Addressing the rising prevalence of mental health issues, particularly among young people.

Mental Health

Examining innovations that help young people thrive.

Teaching &amp; Learning

Creating a more just world through higher education.

Access &amp; Inclusion

An end goal for learning and life.

Flourishing

Opinions leading to positive change.

Perspectives

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.”&nbsp; 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.



<figure class="wp-block-image alignleft size-large"><img src="https://live-learningwell-wp.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Estevan-Garcia-1-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-2085"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Dr. Estevan Garcia</figcaption></figure>



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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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?&nbsp;



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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; I spent those two years heavily involved in the work we were doing to create an actual road map for behavioral health in Massachusetts.&nbsp;



My background is in emergency medicine. &nbsp;I useasthma as an example of the way we look at illness in the emergency department.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Westarted to view behavioral health in the same way.&nbsp; “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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; There’s another 20 to 25% who could use some clinical support.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;



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. &nbsp;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.



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



For the 20 to 25% in the middle, we have clinical &nbsp;supports that help themmanage their illness, while also providing access to wellness activities.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; And it is really important that we don’t make them feel that they are alone.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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. &nbsp;



The Dartmouth community has faced several challenges since I arrived.&nbsp; I think it is helpful to have a clinician at the table.&nbsp; Health and wellness staff arenot enforcers, but supporters.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;It was not your normal college experience by far here and of course everywhere.&nbsp; Beginningin 2020, we had several student deaths including bysuicide, and it was clear they needed to address what was happening.&nbsp; In the summer of 2021, they brought the Jed Foundation in and that led to a major mental health review - &nbsp;campus visits, survey data, all of that.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;



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? &nbsp;



There are five pillars to the plan which drive the many activities and initiatives that we are working on. &nbsp;(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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; We call it normalizing life.



Regarding wellness services, we have made significant gains here.&nbsp; One of the first things I did was to move wellness to be a separate divisionwith a director reporting to me. &nbsp;Our health services are really top notch and I wanted wellness to be on equal footing.&nbsp; Additionally, we are arural community sometimes makingrecruitment difficult.&nbsp; To better meet the needs of our students, we needed to find ways of extending and diversifying our services.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; We have several hundred students who have engaged with the service.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; We know that a quarter of our students utilize our mental health services and that is similar across our student groups.&nbsp;&nbsp;That is a significant point since historically, underrepresented students seek help less frequently.&nbsp;



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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; There’s also some interesting things faculty are doing in their classrooms by integrating mindfulness techniques in their academic disciplines including physiology and languages.&nbsp; &nbsp;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.

Dr. Estevan Garcia is at the Table

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Dr. Zoe Ragouzeos, Vice President for Student Mental Health and Wellbeing at New York University&nbsp;and Dr. Eric Wood, Director of Counseling and Mental Health at Texas Christian University discuss what they are seeing in students returning this fall, how traumatic events of the past several years are affecting incoming students, and trends in the way we think about student behavioral health and wellbeing in higher education.&nbsp;



You can listen to the episode on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5QW5Rxw1zPJFm45gxpzKaf?si=b73e02185ad84f3b">Spotify</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learningwell-radio/id1732284927?i=1000669024701">Apple Podcasts</a>.

Talking student mental health and wellbeing with experts on campus

“The Real World of College,” Continued

Rochester, Minnesota has one of the highest per capita physician to population ratios in the country. Home to the Mayo Clinic, it benefits from the prosperity and diversity of its anchor institution, consistently rated the best hospital in the world. In 2009, the city strengthened its distinction as “America’s City for Health” when it launched a research university that would complement Mayo Clinic’s medical research enterprise and meet its ongoing workforce needs. The community appears to be getting all that and more with the University of Minnesota Rochester (UMR) – an innovative learning environment that centers equity and wellbeing as it takes on healthcare’s grand challenges.&nbsp;



“Building a major university here, particularly one focused on health care, has been so important to the fabric of this city,” said Mayor Kim Norton. “I am so proud of the work that they do and the success they have had with their students.”&nbsp;



UMR opened its doors to its first 57 students in 2009 after a multi-year effort among community leaders brought a regional branch of the University of Minnesota to town. It has grown to nearly 1,000 students who prepare to enter a variety of health-related fields, clinical, technical, and administrative. Two-thirds of the students are in at least one category that would be considered historically underrepresented. This fall, nearly 50% of the student population will be BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color).&nbsp;



Bringing more students of color into the medical professions is one of the goals of the UMR/Mayo Clinic partnership which hopes to provide a stronger pathway to medical careers as it diversifies a health care workforce that serves patients from around the world. “We have a strong focus on diversity, equity and inclusion here to make sure we represent all of society and that our patients can see themselves in their caregivers,” said Karen Helfinstine, Mayo Clinic’s Vice Chair of Education Administration. “Our partnership with UMR is critical to cultivating the workforce of the future.”



From the university side of the partnership, Mayo Clinic provides the promise of a good career for its students as well as an opportunity to foster an educational environment leading to flourishing in life and work. The teaching hospital adjacent to the university has built-in opportunities for experiential learning, research and mentorships — educational experiences that have <a href="https://www.gallup.com/education/194264/gallup-alumni-survey.aspx">proven to lead to improved wellbeing</a> — and all part of UMR’s innovative, student-centered learning environment.&nbsp;



The university’s motto is simple and forthcoming, aptly describing the building blocks that have led to its early success. “Students are at the center. Research informs practice. Partners make it possible.” Lori Carrell is UMR’s Chancellor and its passionate champion. It is clear she views the world through an asset-based lens, believing starting from scratch is an opportunity for innovation, just as students who have struggled possess valuable qualities.&nbsp;



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The teaching hospital adjacent to the university has built-in opportunities for experiential learning, research and mentorships
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“One of the things that our students have in common is that they have persevered through major challenges in childhood or and adolescence,” she said. “There’s a resilience element we have the privilege of seeing in admissions. If a student can describe how their perseverance has been a catalyst for their passion to make a difference in the world through a career in health, we believe them to be well equipped for the rigor and compassion of this work.”&nbsp;



