsand our ability to manage true crisis and emergencies.

LW: Do you have a similar strategy around health and wellbeing that you are utilizing at Dartmouth?

EG: When I first came here, it was important to explain to my colleagues what we mean by health and wellness because not everyone understands this. One of the things I did was develop a pyramid that shows the different degrees of mental health needs. The base of the pyramid is the 70% of the students we have here – very successful, high achieving – experiencing the stress that comes with that.  There’s another 20 to 25% who could use some clinical support.  The final piece at the top of the pyramid is the group of students who were most clinically concerning, potentially suicidal, and these are the student we need to act quickly to support and get into the appropriatesetting. 

The goal of this kind of structure is to understand that much of what we do is at the base – that 70% of our students need easy access to services and almost no barriers to the many wellness activities we should be providing across campus. The idea is that college is the right timeto experiment with wellness and to build your portfolio of activities and support strategieswhen you are successful – when you are at the base – so you can manage the challenges that will come your way.  You will be more prepared when you fail a test, or break up with your girlfriend, or have other challenges– all the things that challenge yourequilibrium andcould push you into crisis.

“College is the right timeto experiment with wellness and to build your portfolio of activities and support strategies when you are successful –- so you can manage the challenges that will come your way.”  

For the 20 to 25% in the middle, we have clinical  supports that help themmanage their illness, while also providing access to wellness activities.  With the smaller group, my job is to really help identify them as their situation evolves and get them the support that they need, and this can be a protective setting in a hospital if that’s necessary.  And it is really important that we don’t make them feel that they are alone.  You have to care enough about the students that require services outside of the college to partner with them – to give them time away, with support, and then bring them back with the appropriate accommodations. This is how I see my job.

LW: What have been some of your early priorities?

EG: President Beilock has recently completedher first year as presidentbut was very involved in the creation of the strategic plan for mental health and wellness before that. I would say the majority ofmy work since I came to Dartmouthhas been to implement that plan.  It has multipledeliverables and my job was to take that on and run with it, delivering on health and wellness as a priority for the president and for the campus.

Part of those deliverables involved new permanent staffpositions – across ourstudent health and wellness divisions.  It was really a huge investment by the college and we had to make sure those were the right positions and we were utilizing them in the right way.  

The Dartmouth community has faced several challenges since I arrived.  I think it is helpful to have a clinician at the table.  Health and wellness staff arenot enforcers, but supporters.  We arevery much there to support students, and help them engage in tough conversations. I think partnering with students has been one of the strongest game changers for me personally. I worked with them before as patients but now they are really partners to me in the work we are doing around health and wellness.

LW: What was the history behind the Commitment to Care plan?

EG: When Covid started, we (in reference to Dartmouth) were doing the best we could, but clearly it was very isolating on this campus and colleges across the country. It was not your normal college experience by far here and of course everywhere.  Beginningin 2020, we had several student deaths including bysuicide, and it was clear they needed to address what was happening.  In the summer of 2021, they brought the Jed Foundation in and that led to a major mental health review –  campus visits, survey data, all of that.  Additionally, the provost at the time set up a steering committee to work on an all-Dartmouth strategic plan on health and wellbeing from May 2023 to September 2023, that was the foundation of the Commitment to Care. It was across all campuses – undergrad, grad schools, professional schools. 

What makes it unique is that it is very stakeholder-driven, very student-driven and the result is this multi-year, campus-wide engagement with actual deliverables. What I found interesting when I first came to campus, folks would introduce themselves – students, staff, faculty – and they would say “I was on the committee for mental health” or “I was on the committee for health promotion.”

LW: What are the elements of the plan?  

There are five pillars to the plan which drive the many activities and initiatives that we are working on.  (From materials): Center wellbeing in all we do both inside and outside of academics; Create an inclusive community to foster mental health and well-being for students with diverse lived experiences; Equip students with the resources and skills to navigate both success and failure with strength and confidence; Proactively address mental illness to aid students in reaching their goals; Invest in innovative applications of evidence-based approaches to respond to changing environments and needs.

It is a very broad approach involving all aspects of the college.  Regarding the second pillar, we pride ourselves on attracting first generation students and students with diverse lived experiences, and it is important for us to center those lived experiences in what happens on campus, particularly here in rural New Hampshire. This includes how we address mental health and wellness and creating a sense of belonging.

President Beilock was clear that focusing on wellbeing is critical to a successfulacademic career. One of the key pillars for us is helping students navigate success and failure, this is number three.  There is an understanding that our students are incredibly driven. They are gifted and they are used to being at the top. They are not used to failure. But failure is part of succeeding and it is how you pick yourself up and move forward that is important.  We call it normalizing life.

