Category: Q&A

Tyler VanderWeele, Ph.D., has in interesting C.V. He is a social scientist, an epidemiologist, and a theologian. And in the world of flourishing research, he is somewhat of a celebrity. VanderWeele is the director of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science. The initiative aims to study and promote human flourishing and to catalyze knowledge across disciplines that intersect with key components, including family, friendship, virtue, community, work, beauty, forgiveness, religion, purpose, and meaning. 

The program’s most recent research, the Global Flourishing Study, made headlines around the world for its eye-opening preliminary findings. Among them was the collapse of the U-shaped pattern of flourishing, which traditionally indicates greater levels of wellbeing among young people and older adults. According to the report, it was the poor mental health and wellbeing of the Gen Z cohort that caused the disruption. 

This month, VanderWeele and his team launched a separate initiative examining flourishing among young people — this time college students and their role in what VanderWeele calls “academic flourishing.” He describes the concept as “the relative attainment of a state in which all aspects of an academic community’s life are good,” including the degree to which institutions help students grow as human beings. 

The Academic Flourishing Initiative invites colleges and universities throughout the country to join in data collection and reflection in three areas: the individual flourishing of students, the flourishing of the campus community, and students’ perceptions as to how university life has contributed to their own formation. The last area excites VanderWeele, as he sees the understanding of how colleges contribute to attributes such as citizenship, character, purpose, and meaning as both innovative and, in some cases, controversial. 

In his office in Cambridge, VanderWeele offers coffee and conversation about the issues he has made the center of his scholarship and curiosity. 

LW: How did the Academic Flourishing Initiative come about? 

TV: Our working definition of flourishing is “the relative attainment of a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good, including the contexts, the communities, the environments in which they live.” And while we’ve been looking at this at a global scale across numerous countries with our Global Flourishing Study, we do also firmly believe that a lot of the actual work of promoting flourishing happens in more local institutions. And from our prior reviews, we suggest four major institutional pathways to flourishing: family, work, education, and religious community.

As we’ve continued to reflect on how to promote flourishing in practice, we’ve thought that what we need to do is focus on each of these institutional pathways — on the dynamics that are specific to each of them and on how we can further strengthen opportunities to flourish. That led to work with schools and thinking about colleges and universities as well. On the school front, we partnered with the O.E.C.D. to develop a framework for metrics for education, for flourishing, which we’re also now working on operationalizing. But being embedded ourselves in an academic context, we thought we should take these notions seriously for our own university community.  What does it mean for an academic community to flourish?  It certainly involves the individual flourishing of the students, the staff, and the faculty which involves our established flourishing assessments — happiness and health and meaning and relationships and character and financial security.

But the flourishing of the community is more than that. It is also about good relationships within the community, proficient leadership, healthy structures and practices in place to help sustain the community with a sense of belonging and a common mission. To that end, we’ve taken our community wellbeing measure and adapted it for university context. But then we also thought, let’s turn to the mission and vision statements of colleges and universities and see how they reflect on their own understanding of themselves.

“Let’s turn to the mission and vision statements of colleges and universities and see how they reflect on their own understanding of themselves.”

You see pretty consistent themes, especially in research universities, related to the generation, preservation, and transmission of knowledge. But you also see, very regularly, notions of student formation — that institutions are here to help shape citizen leaders of the future, to help develop students who can contribute in important ways to society, to develop leaders who have creative capacities to address, in an ethical manner, some of society’s most challenging problems.

And we started thinking, Well, if we’re going to take the mission of these institutions seriously, we should start by assessing whether these beautiful, grand, important aspirations are, in fact, being achieved. Perhaps we can begin by asking students whether they think they’ve been shaped in these ways as part of their university or college experience. Has the university helped them to grow in wisdom and justice and leadership and capacities to work across difference — in addition to, of course, developing knowledge and capacities for critical thinking? It was those sorts of considerations that really led to this work and what we’re calling “academic flourishing.”

LW:  What is your pitch to institutions on why they should participate?   

TV: Essentially, we’re saying that the data collection that is typically taking place — often on retention rates and academic performance, job placement and salaries, mental health, experiences of bias and discrimination — is generally good. This is important work that should be done. But students who come to universities, and parents who send their children to universities — indeed, the universities themselves — often aspire to more. And if that’s the case, why aren’t we doing assessments on these other matters: whether there has been a growth in wisdom; whether they have greater capacity to think critically; whether they have been prepared for leadership; whether this has helped them to clarify their life purpose and define meaning? Students want this. If parents want this, and if universities and colleges aspire to this, let’s collect the data.

This is not being presented as an alternative to what colleges and universities are already doing, but rather as a supplement. And if colleges and universities don’t want to do that, then so be it. But what we’ve seen is that a number of them do, and so this is just an invitation to do so.

LW: In terms of the invitation to the colleges and universities, what exactly are you inviting them to do? How do you engage with them?

TV: We’re inviting them to participate both in assessment and data collection campus-wide, and then also to join a community of practice with other colleges and universities that are doing similar data collection. The idea is to reflect on the data, to try to understand it, and to try to work out together what the best ways forward are. How do you address the weaknesses as well as the strengths within a particular institution?

The heart of this academic flourishing survey is focused on — again — first, the individual flourishing of the students; second, the student’s assessments of whether the university or college is flourishing as a community; and third — and this is the real innovation — the students’ perceptions of the contribution of university life to their own development: to their growth and knowledge and critical thinking, yes, but also to their moral formation and character development and their capacities for leadership and citizenship, and their ability to find meaning and growth in the process of their college experience.