A communications scholar who has published books on the need for change in higher education, Carrell says the methods they were experimenting with at UMR are what attracted her to it in 2014, when she first became Vice Chancellor. One of the university’s founding principles is a unique research mission where every faculty member does their primary research on student learning and student development regardless of their own subject matter expertise.&nbsp;



“One of the great misses in higher education is we do not apply educational research or neuroscience about learning to how we structure college degrees or college life,” she said. “At UMR, we had a blank canvas to do that. Our faculty are in one interdisciplinary department called the Center for Learning Innovation. They demonstrate teaching excellence by providing evidence of learning and they progress in their careers by doing research on student learning and student development.”&nbsp;



Andrew Petzold is a biology professor at UMR and, like Carrell, was drawn to the school because of its innovative teaching environment. “We are really in the trenches collecting data on the educational process and what students are actually learning and we use that to better inform our teaching in the future,” he said. “The interest is in student success rather than just publishing anything we possibly can.”&nbsp;



Petzold says that the interdisciplinary focus on educational research leads to joint scholarship as well as active, student-centered classrooms. “We all have our own disciplinary focus, but I can talk and collaborate with other faculty in a much easier way because we all have a background in educational research.”&nbsp;



UMR’s unique teaching environment has been highly recognized within the system and beyond. In its short history, seven UMR faculty members received the <a href="https://scholarswalk.umn.edu/faculty-award-programs/university-awards/awards-outstanding-contributions-education/horace-t-morse">Horace T. Morse-University of Minnesota Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contribution to Undergraduate Education</a>. But fans of UMR’s research-embedded learning are quick to acknowledge the importance of pairing great teaching with proven student success strategies, many included in AAC&amp;U’s high impact practices. Every student at UMR has a student success coach. With a ratio of one to 80, “success coaches” help with everything from flagging academic struggles to connecting people to internships to making sure students are focusing on their wellbeing. Graduating students joke that their student success coaches are what they most want to take with them when they go.&nbsp;



“These kinds of personal connections are where the sense of belonging comes from,” Carrell said. “‘I am connected to somebody and I matter here, so I can be ok even on really hard days.’”&nbsp;



UMR’s health majors are academically rigorous and can be challenging for some students. For this reason, the campus launched with a “JustASK” program which is important to active learning and made possible by the openness and collaborative nature of the faculty. “There are no lectures here,” said Carrell. “Our instruction is active and experiential so students have to be prepared to do project work in the classroom and they have to have access to faculty if they need help,” she said. Instead of office hours, which many students don’t utilize, UMR faculty sit out in open spaces as an interdisciplinary team at JustASK so someone is available to help with a question or concern.&nbsp;



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“These kinds of personal connections are&nbsp;where the sense of belonging comes from. I am connected to somebody and I matter here, so I can be ok even on really hard days.”
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Perhaps the most notable outcome of UMR’s evidence-based learning practices is the fact that the university has all but eliminated the achievement gap between underrepresented students and other students. . This outcome is something the campus community is very proud of but does not take for granted. She says building on UMR’s early success with students will take vigilance and a comprehensive approach which includes addressing one of the biggest barriers to a college degree for underrepresented students – affordability. Here, UMR and Mayo Clinic are leading the way with an innovative partnership called “NXT GEN MED.”&nbsp;



In December of 2024, the first class of NXT GEN MED students will graduate with a degree from the University of Minnesota within 2.5 years. The accelerated degree program for students interested in non-patient care careers has taken the traditional eight semester bachelors degree and applied it to a yearly calendar, lessening overall costs for students who are also given scholarship money if they are eligible. The partnership with Mayo Clinic includes a paid, credit-bearing internship, a Mayo Clinic mentor as well as a student success coach and research experience. As a result, UMR students are well positioned for employment upon graduation, either at the Mayo Clinic or in other institutions.



“What has been so beautiful about this partnership is hearing from the students how meaningful these experiences have been for them,” said Mayo Clinic’s Karen Helfinstine.



The program is an early example of a movement to create undergraduate degree options that increase student success while decreasing student cost known as “College-in-3.” Chancellor Carrell is a national leader in this area and views her advocacy as an extension of her work to revitalize the sector. When it comes to higher education challenges, Carrell says there are two for which there is little disagreement: college costs too much and many students who start do not complete. “College-in-3” programs are meant to address both of these problems at once, with evidence-based curricular designs.&nbsp;



“These programs are not about lopping something off, they’re about crafting something better. You’ve got three years. How do you design research-embedded, experiential, transformative learning that leads to human flourishing? That’s the opportunity.”

Learning and Flourishing in America’s City for Health

Democratizing the Liberal Arts

A <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/varying-degrees-2024/">new report</a> released last week from public policy think tank New America underscores the nation’s complicated relationship with higher education and provides instructive insights for a sector struggling to define its place in the country. While the survey gives more evidence of the public’s waning trust in higher education, it reaffirms Americans’ belief in its economic value and their desire to personally benefit from it. The consistency with which people of both parties view the good and the bad of higher education is also an indication that when it comes to going to college, Americans may be more alike than they are different.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Trends within the “Varying Degrees” survey, now in its eighth year, show that the public’s opinion of higher education continues to decline, with only 36% of all respondents saying the current state of higher education is fine as-is. The share of Americans who think that higher education is having a positive impact on the country today has dropped by 16 percentage points since 2019, to just 54 percent, in the latest report. Yet the survey also shows that despite its disillusionment with college, 70% of Americans want their children or family members to earn at least some kind of post-secondary degree and more than 75 percent think that the value of an associate and a bachelor’s degree is worth it even if students need to take out debt.