Regarding wellness services, we have made significant gains here.  One of the first things I did was to move wellness to be a separate divisionwith a director reporting to me.  Our health services are really top notch and I wanted wellness to be on equal footing.  Additionally, we are arural community sometimes makingrecruitment difficult.  To better meet the needs of our students, we needed to find ways of extending and diversifying our services.  We partnered with a tele therapycompany, that gives us 24/7 behavioral health support for students and that made a big difference in accessibility when our team was not in the office.  We have several hundred students who have engaged with the service.  We have unlimited access to 30 minutes therapy slots any time of day or night and will beexpanding that to 50 minutes for those who need it.

The addition of the tele service didn’t lower our need for in-person services but it enabled other students to access therapy who might have been uncomfortable doing so before.  We know that a quarter of our students utilize our mental health services and that is similar across our student groups.  That is a significant point since historically, underrepresented students seek help less frequently. 

And the other piece – which I think is one of the harder ones – is thinking about data analysis and evidence-based approaches to make sure that what we are doing is impactful. This is really important because as we are delivering on a lot of these initiatives, we need to know what is helpful and not helpful and then redirect our time, energy and resources accordingly.

LW: You have said that some of your work is inside as well as outside the classroom.  What has been your experience there?

EG: There are a few tracks to this work, one involving academic policies and calendars that students have said would be meaningful to them in terms of reducing their stress levels over academics.  There’s also some interesting things faculty are doing in their classrooms by integrating mindfulness techniques in their academic disciplines including physiology and languages.   These are just some of the ways we are partnering with academic leadership, and I will say it does make a difference now that we are at the table.

Where Did All the Good Times Go?

Posted on by Dana Humphrey

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They are familiar culprits: smartphones, social media, the decline of in-person social connection that began before, bloomed during, and held firm after the COVID-19 pandemic. A growing reserve of data and reporting raises the alarm about Gen Z’s age of discontent, always coming to the same conclusion: it doesn’t look good for the digital generation. As panic descends over what the Surgeon General has labeled a mental health emergency and, more recently, a loneliness epidemic, few accounts of Gen Z’s state of mind manage to foreground what I suspect is at the root of my generation’s distress: the shrinking of three-dimensional life, and with it, the loss of risk, adventure, and thrill.

Forty-two percent of Gen Z suffers from depression and feelings of hopelessness, a rate almost twice as high as that of American adults over 25 (23%). On the climate crisis, 56% believe humanity is doomed. Since 2010, anxiety among American college students has increased by 134%, depression by 106%, bipolar disorder by 57%, and anorexia by 100%. In a 2023 poll of college students, 39% said they had experienced loneliness the previous day, ranking it above sadness (36%). 

As our parents’ generations had fewer children and nurtured them longer, we were raised to be risk-averse. Emergency room visits for accidental injuries—falling off a bike, breaking an arm, spraining an ankle on the soccer field—have declined significantly among children and teenagers born in the early aughts. That sounds like a good thing—fewer broken arms means kids are safer, right? But while accidental, play-related injuries have gone down, emergency room visits for self-harm have increased 188% for adolescent girls and 48% for boys since 2010. We are not safer; not with ourselves.

As Gen Z grows up, our adulthood shows signs of developmental delays. We go on fewer dates and have less sex. We are getting our driver’s licenses later or not at all; we are living with our parents longer. We drink less and go to fewer parties than past generations. Our abstinence from risk is not a reflection of strict moral influences or time redirected to other, “safer” ways of interacting with the three-dimensional world—far from it, we are less likely than past generations to engage in hobbies, play and watch sports, or work after-school jobs. We are, quite simply, doing less than any generation before us. 

Chart: Zach RauschSource: Monitoring the Future Get the data Embed Download image

Social psychologist and author of The Anxious Generation Jonathan Haidt argues that our increasingly two-dimensional lives are the result of “the end of play-based childhood” and its replacement with “phone-based childhood.” During a recent talk in London, Haidt asked audience members of the Gen X and Baby Boomer generations to think back to their childhoods. He asked them to remember the things they did with friends, the adventures they had, and then imagine removing 70% of those encounters – remove hobbies, then risks, thrills, and adventures where you might have gotten hurt—imagine 80% of that gone, he said. Now imagine growing up with what’s left. That is the extent to which Haidt believes smartphones gutted Gen Z’s childhood and adolescence. Our lives are now smaller, hollowed out, contained within digital software. 