And so we’ve included 24 of these student formation questions, in addition to the individual flourishing and the community wellbeing questions. Universities are being invited to collect this data, and we have an automated Qualtrics survey to do this in a very straightforward manner. And we’ve now set up infrastructure to immediately convert that survey into a report for the individual school. And then that data will be used in a much larger database to try to understand dynamics across schools and universities. In addition, we’ll be hosting meetings and events to discuss the similarities and differences across institutions. If one university has a particular strength, we’ll talk about how this came about. How can the other universities strengthen in this regard?

LW: Do you get push back from people saying that flourishing and this student formation work is outside of the scope of higher education?

TV: In our academic paper, we include a principle with regard to the appropriate scope of efforts for flourishing in education. And we would agree that it’s not the school’s or the university’s responsibility to sustain all aspects of a student’s flourishing. This requires families. This requires neighborhoods. This requires workplaces. This requires religious communities. You can’t make the school responsible for everything, and they’re not equipped to do so.

On the other hand, just to say education is only about vocational career preparation seems too narrow because you have these extraordinary narratives — anecdotes — about transformative experiences. There’s real potential there, and we don’t want to restrict that potential. We’ve said what we’ve proposed is that the proper scope of educational efforts oriented towards flourishing concerns those aspects of flourishing around which societal consensus can be attained and for which educational leaders and staff and faculty are prepared to address.

LW: What has been the reaction to the student formation work?

TV: Different institutions each have a very different focus, and that needs to be acknowledged. We have divided the student formation questions into these four domains: knowledge and critical thinking, character formation, citizenship and leadership, and then meaning and growth. Not all of these aspects of student formation will necessarily be of interest to all institutions.

We think pretty much any college would be interested in increasing cognitive capacities and knowledge, so those we feel are always core. What we’ve also argued is, even for institutions that don’t embrace character formation as part of their mission, some of this is necessary to accomplish the cognitive and epistemic goals of their institutions. You need a certain level of perseverance to work through difficulties and to push one’s mind. You need a certain level of courage to work through controversial or challenging questions. And you need honesty in test-taking and research practices. We need justice and patience to be able to hear different perspectives we might not like.

I think everyone would agree on a lot of this. Take courage. Do we want our students to be cowardly? Let’s get a show of hands amongst the trustees and the faculty — who wants our students to be cowardly? What about honesty? Who wants our students to be dishonest? What about your practical wisdom? Who wants our students to be foolish? You’re just not going to get many takers. There’s a lot of individual character strengths that I think we can agree are important.

A number of colleges and universities have real visions of flourishing for their students, and that includes meaning and growth. Different institutions may place different weights on these various aspects of student formation, and we are not trying to be prescriptive. What we’re saying is, collect the data and hopefully your strengths align with where your primary areas of focus are. And if not, then it’s time to work on it.

LW: Do you find that schools are interested in flourishing because of the mental health association?

TV: Yes, I think there may be interest in flourishing because of mental health concerns, but we are trying to broaden beyond this. I think there may be roughly equal interest in the flourishing of the students and in these student formation questions. We’ve been leading with student formation as the real innovation here because there are other universities collecting wellbeing data. But all these aspects are related. I do think the mental health and wellbeing crisis amongst youth has gotten much of society to take these matters more seriously and to reflect upon them. What are the sources of that decline? I do think one of the sources is a lack of meaning, a lack of purpose. This is evident in surveys as well, when asking younger adults and students: What do they long for? What are they seeking? I think meaning is increasingly a common theme there.

LW: Four of your student formation questions are included in the Wall Street Journal college rankings. What does that indicate?

TV: We are certainly pleased that they would take these matters seriously, but we’ll let the college and university rankings folks continue their work. We are, however, going to try to use this data collection with the Wall Street Journal to launch the movement, but our goal after this is not to directly participate in any sort of ranking endeavors. We are focusing on the relative strengths and weaknesses of each institution, rather than comparing them. What can you be proud of and perhaps use in your marketing materials? Where are areas for growth, which you may not put in your marketing materials but want to work on internally? And then what do you learn from other institutions that may have different strengths and weaknesses than you?

LW: What’s next for the Academic Flourishing Initiative?

TV: We’re just starting out, and we’re focused on students. But as discussed in the academic piece, ultimately, if we’re talking about the flourishing of a community, that includes faculty and staff as well. So that’s another direction we would like to eventually go. We’d also like to look at alumni and parents. I think employers would be another interesting aspect of this. But we needed to begin somewhere, and students seem to be the right place to being.

At Roanoke College, purpose is part of the brand. With the motto, “Our purpose is to help you find yours,” the school prides itself on guiding young people towards full and rich lives focused on doing good in the world.  

The champion of this bold expression of formative education is Roanoke’s President Frank Shushok. With degrees in education and 30 years of experience in the field, Shushok is passionate about the role higher education can play in young people’s personal and professional growth and has compelling reasons for why they should be intertwined. In this interview with LearningWell, Shushok talks about creating counter-cultures on campus in which students are frequently asked meaningful questions without binary answers.  

LW: How has your background influenced your role as a college president?  

FS: First of all, I am a person of faith, and what I mean by that is my whole life has been shaped by a sense that life is for a purpose. Believing that my own life can push forward goodness in the world is something that both centers me and compels me. I’ve also been focused on interfaith curiosity and collaboration, and along the way, that has drawn me into many conversations about how people find meaning and purpose in their lives. 

Almost all people yearn to understand why they’re here, and I find very few people who, at the end of that question, don’t believe their life should be for something good. Whether I’m sitting at a table with Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, Christians, or atheists, I have found that when we begin a conversation about how we find meaning and purpose in life, designing a life toward virtue is a really powerful connector. 

That framing says a lot about how I view higher education. I absolutely believe every student should be able to graduate and find work that can support them economically and support their families. But I also want them to find purpose in that work and to find an alignment between their gifts and talents and a need that the world has. When that happens, energy and hope abound, and who doesn’t want more of that?