“The decline in public confidence for college is certainly concerning. But a decline in the public confidence of colleges and universities in general doesn’t necessarily mean that Americans no longer see colleges as worth it. Just as the higher education system is complex, so too are the opinions of Americans,” said Sophie Nguyen, a senior analyst at New America and one of the authors of the report.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Indeed, the love/hate relationship that Americans appear to have with higher ed gives a glimmer of hope for the sector in a hostile political climate where conservative politicians, frustrated with the dominance of academia’s left-leaning factions, have been battling with the academy on a wide range of topics at both the federal and state levels. (In the survey, only 39 percent of Republicans think colleges and universities are having a positive impact.) Yet, despite comments like the one made recently by vice presidential candidate JD Vance, who vowed to “aggressively attack the universities,” not all Republicans view higher education as the enemy.&nbsp;&nbsp;



On this score, data on economic mobility may be more influential than rhetoric. Research shows that those with a bachelor’s degree earn significantly more than those with only a high school diploma.&nbsp; Just last week,Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce predicted that a bachelor's degree will significantly increase the chances of getting a “good job” in the future. (The report defines a "good job" as one that pays a national minimum salary of $43,000 to workers aged 25 to 44 and $55,000 to workers aged 45 to 64.)&nbsp;&nbsp;



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“The love/hate relationship that Americans appear to have with higher ed gives a glimmer of hope for the sector in a hostile political climate.”
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In the New America survey, Democrats and Republicans agreed at similar rates (two-thirds) that those with at least some higher education will have better access to good jobs, better earnings, and greater financial well-being. When it comes to the benefits that those with higher education might bring to their communities, more than 80 percent of survey respondents agreed that they increase tax revenues, contribute to a skilled workforce, and create more jobs. Three in four believed that those with postsecondary credentials vote and volunteer more often and offer greater support for local businesses. Despite some variance, these beliefs were primarily party-neutral.&nbsp;



The one area that shows the strongest alignment is the perception that college costs too much.&nbsp; In the New America survey, nine in 10 respondents believe that people are choosing not to enroll in higher education because they cannot afford it. Eight in 10 think that this lack of affordability is the biggest barrier to enrollment for low income and first-generation students.&nbsp; One of the most important findings in the survey is the fact that more than 70 percent of respondents (85 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of Republicans) said the presidential candidates’ stances on higher education affordability will be important to their votes. While it is yet unclear how the candidates will address affordability from an education policy perspective, it is worth noting that voters will be watching.&nbsp;



On the question of who should pay for college, the survey shows a predictable gap between party affiliation, reflecting divergent philosophies on whether higher education is meant for public good or private gain. The authors write, “This question has seen a decline, since we started asking, in those believing the government should be responsible, particularly since 2020. This year just over half of Americans—56 percent— believe the government has the primary responsibility for funding higher education, with 43 percent believing individuals should fund higher education because they personally benefit. There has always been a sharp partisan divide in the response to this question, and this year was no exception. Nearly eight out of ten Democrats believe that the government should fund higher education because it is good for society, whereas nearly seven out of ten Republicans believe that students should fund higher education because they personally benefit.”&nbsp;



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“Nine in 10 respondents believe that people are choosing not to enroll in higher education because they cannot afford it.”
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Yet here the survey delivers another reason to check one’s assumptions. Despite philosophical differences, about seven out of 10 of all respondents agree that states should spend more tax dollars on public two- and four-year colleges and universities with Democrats and Republicans both agreeing, though at different rates. Additionally, the vast majority of Americans (80 percent) agree that the federal government should increase the maximum award for Pell grants so that students with the greatest financial need receive more grant-based assistance.



Another point of consistency which emerged from the survey is the view that higher education, as an industry, does not spend money wisely or run efficiently. Given tuition rates that are unattainable for many Americans, this perception may be contributing to the waning public trust. The call for more transparency in higher education is also widely held.&nbsp; Approximately 65 to 75 percent of respondents agreed that institutions should lose access to taxpayer dollars if students have poor outcomes which raises questions about whether institutions are providing sufficient information to students and families. “Over the years,” the authors write, “Americans have made clear that data transparency is important, with near universal agreement across party lines.”

Public Opinion

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



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



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



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



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



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



What is WGU?



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



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



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



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



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



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



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


</blockquote>



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



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



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



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



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



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



The Power of Mentorship



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



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



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



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



Avoiding debt, aligning values



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



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



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



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



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



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

Western Governors University

A new Princeton Review <a href="https://www.princetonreview.com/mental-health-on-college-campus">survey</a> examines colleges and universities’ mental health services, giving students and families an idea about the extent to which their choice of college supports their mental health.&nbsp; The report, sponsored by the Ruderman Family Foundation, is the first, readily available review of college mental health resources nation-wide, and will now be included in The Princeton Review's “Best College Guidebook” commonly used to help students make decisions about where to go to college.&nbsp;



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



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



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



The Desire for Data



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



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
This will enable prospective students who prioritize mental health to get a keen sense of which campuses offer the strongest resources and programs that will meet their needs.
</blockquote>



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



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



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



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



The data collection phase was three-fold: the college administrator survey was distributed to about 2,000 schools, 250 of which responded completely; The Princeton Review’s annual survey of college students included four questions about campus mental health services; and The Princeton Review’s <a href="https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings/college-hopes-worries">2024 College Hopes and Worries Survey</a> which polled 10,800 college applicants and their parents included the topic of mental health services.



Among the results:



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

The Best Schools for Mental Health

There is finally some better news about student mental health: this year’s <a href="https://healthymindsnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/HMS_national_report_090924.pdf">Healthy Minds Study</a> 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 <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/executive-leadership/2023/04/11/survey-college-presidents-upbeat-despite">attention and support</a> 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 <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-us-universities-wildly-expensive-education-tuition-fees-america-2024-3">costly investment </a>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<a href="https://stradaeducation.org/report/the-real-long-term-outcomes-of-liberal-arts-graduates/#:~:text=Liberal%20arts%20graduates%20have%20high,than%20workers%20with%20less%20education."> plentiful evidence </a>to the contrary. Unsurprisingly, the study of the humanities, the lifeblood of the liberal arts, is in precipitous<a href="https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-the-number-of-college-graduates-in-the-humanities-drops-for-the-eighth-consecutive-year/"> </a><a href="https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-the-number-of-college-graduates-in-the-humanities-drops-for-the-eighth-consecutive-year/">decline</a>.