“The fact that risk-taking activities like drinking are going down is a broader sign that young adults and adolescents are engaging with the world far less,” says Dr. Jessie Borelli, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of California, Irvine. “Becoming an adult involves risk. Making mistakes, including through risk-taking behaviors, is practicing being an adult.” 

Moreover, she says, “Getting together in person is effortful. You have to endure a certain amount of discomfort, whether it’s the cost of leaving the house, encountering traffic, or the time it takes to put on different clothes.” 

We are not safer; not with ourselves.

For a subset of the population who grew up on social media and spent some of their most formative developmental years taking classes and interacting with peers only online, any effort at real-life interpersonal connection carries inherent risk — embarrassment, rejection, heartbreak, abandonment. When we weigh the decision of whether to engage effortfully with the world or just stay home, it’s no wonder we gravitate toward the option that involves less risk.

What that cost-benefit analysis is missing, however, is the fact that loneliness and isolation have profound consequences for not just our emotional wellbeing, but our long-term physical and cognitive health. “Social isolation and loneliness increase a person’s risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, dementia, depression, anxiety, suicidality, and premature death,” says Shannon Vyvijal, the Communications and Programming Coordinator for the Foundation for Social Connection. The upside, Vyvijal says, is that “social connection is really both a remedy and a preventative measure. In addition to making us healthier, it makes our communities safer. Socially connected communities have lower rates of gun violence and drug deaths. It makes communities more prosperous and helps local GDP. It leads more people to volunteer in their communities. It helps us become more civically engaged. We begin to trust institutions and one another again.”

Gen Z knows it’s lonely. “Loneliness is a discrepancy between how connected we are, and how connected we want to be,” Vyvijal says. “If, like many members of Gen Z report, you are someone who wants to date and hasn’t yet, or you are on dating apps and not satisfied with the level of connection they provide, that discrepancy is contributing to loneliness.” The disconnect between having and wanting connection often sets in motion a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the stigma of social undesirability increasing a person’s tendency to retreat from others. “The lonely brain continues to self-isolate,” she explains. 

They—we—are not content to live in a purgatory of risk-averse, adventureless post-post-adolescence.

Even as hyper-individualism in work and school swells and spills over into life after-hours, Gen Z is begging for community. We are begging for risk. Signs of our accelerating desperation occupy every corner of the Zoomer internet. In the r/GenZ subreddit, an 18-year old appeals to their peers for advice on how to make friends; a 21-year-old college student laments her campus’s lack of community; a 19-year-old worries she’s a “loser” for having never gotten drunk or gone to a party.  On Facebook, young adults post friendship applications. A Gen Z woman complains of the death of clubbing in a TikTok video that amassed over 3.5 million views. A viral dating deep-dive from The Cut shows young women crying on camera while describing their longing for partnership. 

Not far behind, tech companies roll out solutions for Gen Z to cure our loneliness without looking up from our phones. Tinder backs a new “dating app for friends.” On Bumble BFF, users swipe right on pictures of prospective friends. Still lonely? Try downloading Replika, “THE chatbot for anyone who wants a friend with no judgment, drama, or social anxiety involved.” No risk, all reward.

But Gen Z is getting older, in spite of its delayed adulthood, and making the move toward real-world community as a form of generational healing. The tide of self-isolation appears to be turning as loneliness and boredom reach a fever pitch, with a growing number of young adults taking the matter offline and into their own hands. Running clubs, singles parties, book clubs, wine nights, and self-made social events are on the rise. A new trend emphasizes the importance of third places—communal spaces like public parks, libraries, and coffee shops where people can come together and fill the time between work and home. They are taking their hobbies offline. They are volunteering more. They are urging moral awakening over self reinvention. They—we—are not content to live in a purgatory of risk-averse, adventureless post-post-adolescence.

I can’t say I wish playground injuries on kids or hangovers on college students. I do hope, however, that we will return to a margin of risk where it’s OK to fall off your bike, get your heart broken, dance badly at a party—because that’s part of the deal of living in the three-dimensional world. If we watch from a safe distance, that world will keep outgrowing us.

Invented Here

Posted on by Ella

Invented Here is a podcast series from LearningWell Radio and the Coalition for Transformational Education. In this episode, Dr. Angela Lindner joins LearningWell Radio co-host Dana Humphrey to discuss UF Quest, a Gen-Ed program at the University of Florida that aims to provide first-year students, particularly FTICs (first time in college), an opportunity to learn how to learn within an intimate, interactive classroom environment. 

Listen now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.