I’m such a fan of the good work that’s being done on the science of hope and the idea that hope has three actionable components: goals, pathways, and agency. In short, to have hope, you need a goal you’re shooting for and practical ways to go after it. You also need pathways and a consistent belief that you can get there — agency. What I love about the agency part is some people have plenty of agency and some people are growing in their agency, and that’s the golden time when they need someone to walk alongside them until they have the confidence to make progress toward their goals. That’s our job. Fundamentally, I believe that higher education is there to inspire in students a sense of purpose, shaped by character, and that makes life so much richer for them and for everyone in their orbit — their families, communities, workplaces, etc.  

But for whatever reason, I find a lot of college students haven’t thought about how their education can be about connecting to much more than a job-slash-career. Often, it’s not a question or a conversation they’ve been having at home. And it’s not a conversation that they’ve been having in the educational environment they were in prior to college. Sometimes, they make it all the way through college and never have this dialogue with anyone, even within themselves. In fact, they mostly have had one conversation, which is about the return on investment question: “If I go to college, what should I study so I can get a certain job, so I can have a particular level of economic security?” 

Those are also good questions, but they’re much more powerful if they’re coupled with other questions like the imperatives we have in our strategic plan, which champions the exploration of purpose, the pursuit of character, and the graduation of leaders. This is a distinction of the Roanoke experience. We’ve created this entity called PLACE (Purpose, Life And Career Exploration) drawn from our old career center model, and what we’re saying here is this process is about so much more than getting a job.  

LW: Do you think these imperatives are particularly important at this moment in time?  

FS: Absolutely. I found a report released by the Harvard Graduate School of Education sobering. Thirty-six percent of young adults aged 18 to 25 are struggling with anxiety, and 29 percent are dealing with depression. The study reveals some likely suspects, including worrying about finances, feeling pressure to achieve, being concerned with the world unraveling, and feeling like they don’t matter to others. But the number one driver of poor mental health for young adults was a lack of meaning, purpose, and direction in their lives, with 58 percent reporting. We can’t ignore that deep yearning to understand what makes life matter.

LW: How do you go about “meaning making” with students?  

FS: There are many practices to engage, but we need practices that shape culture so that culture shapes practices. What I mean by that is we first ask good questions, which will help us get good at being thoughtful and spur us to think more deeply about better questions worthy of our time. In a way, it’s countercultural. The power of a question is a crucial thing to acknowledge. Occasionally, I experiment to see how long it takes for someone to ask me a meaningful question — a question that asks me to reveal something about who I am, what I believe, where I’m going, what’s motivating me, and why I care.

If you pay attention, you can go a whole day without anyone asking you that kind of question. I think what we can do in a place like Roanoke College or any institution of higher education is to create a culture where we teach ourselves to be countercultural and to ask questions of meaning and purpose, questions that engage all of our not-so-disparate parts: our intellectual selves, our emotional selves, our moral selves. But we have to acknowledge we live in a world where people are moving at warp speed. Technology overwhelms people, and no one’s asking them meaningful questions. In turn, they’re not developing the habit of asking other people meaningful questions. Without meaningful questions, there is little need for astute listeners. And when we don’t develop astute listeners, we’re often not encouraging thoughtful learners.

“Without meaningful questions, there is little need for astute listeners. And when we don’t develop astute listeners, we’re often not encouraging thoughtful learners.”

I have two questions that I keep at the forefront of my mind every day as I approach my work: First, what am I trying to increase the probability of occurring through my daily activities, conversations, and experiences? And second, what am I doing when I’m doing what I’m doing? See, every one of us is engaged in seemingly unidimensional transactions, but underneath them is a greater purpose. Whether you’re serving food in the dining center or you’re advising or you’re standing in front of a classroom, the kinds of questions you ask and the kinds of listening you do and the way that you view your purpose — what you’re doing when you’re doing what you’re doing — it shapes everything. So many people on a college campus don’t understand the incredibly transformational and powerful role they play as educators when they enact the important and powerful pedagogical practice of asking meaningful questions, followed by deep and curious listening.

LW: How do you get a whole campus to embrace this approach?  

FS: It’s slow and iterative, like all transformations. In many ways, the headwinds pull you away from doing these things, so you must drive into the wind. You must be committed and undeterred when the car’s shaky. Sometimes, you have to slow down a little, meaning it will take a little extra time, but it will be worth it. But if you believe that the whole world can shift by doing this, you can stay the course.

There’s a book that I’m particularly fond of by Peter Block called “Community: The Structure of Belonging,” where he talks about the small group as being the unit of transformation. You think of these movements as top-down, and they are to some degree because one of the first things you must do is declare a shift. In our case, we determined and stated that we would make the exploration of purpose, the pursuit of character, and the graduation of leaders a distinction of Roanoke College. 

But a stated plan becomes a cultural transformation at the small group level. It’s the small conversations. What new conversations do we want to have, where will we conduct them, and who at every level will start? These things happen at the micro level, and then they become exponentially more likely to occur naturally on a campus. Over time, you’ll be surprised that everything has been transformed.

My assumption about how we build people of character and shape virtue and moral fiber is that none of it happens outside the context of community, and you can’t desire community until you’ve experienced it. One of the immediate structural challenges when people enter a new environment is to help them experience community. There are a lot of young people who come to a college campus who haven’t experienced it, and they don’t know that they need it. They’re not going to look for it. We have many, many lonely young people. It’s up to us to play a structural role in creating an environment that increases the likelihood that community happens. 

LW: Would you connect this work to what employers say we need more of: people who understand people? 