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 <a href="https://8ce82b94a8c4fdc3ea6d-b1d233e3bc3cb10858bea65ff05e18f2.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/6a/c6/dd4610d942e58053e781c106654d/walton-gallup-gen-z-happiness-report-032724.pdf">Gallup survey</a> 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 <a href="https://ktvz.com/stacker-money/2024/07/30/stem-is-the-new-liberal-arts-the-changing-trends-of-college-majors/">doubled over the past ten years</a>.



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the&nbsp;content&nbsp;of higher education is shrinking, and with it a primary pathway to finding well-being through fulfillment.
</blockquote>



Declines in arts and humanities majors are leading, on a macro level, to <a href="https://stradaeducation.org/report/the-real-long-term-outcomes-of-liberal-arts-graduates/#:~:text=Liberal%20arts%20graduates%20have%20high,than%20workers%20with%20less%20education.">consolidations and cuts of disciplines</a> at all but the best resourced institutions. Concurrently, liberal arts-focused colleges are <a href="https://www.highereddive.com/news/how-many-colleges-and-universities-have-closed-since-2016/539379/">disappearing</a> 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 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/opinion/smartphones-social-media-mental-health-teens.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&amp;referringSource=articleShare">debate</a> 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 href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/endeavor-foundation-launches-national-collaborative-to-address-mental-health-crisis-on-college-campuses-302068166.html"> a project </a>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 <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2024/07/17/teach-students-find-meaning-their-work-lives-opinion">work</a> 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.

A Way Forward

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



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



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



<a href="http://el.wiley.com/ls/click?upn=u001.3YBR4Hwqxb0xKz1YXTwZEHL9-2BQ-2FJpBKF4CjfjmBrHiQ8wFVD22vfkisS2wFfXbHWHPHKLb7f2HkMAWcmkFH2gm3aR9F6G-2BCgILvrdMF70Ve7sI1sj8H9Ix9x6R-2Blix-2FVdaK7_Tt1FRhioDgxUQdRtpj3z0OMH3zluztsg9bPYx-2BT7I31hJHJ6eA6fRCEEFL9apze4gYyFLAEcm-2B2o6XTMVyQpfk0TaNXoJOT-2Fi5dBsslzVz1toX-2FxzZMT82h0Y1p3uMaWIAYv72urkzvyOV5Cq-2FOAlWCq8kUUxnlFbTegGOQFD-2FOTSGC-2BpFh0BQ5xjEO2Tn6mR8bYy44rawu3voIv31DuPTd-2BJdroE914H-2FeWwLSXqsMKsC7i-2B4xfp2YZ7QP-2BBZOiqd3KhPQnum-2BX2jSGtNlM6yIqpFbwkFMeSMH7ty4p248-3D">Volume 2024, Issue 187 </a><a href="http://el.wiley.com/ls/click?upn=u001.3YBR4Hwqxb0xKz1YXTwZEHL9-2BQ-2FJpBKF4CjfjmBrHiQ8wFVD22vfkisS2wFfXbHWHPHKLb7f2HkMAWcmkFH2gm3aR9F6G-2BCgILvrdMF70Ve7sI1sj8H9Ix9x6R-2Blix-2FVA3zj_Tt1FRhioDgxUQdRtpj3z0OMH3zluztsg9bPYx-2BT7I31hJHJ6eA6fRCEEFL9apze4gYyFLAEcm-2B2o6XTMVyQpfk0TaNXoJOT-2Fi5dBsslzVz0BmR45IrzKodqFJ5YNxkCQW-2BkwgAD2FQ-2B-2FqdDPGBL7eVOQlnqYMGeoSiQu6sUmBZO3UiyME4iMYcWUJfynJh-2Bw9QN1yNeD4Le9YZ99SLWqyoEQjKolx1r5Njhp-2BV-2BLVnKzYbawoQQaTwwQe5VMHycngubRJArXNmBjxD6zvD-2FZhmLqAYhlvFu1qdKCvLTF3n8-3D">Special Issue: Understanding and Addressing Hazing: Contextual Perspectives, Prevention Strategies, and Case Studies</a>



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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Hazing is fundamentally about power. It’s about exerting power over less powerful individuals.&nbsp;
</blockquote>



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

Power Play

A conversation with Holly White, doctoral candidate at the University of Maine, and lead author of the recent PNAS Nexus article, Cultivating long-term well-being through transformative undergraduate education. Listen on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-7-how-learning-influences-wellbeing/id1732284927?i=1000673303918">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2mOrvO0SVIGJPlGm7Sqnxi?si=b5e5ea78dc4c4fc2">Spotify</a>.



<iframe src="https://player.fireside.fm/v2/FciRz-QZ+jceG4WCn?theme=light" width="740" height="200" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

LearningWell Radio

Dr. Sarah Lipson waited all year to get the report she hoped would confirm that last year’s data was not an outlier.&nbsp;



“Each year over the past decade had been the worst we’ve seen in terms of prevalence rates until the 2022-2023 survey indicated things got a little better in terms of anxiety, depression and flourishing,” she said. “With the 2023-2024 data now in, it looks like we may be turning the corner.”&nbsp;



Dr. Lipson is a principal investigator of the national <a href="https://healthymindsnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/HMS_national_report_090924.pdf">Healthy Minds Study,</a> one of the largest data sets used to determine the mental health and wellbeing of the college student population.&nbsp; The data she awaited indeed showed that the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and&nbsp;suicidality&nbsp;among college students has decreased for two consecutive years for the first time in a decade. Meanwhile, flourishing (positive mental health) among students has increased during this same time frame, having been in decline for ten straight years.&nbsp;



The latest data were collected between September 2023 and May 2024 from over 104,000 undergraduate and graduate students at 196 institutions, including community colleges, technical colleges, HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions. The variances were small – a 5% drop in anxiety, a 6% drop in depression and a 6% increase in flourishing -- but the change itself is significant. 



“Because it’s a population-based survey, Healthy Minds is often a starting point where we can say ‘here’s what we see at a population level in terms of trends,’” said Lipson, who is also an associate professor at the Boston University School of Public Health.&nbsp; “The levels are still very high, but we are hopeful we have the start of a positive trend.”&nbsp;



Asked what might be driving the shift, Lipson said, “There’s a broader context for sure, but I’d like to think that a lot of it has to do with what’s happening on campus in terms of increased awareness and support and more schools taking a public health approach to addressing student mental health.&nbsp; I hope so.”