FS: Yes. When you think about the technical skills that are required to build a 21st century aircraft, it requires incredible knowledge of physics, engineering, aerodynamics. But we also need people that can convene other people from different vantage points and communicate in adaptive ways that allow for understanding based on different acculturation. And look what happens from a character or virtue standpoint. If there is pressure to produce something in a particular timeframe that may not be safe, that’s not a technical question. That’s a moral question.

You really need expertise and character. You need a competent “what” and a firm “why.” You need to know what you’re doing when you’re doing what you’re doing. Are you taking care of humanity? Are you loving people? Are you looking for opportunities to lift others up? Are you viewing yourself as part of a greater community? Those are the kinds of questions, the kinds of values, that when coupled with the job that you have, make such a powerful combination.

LW: Does higher education have a role to play in addressing the polarization we are experiencing on so many levels? 

FS: Yes. I think this is why I’m attracted to this conversation of character. Most of the skills that are important in character formation are learning to listen and asking good questions, which may be as simple as forming a meaningful question, versus a question with a binary answer. You get better at these things when you’re equipped, and then you get to practice in an environment where there are people with diverse viewpoints and different backgrounds. And I think a legitimate critique of higher education is that we have preferred echo chambers and haven’t been interested in listening to and learning from some voices, and there are some good reasons why that’s been the case. But if we view leadership as growing the skill and capacity to bring people together to achieve a common goal that is good for all, then yes, we can widen the circle. And I think those who can do that most effectively must be well-informed people of character. Because that is what will keep you in a place of productivity when times are tough and conversations are hard.  

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

Here at LearningWell, we are always interested in new approaches university leaders take to foster community on campus—with students, among students, and within the faculty and administration. So our ears pricked up when, at a recent gathering of educators, we heard Connie Book, the president of Elon University, speak about her practice of ambushing parents with good news phone calls. 

We asked her to expand on this and other things she does to help cultivate connection. Her experience and insights tap into her years as the first female provost and dean at The Citadel, a military college in Charleston, S.C., and far earlier to her own upbringing in a large family as the sixth of nine children.

LW: I heard you speak recently about your Friday phone calls to parents of students who’d done something noteworthy. I love this idea of catching students in the act of doing something good. Can you tell us more about it? 

CB: Sometimes it’s when they’ve done something like won an academic award, but other times it’s when they’ve taken on some role on campus, like they’re on a committee or helping us with something new that we’re trying to accomplish. Or sometimes it’s just students that I think, Oh, he’s really interesting. He just makes the student body more present. It’s such an easy thing to do. The parents are always grateful, and the kids are, too.

I do it on Friday afternoons because at the end of a long week, Fridays can be a day that some unpleasant things get dumped before the weekend. When I worked at The Citadel, the military guys would never take appointments on Friday afternoons because they said that’s when the second lieutenants came in and wanted to dump the problems on them, and they didn’t want to let this ruin their weekend. So it’s my realization that my Fridays could, depending on what was going on campus, really stage either a terrible weekend or a relaxing weekend. So I started being a lot more intentional about Friday afternoons. 

LW: As a mother of college kids myself, I imagine it could be really moving for a parent to get that call. Can you give us an example?

CB: The first call I made was in my second year here at Elon when one of our first-generation college students won a Goldwater Award. If you’re in higher ed, you understand what that means. But I thought, I think her parents don’t even realize what a significant achievement that was. So I just decided on Friday afternoon, I had the staff pull her record, and I called her father. They see the out-of-state area code for the university come up on their phone, so the first thing I say is, “Your child is healthy and fine and not in trouble.” Just to get all that off the table. I did have such a powerful conversation with him that day. It felt so good to share with him what a remarkable daughter he had and that she was doing such good things, and then explain what the Goldwater was and how much our community here enjoyed having her. And then he shared about all the hard work she had done to get to college from the time she was very young. It was a conversation about the hard work that young people do to make sure they have a good opportunity, the process, and the appreciation when scholarships come through and they can afford college. Just leaving home from Arizona to come to Elon was a risk. After I hung up, I thought, Wow, I should do this more often because it was driving my sense of mission and purpose about the work. You can get so wrapped up in politics or budgeting or some other challenge that it can be a barrier to really feeling the mission, and on those calls, I feel the mission and the impact it’s having. 

LW: What are some other ways you make yourself more present for the student body? Do I recall hearing you mention something about Ping-Pong?

CB: Yes. Friday is my day to connect with students. So I play table tennis at one o’clock for an hour. They sign up on a whiteboard. There’s always a line there to play. Students will say, “This was on my bucket list, to come play with you before I graduated.” I have parents show up, because they’ve heard I do it, and they’re good at it. So they’re like, “Oh, the next time I’m on campus, I want to play the president.”

LW: And how did this activity occur to you? 

CB: When my son was in middle school, he really started answering every question with one word answers. “Yes. No.” I could not get him to talk about anything. So I told him that winter, let’s bring the Ping-Pong table inside. We had played occasionally, but we started playing every day. And then I noticed that because you talk when you play, he would start talking more after a couple of sets. 

That’s true with the students here, too. I’ll always say, “Well, what’s your major? Where are you from?” And we get talking. My son now is an Olympic-rated table tennis player, so I know how to play, and I like to win. If they have a good hit and beat me, I’m always like, “Aaand … What’s your name again?”

LW: So this game isn’t just a walk in the park! But that is true about communication with teens, having that shared activity to get you talking. 

CB: I actually do walks with students, too, a couple of times a semester. I’ll invite student groups, post where I’m going, and anybody can show up and join us. What’s really funny about that is that students, when they see where I’m going to be, sometimes they do come to lobby me for different things. I had some theater students ask for a budget increase. It’s almost like I had a little tracker on me. “Yeah, we know where she is.”

LW: Ha! Future politicians. What about community building with faculty, staff, administration? Do you have strategies for outreach with them as well?

CB: I would say our culture is pretty open already. Like last week, I had two faculty conversations that I announced literally on Monday and had them on Friday. And I always have audience microphones. I have three suggestion boxes on campus and an online one where anybody can tell me anything.

LW: Are they used? 

CB: Yes. And they do tell me anything. Some are like, “The doorknobs are broken here.” But they are usually about things that make the workplace or the learning environment better. “Have you considered doing this?” 

I am a believer in letting people know you are open, saying to them essentially, “Hey, if you see something, let me know because I can’t see what you can see.” It may not create the solution they have in mind. Bring me the problem, but don’t get too wedded to the solution. They have to be open to us problem-solving together. 

LW: Do you have an example of some kind of problem brought to you that way?

CB: We have an ombuds program here for the faculty. It’s very official. You have to do the training. We pay a stipend. But one of the staff people that serves as the ombuds also happens to be an employee in Human Resources. And people said, “I’m not comfortable going to HR to talk to the ombuds person because it’s supposed to be a confidential unit.” I had never thought of that because we have been doing this through HR for a long time, and it never occurred to me that people saw that as a disciplinary unit so that there was hesitancy. We did add another ombuds person to the mix. And we worked together on the job description to give people more choice. 

LW: What kinds of things did you learn from the requests coming into the ombuds person? 

CB: What was really powerful about that is that I was always thinking it was workplace disagreements, but I learned a lot that people need somebody to talk to about personal challenges. They were coming to her for things like food insecurity, car repairs. And I was like, Wow, it’s almost like pastoral care. We have on-site counseling services for students but not employees. So it was a good learning moment for me as well. 

LW: Is that going to spark any kind of a change in the way you offer counseling services or pastoral services for employees? 

CB: It could. We have a chaplain here, and the chaplain has an emergency fund. Part of it was letting the ombuds person know they have a resource in the chaplain, who can help. But for some people, religion might be a barrier, too. 

LW: Is there anything else you’d like to add about community building? We’re at a very difficult moment nationally—both socially and politically, as well as educationally. Is there anything you do at Elon to break down barriers? 

CB: Well, we have 7,000 students on campus at Elon, and there’s a longstanding community dead-period—a time where you don’t have any classes—on Tuesday and Thursday mornings around 10 o’clock. On Tuesdays, we have College Coffee—free coffee and donuts outside when the weather is good—and there’s always several hundred people that come. And then on Thursdays, we have a spiritual program with singing. We’re not religiously affiliated. We’re independent. But there’s certainly a really vibrant feeling with multiple faiths represented. 

Also, we have a street that runs down the middle of campus, and during really difficult times, we will put a chalkboard out there. The day after the election, for example, we put up boards inviting the hopes that students had about the future. Politically, we don’t overly lean one way or the other, so the responses were really down the middle. Like, “There’s happiness for all to find joy in every day.” Or, “Strength and unity. God is good. We can all love and accept each other, no questions asked.” And then we kept them up in the student union for several weeks. I decided to take some pictures of them because every now and then I like to remember that part of what we’re doing on college campuses is the critical work of a future that we won’t be alive to witness, but we are planting all these seeds for a really strong future for all of us all around the world. To me, that is purpose-driven work. And I like to pull it out and be reminded.

“I like to remember that part of what we’re doing on college campuses is the critical work of a future that we won’t be alive to witness.”

LW: You have a very insightful and empathic way of talking about students and the experience of leading a university, something people might not expect to evolve from working in a military environment. How did you come by this mindset? 

CB: That’s a really good question. Growing up in my own family, I’m number six of nine kids, and both of my parents were educators. I think about all the great lessons of sharing and compromise and negotiation that you learn in a family. I think one of the things as a president that I think a lot about is that I see and witness things. And then my job is often to tell the story of that to people who influence the resources and regulatory policy that shape the world we live in on campus. 

LW: Thank you for that plug for the benefits of a large family. I have five children, but it doesn’t always feel like the world sees that as a positive. 

CB: Oh yeah, the good lessons of humility, of being an equal and doing your part. My job was to do the laundry growing up, three loads a day. 

LW: The chore chart. And the role of fairness and truth-telling. And squabbling and learning to work it out. Those are powerful things.

CB: I have been really aware of the power of this witnessing piece. And so now I think I’m intentionally looking all the time, talking to parents, and wanting to be effective in sharing the power of the work that’s going on on college campuses. Especially at a time when the negative rhetoric is suggesting that it’s not needed and it’s not worth it. Yet we all know 99 percent of what we’re experiencing on a college campus is good and powerful. 

Ellise LaMotte, Tufts University’s Associate Provost for Student Success, knows how difficult college can be, particularly if you feel you don’t belong. Where she now works to connect all kinds of students with the support they need to succeed, she once felt utterly alone as a Black woman in a predominantly White, male field.   

LaMotte says the early setbacks she experienced as a first-year engineering student only made her more determined to make it in technology, business, and academia. After graduating from Northeastern University with an engineering degree, she spent years in telecommunications, earning a master’s and then a Ph.D., after working at Babson College. That led to a position at Olin College of Engineering, where she came full circle, realizing she had arrived at a position to make a difference in the STEM space for students, especially underrepresented ones. 

In this interview for LearningWell, LaMotte discusses what motivated her to continually move forward in school and life, starting with her desire to make her parents proud. 

LW: Has education always been important to you?

LaMotte: Growing up in my household, I honestly thought there was a law on the books requiring everyone to attend college. That stemmed from my dad. He had a great work ethic and expected us to have the same. Our only responsibility was to work hard on our education. He was determined to ensure that my brother and I attended college and were going to be successful and self-sufficient.  

So, my first motivation for attending college and pursuing advanced degrees was simple: to make my parents proud and to make sure I took advantage of their hard work.