The latest healthy Minds survey report is a glimmer of hope for colleges and universities yearning&nbsp;for some form of good news related to the mounting mental health problems their students have reported over the years. Yet despite the progress, this year’s data still produced last year’s headline: too many students are emotionally unwell.&nbsp; According to the survey, a third of students screened positive for some form of anxiety and almost four in 10 met the criteria for moderate or severe depression.&nbsp;



Furthermore, the 2023-2024 changes in anxiety, depression and flourishing were a return to what students were reporting before the spikes caused by the pandemic.&nbsp; And while cautiously optimistic, Lipson points to data in the report that reveals one of the most tenacious problems in college student mental health – the unmet need for services among students who need them. According to the 2023-2024 report, almost 40% of students who screened positive for anxiety or depression are not receiving any kind of mental health services.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
“The levels are still very high, but we are hopeful we have the start of a positive trend.”&nbsp;
</blockquote>



“Even though the rates of treatment seeking have gone up, there’s still a significant unmet need that exists, with a lot of inequities in it,” she said.&nbsp; “From a public health perspective, this is a missed opportunity during a really epidemiologically vulnerable, psychosocially significant time between 18 and 25.”



The Long and Winding Road



According to the <a href="https://healthymindsnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/HMS_national_report_090924.pdf">Healthy Minds study</a>, rates of depression and anxiety among college students doubled from 2010 to 2021 (from 20% to 44% for depression; and 20% to 37% for anxiety).  An early sign of the looming crisis was the increase in demand for campus counseling services which often went unmet.



According to the <a href="https://ccmh.psu.edu/assets/docs/2015_CCMH_Report_1-18-2015-yq3vik.pdf">Center for Collegiate Mental Health</a> at Penn State University, between fall 2009 and spring 2015, counseling center utilization increased by an average of 30-40%, while enrollment increased by only 5%. More serious consequences ranged from significant stop-out rates due to mental health problems to tragic deaths by suicide on campuses throughout the country. The pandemic fueled what was already a burning fire, adding isolation and lack of connection to the myriad of potential drivers.  In a 2021 <a href="https://www.acenet.edu/Research-Insights/Pages/Senior-Leaders/Presidents-Survey-Fall-2021.aspx#:~:text=We%20found%20that%2081%20percent,the%20midst%20of%20a%20pandemic.">survey</a> by the American Council on Education, college presidents rated student mental health their number one concern.



Since then, most colleges and universities have put in place a range of responses, from service improvements to preventative strategies aimed at improving overall wellbeing. By the time the US Surgeon General came out with his young adult <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-youth-mental-health-advisory.pdf">mental health advisory</a> in 2021, it was hard to find an institution in the country that wasn’t working hard on mental health, or at least talking about doing so. Most schools have increased capacity for services through a number of strategies including utilizing a triage approach that prioritizes services by acuity, digital mental health interventions like apps and teletherapy and increasing staff when feasible.&nbsp;



Cultural changes on campus have included prioritizing mental health through chief wellness officer positions and ongoing student-driven initiatives like awareness campaigns that reduce stigma and peer counseling which many students, particularly those of marginalized identities, find accessible and effective. The focus on student mental health and wellbeing on campus has encouraged other student-centered initiatives involving equity and basic needs and has raised questions about faculty’s role in student mental health and what academic policies or pedagogical changes may be needed to improve wellbeing.&nbsp;



The question, which the recent Healthy Minds data raises, but does not fully answer, is, has all this activity had an impact?



“I agree with the Healthy Minds team that increased attention to mental health since the pandemic and additional resources for mental health are likely contributing factors to the slightly declining trend in anxiety and depression and slight increase in flourishing,” said Nance Roy, Chief Clinical Officer at the Jed Foundation, the country’s leading non-profit dedicated to protecting emotional health and preventing suicide in young people.



Roy also theorized that students have gotten better at distinguishing between "normal" feelings of anxiety and depression and clinical anxiety and depression. She believes the change in the way we talk about mental health – away from “crisis” and toward positive mental health – has been helpful.



The Jed Foundation itself may have had a role to play in the potential turnaround by providing schools a response to mental health issues, including suicides on campus, with mental health strategic planning support.&nbsp; Launched in 2013 and now in 500+ campuses, the JED Campus Program engages colleges and universities in collaborative work over the course of four years. After conducting an initial needs assessment, a JED advisor draws on the data to create a strategic plan&nbsp;that, when implemented seriously by leadership on down, has led to impressive outcomes. Its recent impact report suggests that the students on campuses who engaged with JED reported lower rates of anxiety, depression and&nbsp;suicidality&nbsp;and increased flourishing, GPA and retention rates.



Another major player that emerged during the consecutive years of escalating prevalence rates is telehealth or teletherapy, most often provided by a third party.&nbsp; First introduced as a potential way to expand capacity within counseling centers, telehealth became a permanent fixture during the pandemic and is now widely used.&nbsp; These services range significantly in scope but the most popular provide components such as a clinically-staffed, 24/7 crisis line; online therapy appointments with a remote clinician one can choose, and apps or access to wellbeing supports such as mindfulness.&nbsp; There are a number of advantages to these services, staring with convenience in time and place, a prerequisite for flexibility-focused Gen Z.



Uwill is a leading mental health and wellness company serving 3 million students at 400+ institutions in all 50 states and 40 countries.&nbsp; Students begin their Uwill experience by indicating &nbsp;how quickly they want to see a licensed therapist, with the option to choose a same-day appointment as well as preferences such as race, ethnicity, gender and clinical need. &nbsp;Amaura Kemmerer, LICSW ,is Uwill’s Director of Clinical Affairs and the former&nbsp;Associate Dean for Wellness at Northeastern University. She says that teletherapy options solve a number of problems that had always existed for mental health providers on campus.&nbsp;



“Traditionally, students embraced in-person therapy over teletherapy.&nbsp; However, in-person creates a barrier in trying to serve students after hours, off campus, or out of the state or country” she said. “During the pandemic, there was no choice but to move online and what has happened since is that students and counselors have realized the advantages – students can access therapy wherever they are and whenever they need it, or if they are uncomfortable going to a center, and they can choose the type of therapist they want to see, which is really important for students of certain identities.”



Kemmerer says over 60% of students engaged with Uwill report never having gone to therapy before, underscoring its benefit as a new onramp to care for students who might not otherwise seek help.&nbsp; Ironically, while introduced as a salve for the capacity problem, digital therapy&nbsp;may be providing access to care for a new population of students who have not been seeking help on campus. But most college health professionals would agree that’s a good thing and are comfortable with its place among their care continuum.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
According to the Healthy Minds study, rates of depression and anxiety among college students doubled from 2010 to 2021 (from 20% to 44% for depression; and 20% to 37% for anxiety).
</blockquote>



“Even though the restrictions around the pandemic have eased, our students are still preferring digital therapy due to convenience,” said Dr. Zoe Ragouzeos, the Executive Director of Counseling and Wellness Services at New York University. &nbsp;“And the data still reflect that the efficacy of remote treatment compares to that of in-person care.”&nbsp;



It is clear that technology-based mental health support is here to stay but the lack of data on the full range of digital mental health tools – including apps that are self-directed or only include partial coaching -- is a concern of Dr. Lipson’s.&nbsp; She and her colleague, Dr. Daniel Eisenberg recently published a <a href="https://rudermanfoundation.org/white_papers/digital-mental-health-interventions-at-colleges-universities/">paper</a> sponsored by the Ruderman Family Foundation concluding “although research has demonstrated that DMHI (Digital Mental Health Interventions) can be effective at improving mental health, the majority of widely used DMHIs in college settings have limited direct evidence of effectiveness in student populations.”



While they are supportive of the adoption of DMHI’s, Lipson and Eisenberg recommend colleges consider how these tools fit into campus mental health and wellbeing plans that take a preventative, population-based approach.&nbsp; They call for rigorous evaluation of commonly used programs and more information about user engagement, particularly regarding whether or not these services are being accessed by students of color or groups that may be needing help but not seeking it.&nbsp; In a separate effort, the researchers are working to create a comprehensive student mental health repository where easy access to evidence-based best practices will help campus professionals understand which interventions are best for which students.&nbsp;



As campuses continue to work at improving student mental health in a variety of ways, Lipson believes we will need several more years of prioritizing mental health at a population level to truly understand how far the needle has moved. &nbsp;In the meantime, the Healthy Minds team will continue to produce the indicators.&nbsp;

Healthier Campuses

Listen Here: 



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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 <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/03/new-surgeon-general-advisory-raises-alarm-about-devastating-impact-epidemic-loneliness-isolation-united-states.html">loneliness epidemic</a>, 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 <a href="https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/stories/foundation/generation-z-is-waging-a-battle-against-depression-addiction-and-hopelessness" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">twice as high</a> as that of American adults over 25 (23%). On the climate crisis, 56% believe <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00278-3/fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">humanity is doomed</a>. 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 <a href="https://www.gallup.com/education/509231/college-students-experience-high-levels-worry-stress.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">college students</a>, 39% said they had experienced loneliness the previous day, ranking it above sadness (36%).&nbsp;



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 <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/data-finder.htm?&amp;subject=Unintentional%20injuries">declined</a> 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 <a href="https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/research/the-evidence">increased</a> 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 <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28925063/">developmental delays</a>. We go on fewer dates and have <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-03/young-adults-less-sex-gen-z-millennials-generations-parents-grandparents">less sex</a>. We are getting our <a href="https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/teens-are-becoming-adults-later-than-they-used-to-1513305588">driver’s licenses</a> later or not at all; we are living with our parents longer. We <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/509690/young-adults-drinking-less-prior-decades.aspx">drink less</a> and go to fewer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/10/meet-generation-stay-at-home-dont-pay-to-go-clubbing-watch-it-at-home-on-your-phone">parties</a> 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 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/opinion/gen-z-adulthood.html">less likely</a> than past generations to engage in hobbies, play and <a href="https://www.fandomanalytics.com/post/the-next-generation-fandom-survey-from-the-emory-marketing-analytics-center">watch sports</a>, or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/opinion/gen-z-adulthood.html">work</a> after-school jobs. We are, quite simply, doing less than any generation before us.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfYf020qbZ-IfpH-yzYHoZhDZZc_cwLnthAXfsAjWw3D7nvsMTj7FTEvHOTxTsYHbHO5gjI13qF7Z9Oi8cBbL4KJUn-VFN0AritOne_BnecxDM_AQOXtxltY-4V4ghSZOoIG0j60baDiEcFwMNb3oxKVmk?key=DukyNi8GP42rlrOVVIuO6g" alt="" width="610" height="510"/></figure>



Chart: Zach RauschSource: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iO7D7uaELibyM2SiW_2MaGSi9Z91CXdG0y9QzfLaswk/edit#gid=295927474">Monitoring the Future</a> Get the data <a href="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/DHuIn/2/#embed">Embed</a> <a href="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/DHuIn/full.png">Download image</a>



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 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/opinion/smartphones-social-media-mental-health-teens.html">replacement</a> with “phone-based childhood.” During a <a href="https://youtu.be/laR1eSWAMKw?si=16LliF2SZC2N2pIn">recent talk</a> 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.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter is-resized"><img src="https://live-learningwell-wp.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/IMG_3449-1024x782.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-2013" width="586" height="447"/></figure>



“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.”&nbsp;



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.”&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
We are not safer; not with ourselves.
</blockquote>



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 <a href="https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/25663/social-isolation-and-loneliness-in-older-adults-opportunities-for-the">long-term physical and cognitive health</a>. “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 <a href="https://www.social-connection.org/">Foundation for Social Connection</a>. 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.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
They—we—are not content to live in a purgatory of risk-averse, adventureless post-post-adolescence.
</blockquote>