As I grew older, I excelled in math and science—and, more importantly, I liked the subjects. The first time we dissected a cow’s heart, I was all in, and math was like a game I wanted to win. Everyone around me told me I could become an engineer and could make a lot of money. That advice led me to attend Northeastern University in Boston.

LW: What was that experience like?

LaMotte: It was very different. I grew up in Jamaica, Queens, New York, in a predominantly Black and brown neighborhood, and suddenly, I found myself in spaces where I was in the minority all day long—usually the only woman and the only black person. That change of environment started playing out in my head, reinforcing the messages I always heard: “You have to be twice as good. You have to work twice as hard.”

I was determined to succeed, but I didn’t know how. My freshman year was a disaster. I had never failed a class in my life, yet I failed physics. That alone was tough, but what made it worse was another physics professor, who was also my advisor, one day came over and asked me and the two other women in the class, “Why are you in my classroom?” Then, he flat-out told us, “You should go home to your moms and become nurses, or teachers.” Needless to say, I dropped the class.

LW: Wow. What got you through? 

LaMotte: First off, my self-determination was strong. Second, I joined a Black women’s engineering sorority, Sigma Beta Epsilon, Inc., and I saw that these women, who were not much older than me and who looked like me, were succeeding in engineering. This was another piece of my how-to-be-successful puzzle. I now had mentors who said to me, “You can do this.” Fast forward to today, and these women are my friends who have become family. Other puzzle pieces I discovered from the sorority members were how to study, how to use my time wisely, and how not to be afraid of faculty office hours. And with this encouragement, I got a lot braver. In every class, I sat in the “power” middle seat in the front row. I thought to myself, “If you are going to ignore me, then you are going to ignore me intentionally.” There was no doubt that my motivation in college and afterwards stemmed from the mantra, “I’m going to do this because you think I cannot.”

“I’m going to do this because you think I cannot.”

LW: What did you do after college?  

LaMotte: My first job out of college was with a telecommunications company, and compared to college, my experiences were similar. I was usually the only woman and only Black person in a management role. I supervised people who were older than me and who were mostly White men. One man said to me, “You are my granddaughter’s age. What can I learn from you?”  Another time, I was told to change my hairstyle from braids, which I did not, potentially costing me future advancement. Through it all, I learned a great deal during my years in telecommunication, and these lessons learned shaped me professionally. However, I ultimately found the corporate world unfulfilling. 

LW: How did you end up in academia? 

LaMotte: I moved out of the corporate world into the non-profit space, supporting women entrepreneurs as they grew their businesses. I enjoyed creating initiatives and programs that directly support the dreams of others. From there, I found my way into higher education. I was finishing my Ph.D. in Education when I got an opportunity to join Olin College of Engineering, working for the provost as the director of academic services. Olin is a very creative place, where I found community and found I could get involved in initiatives on campus supporting students. I thought this is what I was meant to do—to support students in STEM who are underrepresented so they can shine. Over time, I wanted to be more student-facing, and that was the impetus for my move to Tufts University. 

I would also like to add that I had many role models during my doctoral journey. My professors and in particular my dissertation chairperson Dr. Tara Parker were instrumental as I altered my motivation, from extrinsic to ones that were more intrinsic. I now set goals to satisfy my interests and passions, so I can focus on honing my skills to support students whether I am at work or in my community providing service.

So back to my Tufts University journey, my first role there as the Center for STEM Diversity director was a great experience and made me realize my goal was to provide support for a larger student population on campus. So that opportunity and others at Tufts grew into my current role as Associate Provost for Student Success, working directly with President Sunil Kamar, Vice President for Strategic Initiatives Marty Ray, and Vice Provost for Education Cigdem Talgar. In this role, I work collaboratively to develop initiatives and opportunities, so all Tufts students are succeeding and thriving, regardless of their backgrounds. We are always thinking and asking the question, “What programs or structures can we put in place to support students at varying levels so they can thrive?” 

LW: You’ve fulfilled so many of the goals that motivated you. I’m assuming you have made your family proud.

LaMotte: Oh yes. I mentioned my dad. He was my silent cheerleader, and my mother was my out-loud cheerleader. They were present for my college and graduate school graduations. My mom was present for my doctoral graduation. Even though my dad was not there physically, his spirit was, as he received a shout out from University of Massachusetts’ Chancellor Dr. J. Keith Motley during his welcome address. As for my own nuclear family, my daughter witnessed me working while attending school, and she has always been proud of me for my efforts. Thus, I believe I am a good role model for her. As for my husband, he supports me in whatever I want to accomplish, makes way for me to reach my goals, and says to me at every turn, “Just go for it.” So, I always do!

The spring semester at the City University of New York (CUNY) brings a fresh approach to a perennial problem. CUNY’s new Transfer Initiative enables students currently transferring for Fall 2025 to move anywhere within the system without sacrificing credits towards their major. The key is an automated process that shows them how their existing credits transfer immediately upon acceptance. 

The new initiative helps students avoid losing credit, time, and money when moving from associate’s to bachelor’s degree programs within the 25-college system. It is a culmination of a number of strategies at CUNY aimed directly at benefiting students, the majority of whom are low-income and/or first-generation. The person driving much of this innovation is Alicia M. Alvero, CUNY’s Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost. A first-generation American trained in Organizational Behavior Management, Alvero has the heart and the head to make systemic change at the country’s largest urban university. 

From streamlining advising to harnessing generative AI, Alvero is helping the colleges strengthen how they support students, particularly with factors such as time-to-degree and career alignment, which affect their financial well-being. In this interview with LearningWell, she discusses her own trajectory in higher ed, how those experiences helped guide her work in CUNY’s central office, and how organizational change can benefit the people who need it the most.  