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 <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZ/s/hd865a4GvK">how to make friends</a>; a 21-year-old college student laments her campus’s <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/offmychest/s/mnxv33MZLF">lack of community</a>; a 19-year-old worries she’s a “loser” for having never gotten drunk or <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZ/s/kQbbJ4L6CE">gone to a party</a>.&nbsp; On Facebook, young adults post <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/friendship-applications-gen-z-loneliness/">friendship applications</a>. A Gen Z woman complains of the <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@princess_milkyy/video/7298522177152814378">death of clubbing</a> in a TikTok video that amassed over 3.5 million views. A viral <a href="https://www.thecut.com/article/tiktok-videos-single-women-crying.html">dating deep-dive</a> from The Cut shows young women crying on camera while describing their longing for partnership.&nbsp;



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 “<a href="https://www.heyvina.com/">dating app for friends</a>.” On Bumble BFF, users <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BhulRftj6X4/?igsh=b2FkanNoZW91eTNm">swipe right</a> on pictures of prospective friends. Still lonely? Try downloading Replika, “<a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/replika-ai-friend/id1158555867">THE chatbot for anyone who wants a friend with no judgment, drama, or social anxiety involved</a>.” 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. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jun/23/run-clubs-australia-social-clubs-gen-z-activities">Running clubs</a>, singles parties, book clubs, wine nights, and self-made social events are on the rise. A new trend emphasizes the importance of <a href="https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&amp;context=clcom_facpub">third places</a>—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 <a href="https://news.samsung.com/uk/social-media-fuels-rise-in-alternatively-awesome-hobbies-as-gen-z-embrace-their-creativity-online">hobbies</a> offline. They are <a href="https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2023/august/gen-z-most-likely-to-gift-time#:~:text=to%20gift%20time-,Boom%20in%20young%20volunteers%20as%20survey%20shows,most%20likely%20to%20gift%20time&amp;text=We%20have%20seen%20a%20boom,than%20any%20other%20age%20group.">volunteering more</a>. 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.

Where Did All the Good Times Go?

Eric Mazur gives lots of talks on how to teach.&nbsp;



Often, he starts with a quiz, which goes something like this:



Think about a skill you’re really good at. Something you’re proud of — that other people respect you for.



OK, now try to remember how you got good at that skill.



Was it trial and error?



Practice?



Hearing lectures?



Getting an apprenticeship?



“Nobody chooses lectures,” says Mazur, a physics professor at Harvard. “Nobody, nobody, nobody chooses lectures. Then I show a picture of me lecturing — an old one, because I don’t lecture anymore — and I say: ‘Don’t we have a problem here?’”



It’s a problem Mazur has been trying to tackle for more than thirty years, ever since he realized that lectures — which are the classic way that physics is taught —aren’t actually that effective at teaching physics.



That realization came in the early 90s, after Mazur read an article in The American Journal of Physics about professors who gave thousands of students an unusual test. The test lacked textbook jargon and fancy equations. Instead, it used simple language to ask about basic physics principles, like the magnitude of the force that’s exerted when a light car collides with a heavy truck.&nbsp;



When the students took the test, they did poorly — even students with award-winning teachers. Mazur was shocked. Could his students at Harvard do better? He hoped they would.



But they didn’t. Which is when he started to question the whole idea of lecturing. He realized that students who simply hear information from a talking head might not effectively learn that information. 



Of course, as a student, Mazur had been lectured to, as have generations of students, stretching back centuries. But suddenly, that started to seem like a terrible mistake.



At the time, Mazur was coming up for tenure at Harvard — normally, not a moment when one might adopt a side project. But he thought he might return to Europe (he’s Dutch), so tenure took on less importance than it might have otherwise. So he dug in and started to rethink teaching. He wanted to create a classroom where students were more engaged, and really, deeply absorbed the material.



As Mazur knew from his own life, engagement is key to having a meaningful experience in higher education. When he was a teenager, Mazur dreamed of being an astronomer. “And then at age 17, I enrolled at the University of Leiden, which was the mecca for astronomy. And within six weeks, my whole childhood dream unraveled. The courses were so badly taught.”



At the University, astronomy had little to do with the majesty of the universe. “It was just a jumble of formulas,” Mazur recalls. “And the whole big picture disappeared. It disintegrated. So I dropped out and became a physicist, because I knew I was reasonably good at physics in high school.”



But within a few weeks, Mazur realized that the quality of physics instruction wasn’t a whole lot better. “Which is why it’s so ironic that when I started teaching, I fell into the trap of doing what my instructors had done.”



Why perpetuate the cycle? Part of the reason, Mazur says, is that we don’t focus nearly enough on optimizing the classroom experience for students. We need to ask whether students feel challenged and supported. How much are they really learning? How deeply are they connected to their professors? For Mazur, having a doctoral advisor who cared about him made a huge difference in his life.&nbsp;



Indeed, those sorts of connections make a big difference for lots of people. <a href="https://www.gallup.com/services/176768/2014-gallup-purdue-index-report.aspx">As the 2014 Gallup-Purdue Index revealed</a>, the happiness of college graduates was not particularly correlated with whether they attended a public or private school, a small or large school, or a selective or not-too-selective school. Instead, researchers found, “if graduates had a professor who cared about them as a person, made them excited about learning, and encouraged them to pursue their dreams, their odds of being engaged at work more than doubled, as did their odds of thriving in their well-being.”



You could argue, too, that deeply understanding physics or history or geometry greatly benefits a student’s future career. When you have to design a bridge, does it matter whether you got an A in your engineering class? Or how well you truly grasp a set of core principles?



CHANGE COMES, BUT SLOWLY



In the early 1990s, Mazur started “flipping the classroom.” No longer did he dispense knowledge to a hushed room of notetakers. Instead, students read through the content (what might once have been called “lecture notes”) before class. When everyone came together, students worked in groups to figure out problems and clarify concepts.&nbsp;



Mazur quickly discovered that students were often better at explaining a concept to each other than he was at explaining it to them. After all, he had learned physics long ago, and it could be hard for him to understand what might be so perplexing about, for example, Newton’s Third Law. But students who had just spent a week striving to understand it could easily relate to — and help — peers who were struggling.