LW: You wear a number of hats at CUNY. Tell me a little bit about your trajectory there and, in your own words, what the job entails.

Alvero: So I started in CUNY at Queens College as a faculty member of Organizational Behavior Management in 2003. And during that time, I was doing a lot of consulting work for organizations on both leadership training and improving workflow and efficiencies within businesses. And as with all faculty, once you get tenured, you get administrative responsibilities. And so sure enough, I ended up with administrative responsibilities and started to realize that all of these skills I was teaching to outside organizations, I could apply in-house to the psychology department, which at the time was the largest department. 

We would have a lot of students who would get denied graduation because they took a wrong course. And I thought, that’s a crazy time to find that out, when you’re applying for graduation. And so I started to think, how do we improve our advisement system within the department to eliminate that? That is, how do we get that information to students right away? How do we create work or course schedules that really meet the needs of our students? 

We’d get complaints from students saying, “I took this course, but it’s only offered Tuesday/Thursday, and it conflicts with another course that I need to graduate.” So I started really looking at how we were doing the work and then meeting the needs of the students. How do I ensure the right faculty, especially the part-time faculty, get assigned to courses for which they’re experts? We’d create a schedule and then try to fill all the adjuncts, but sometimes at the day and time of the course that aligned with their expertise, they were unavailable. And I thought that was a silly reason to lose this wonderful person.

And so I started making some changes in the department. I guess it started getting recognized by the college and the president and the provost. And they started saying, “Can you do this for the entire college?” And that was really my introduction to what it could be like to be an administrator for college. Then I became the Associate Provost for Academic and Faculty Affairs. Then our provost was retiring, and so it was announced that I’d be the interim. But before stepping into the role, our now former Executive Vice Chancellor University Provost, Wendy Hensel, was coming from Georgia State, and she reached out to me and said, “I really need somebody on my team who understands CUNY faculty, understands the system, because I’m an outsider.” And that’s how I came to the central office. I said I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to do what I love at a much larger scale. So I became a Vice Chancellor of Academic and Faculty Affairs for two-and-a-half years, and now I’m the Interim University Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor. 

LW: If you could identify one main priority of your work, is that to better facilitate a supportive, or student-friendly, way for students to get from entrance to success throughout their degrees?

Alvero: Yes, but it’s also about taking a holistic approach. It’s not just about making the process student-friendly. It’s about ensuring that our technologies, platforms, and policies are truly designed to support student success. Are our systems integrated in a way that makes life easier for students? For example, when a student transfers, does their information seamlessly transfer with them, or are they required to fill out unnecessary paperwork, even within CUNY?

We examine every step of the student experience—from entry to graduation—including the technologies we use, the policies in place, and the human factors like academic advisement. Gaps in policy can hinder student success, and some existing policies may not be functioning as intended. Additionally, students often receive contradictory information when moving between institutions, and we need to eliminate that confusion.

Our goal is to streamline information—through technology, well-designed policies, and well-trained advisors—so that students can make informed academic decisions and receive the right support at the right time. We shouldn’t wait until a student drops out to intervene. Instead, we should leverage predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to identify and support struggling students early on. It’s about a comprehensive, proactive approach, rather than a single initiative.

LW: And why would you say this support is particularly important at CUNY, which primarily serves first-gen and low-income students?

Alvero: The majority of our students don’t have the benefit of an expert in their home to guide them through the college process. When someone in a family has gone to college, they often understand—at least to some degree—what it takes to be successful. Most of our students don’t have that resource. And while attending college doesn’t automatically make someone an expert, any level of insight or support from someone who has navigated the system can make a significant difference.

Without that guidance, many of our students are left to advocate for themselves. But how can they effectively do that if they don’t even know the steps? That’s why it’s so critical for us, as a system, to proactively remove obstacles and provide the support they need, rather than expecting them to figure it out on their own.

LW: Could you give me an example of what some of those specific measures or supports look like? 

Alvero: For example, when a student transfers from one school to another, they often have to make a decision about which school they should go to. And there’s this misconception that, “Well, all 60 credits from my associate’s degree will transfer.” That is true. All 60 credits will transfer, but it’s how they transfer that makes the difference. Even if you’re transferring from accounting to accounting, credits that you thought would count towards the accounting degree could end up transferring as electives. That’s not useful. And so I bring this up because as a student, if I apply and get accepted to two schools, I should be going where the majority of my major credits are going to apply towards that major. But students often have to make this decision completely in the dark. 

We just automated that entire process. So now, say a student applies to three schools and gets accepted to two of them. They log into their account and see how each school will accept every one of their credits. That’s very powerful information. And the moment they’re admitted, it’s triggered, before they even commit to a school. Oftentimes, students used to accept admission and still not know this information because there was a delay in somebody getting it to them. So this is one example of support through information that helps make a well-informed decision.

LW: I imagine many students, from a financial perspective, may not have the luxury of saying, “Oh, well that course won’t add to my degree from a credential perspective, but it was fun.” They have to be really focused, right?

Alvero: Absolutely. And for students on financial aid, they lose their aid because aid is based off of a certain number of credits. So if you’re spending time taking credits that aren’t going to count, you already used the aid for those courses. And so whether it’s wasted dollars out of pocket or wasted financial aid dollars, what happens when you run out of aid and you can’t afford to pay out-of-pocket and now you can’t complete your degree because you took too many courses that wouldn’t apply?

We estimated that we’ll be saving students $1,220 with the new transfer initiative because of the average number of wasted credits for our students, which is in line with the national average.

“What happens when you run out of aid and you can’t afford to pay out-of-pocket and now you can’t complete your degree because you took too many courses that wouldn’t apply?”

LW: How about teaching and learning innovations? What are you working on inside the classroom?

Alvero: I’ll give a very obvious answer, but it is a priority, and it’s artificial intelligence. There’s just so much potential and so much that we’re exploring, and faculty are really very excited about ways in which they can use artificial intelligence to help their teaching, help students learn, but also teach students how to use AI, a skillset they’re going to need in the workforce. 

We recently asked faculty to submit proposals for creative ways of embedding artificial intelligence within their general education courses. And we received well over, I think, 40 applicant requests. We received more requests than we could grant because we provide faculty with a stipend. We want them to report back after the semester about how it went. Did they see a change in student learning outcomes? We want to know if we should be working with faculty to embed these strategies throughout, whether it’s within our math courses or English courses, where we see students struggle. We’ve not recovered since the pandemic with the learning loss, and students are really struggling in those gateway courses. And so not surprisingly, a lot of faculty are trying creative solutions in the classroom to try to improve student learning outcomes.

LW: There is evidence that avoiding remedial classes and going straight into regular classwork tends to have better outcomes for students. Do you think AI could be a tool to help students get up to speed? 

Alvero: CUNY actually moved away from traditional remedial classes for the very reason you mentioned. Instead, we now use a co-requisite model, where students who need extra support are placed in regular classes but with additional hours of support built in. So for example, if a course is usually three hours a week, this one might be five or six hours. In those extra hours, there are opportunities to use generative AI. Let me give you an example: A professor might provide slides to the students, and since CUNY has a license with Microsoft, students can access a tool called Microsoft Co-Pilot, which is a secure AI chatbot that requires a CUNY login. A student could use the tool to say, “Take these slides and create a 10-question multiple-choice quiz for me.” The goal is to help students use these tools to master the material. Of course, we also need to teach students critical thinking skills so they can spot errors, including those that might come from AI. But by using Co-Pilot and other tools we have secure university licenses, we minimize issues like AI hallucinations because the information is based on the class slides, not something random from a public AI platform. That’s just one example of how AI can be used in the co-requisite model to help students learn.

LW:. How are you guys thinking about student well-being? Do you see people, particularly from your seat in the central office, focusing on or investing in these issues?

Alvero: Absolutely, it is definitely at the forefront of most all of our conversations. We work closely with the university student senate so that we have a direct line of communication and they can express student concerns, but it’s about creating a really supportive and safe environment for our students. And how that’s defined—what those needs are—will vary from student to student. For financial well-being, it’s not just about ensuring that they have their basic needs met. It’s also, how do we provide them with financial literacy? Because getting a degree is great, but if they don’t come out with that degree understanding finances and how to manage them to help break that cycle, that’s on us, in my opinion. So we think about it in every single aspect—ensuring basic needs are met, ensuring if anything should happen to a student where they don’t feel safe that they have resources when they need them.

Of course, mental health is really important, but so is academic support, financial assistance, and access to basic needs. We have a program called CUNY Cares, which is based in the Bronx. It’s a one-stop shop where students can go to see all the benefits they qualify for in New York City, instead of having to go from agency to agency. It’s been incredibly impactful for our students because they have someone there to help them navigate this complicated process. They get guidance on things like, “Do I qualify? How do I get all of these services I might be eligible for?” The truth is, many of our students are eligible for far more services than they actually receive.

LW: CUNY is a very pluralistic environment. How do you make people feel welcome wherever they come from, particularly in today’s political climate? 

Alvero: CUNY offers a number of resources to support students from all backgrounds. For example, we have an office specifically for undocumented immigrant students, where they can get help with finding relevant support, both within CUNY and externally. Every campus has a dedicated contact to guide them through the process.

We also have a college language immersion program that’s open to anyone in the community interested in learning English. It not only helps with language skills but also provides college readiness, acting as a pipeline for students to move forward. This approach is really woven into the fabric of who we are as an institution.

LW: How about your focus on helping students connect with careers? Are you thinking, in addition to salary and similar benefits, about the importance of students finding purpose and meaning in their profession?

Alvero: Oh, absolutely. And this is another example of the holistic view. The way I see this, it’s not just about connecting them to the right career. It’s helping them from the beginning figure out the right career choice for them. And so in my dream, which is something I am planning to bring to fruition, students could have one place to really explore CUNY from A to Z. For career exploration, they could figure out what appeals to them, what might they do, and then be connected to what programs exist within CUNY. Because if I enroll at one CUNY school, they’re not going to have every single major. Maybe I realize that for what I’m aspiring to, I’m in the wrong CUNY school. Maybe I should have started somewhere else. How can we help students navigate that? 

And as I’m navigating what programs exist within CUNY academically, what internships opportunities are there? How can we connect students directly to our career partner industries? We’re doing a lot of work with that and integrating career milestones into academic degree maps. Currently, most degree maps are just, “Take these courses in this order if you want to graduate in X amount of time.” But what are the career milestones at different points in time? So it’s this holistic view of exploring careers, academic programs, and career milestones all within one place.

LW: Clearly advising takes a number of different forms at CUNY. How important is that? 

Alvero: CUNY now officially has a Senior University Director of Academic Advisement Initiatives that can help. The colleges are craving this. They’re all trying to do their very best, but until now, we haven’t shared best practices. How can we connect all of the advisors? We have an Academic Advisement Council. Every college has their Director of Academic Advisement, so they are at the forefront of these discussions.

The schools all have their own culture, their own things that their academic advisors must learn and navigate, but there’s also a level of consistency, especially with really critical information: the general education curriculum, appeals processes, how transfer works. These are things that are universal to all the colleges. So rather than having them spend time designing training, how can we serve in that capacity to provide really robust training and provide resources that are universal to all of them, so everybody’s on the same page with some of the foundational, critical information? 

LW: You seem to me like a very humble person, but that sounds like something you made happen?

Alvero: I don’t want credit. It’s a team effort.