Mazur’s conversion energized him — and a lot of other people. He started giving a talk called “Confessions of a Converted Lecturer,” chronicling how and why he had changed his own classroom. In 2009, after -— by his count — giving the talk about 600 times, the University of Maryland Baltimore County taped Mazur and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwslBPj8GgI">put the talk on YouTube</a>. He was sure that no one would ever invite him to speak on this topic again, since his views were now so easily accessible.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
Mazur quickly discovered that students were often better at explaining a concept to each other than he was at explaining it to them.
</blockquote>



You can guess what happened next. Mazur’s speech went on to attract more than 200,000 views, and he was invited to give talks around the world on why he had stopped lecturing. Academic studies began to focus on the benefits of active learning. And Mazur penned a book, Peer Instruction: A User’s Manual.



In 2019, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821936116">a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a> found that “students in the active classroom learn more.” But, it soberly noted, “[d]espite active learning being recognized as a superior method of instruction in the classroom, a major recent survey found that most college STEM instructors still choose traditional teaching methods.”&nbsp;



In a recent book, Brian Rosenberg — the longtime former president of Macalester College — writes that the “evidence that lectures are an ineffective way of teaching is both voluminous and incontrovertible.” So, he asks, “given its centrality to higher education and the evidence that it does not work very well as a teaching method, shouldn’t this be something about which faculty are thinking and debating pretty regularly? Isn’t the topic worth at least a faculty meeting or two?”



Still, change doesn’t come easily to higher education, and Mazur knows it. Asked if he thought he has moved the needle through his outreach, Mazur replied, “A tiny bit... which is probably a lot compared to what has happened over the past thousand years. I think people are more and more realizing that things are broken.” He does think the needle has moved more in K-8 education, where there has been significant interest in new pedagogical approaches.



The brokenness that Mazur sees is not just a function of too much lecturing. He believes our assessment system also makes little sense. High-stakes tests should not be the main way that students are evaluated, he says. Tests encourage cramming, which has <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/12118/#:~:text=But%20for%20long%2Dterm%20memory,out%20study%20is%20what%20works.&amp;text=Cognitive%20scientists%20say%20this%20spacing,and%20years%20longer%20than%20cramming.">proven to be a terrible way to build long-term knowledge</a>.&nbsp;



And teachers — who generally devise the tests — are essentially evaluating their own work. As a teacher, Mazur says, “you know what you’ve presented in the class. Therefore, you know what students can answer, so they can pass the test. And most of them pass it by just rote memorization, or rote procedural problem solving... The type of skills that are tested under those circumstances have absolutely nothing to do with the skills that you need as a journalist, as a physicist, as a doctor, as a politician. It has no connection at all. It’s just like a hazing ritual almost.”



For a while, Mazur hoped the pandemic might upend education, but those hopes proved to be fleeting. “What I had underestimated,” he says, “is how badly people wanted to get back into the classroom to do what they did before.”



Still, Mazur believes that change is imminent. The rise of generative AI means that students now have extraordinarily powerful ways to do their homework instantly, to answer super tough physics questions — for example — without really understanding them.



This new technology may necessitate a radical thinking of what teaching is. It can’t simply be a search for right answers, because those are so easily accessible. Instead, homework and classwork will have to center on process, understanding, and analysis.



Artificial intelligence, Mazur argues, “is going to affect the jobs of our graduates in a way that is enormous.” He sees “anything that has to do with large-scale pattern recognition” being affected, from radiology to finance. “And therefore if we don’t adapt, we may become less relevant.”



He hopes the advent of AI will “force people to rethink the goal of higher education. And rethink not just content, which is the only thing that we’ve worried about so far, but also pedagogy and approach and assessment. How do we prepare people for an unknown future?”

The Lecture’s Long Goodbye

Higher education is currently under enormous scrutiny. Part of this scrutiny results from the challenge of balancing the traditional roles of college in helping students “find a job” and “find themselves.” Eliminating the conflict between these goals, and indeed underscoring their interdependence, offers an excellent opportunity for higher education to take steps toward restoring public trust. To take full advantage of this opportunity, we must work harder to deliver the real value of a college education: a transformative learning experience.



For generations, traditional age students have enjoyed the benefits of college’s unprecedented ability to offer intellectual discovery at the inflection point of their personal development. This exceptional combination comes with a shift in learning that distinguishes college from primary and secondary school experiences dominated by extrinsic motivation like deadlines, teacher approval, and grades. Higher education, when done well, sets the stage for life-long learning by introducing intrinsic motivation that goes beyond knowledge and skill, shaping attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs — or “mindset.” Colleges and universities’ ability to teach students how to learn, not what to learn, is fundamental to the personal and professional success of graduates, often including, ironically, higher education’s harshest critics.&nbsp;



Experiences in college can lead not only to professional success, but to a greater sense of wellbeing long after graduation. Current evidence based on <a href="https://www.gallup.com/education/328961/why-higher-education-lead-wellbeing-revolution.aspx">measures of life-long wellbeing</a> developed at Gallup indicates that having emotionally supportive mentors, particularly faculty, correlates strongly with life-long wellbeing. Gallup alumni surveys additionally show that initiatives that increase students’ sense of agency, through experiential learning opportunities such as projects or internships, also correlate with wellbeing long after the college years. One particular program, <a href="https://www.gallup.com/education/248222/gallup-bates-purposeful-work-2019.aspx">Purposeful Work at Bates College</a>, produced profound evidence that a sense of wellbeing is substantially enhanced in students who find career opportunities closely related to areas of study that develop a sense of purpose and meaning.



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Higher education, when done well, sets the stage for life-long learning by introducing intrinsic motivation that goes beyond knowledge and skill, shaping attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs.
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The challenge facing higher education is how to achieve a broader recognition of the need to strengthen students’ transition from extrinsic to intrinsic learning and encourage experiences like hands-on learning and mentorships correlated with wellbeing at a time when vocationalism and return on investment dominate the public narrative.&nbsp; Barriers such as check-box general education curricula and faculty reward systems that disincentivize truly student-centered, innovative teaching exacerbate the problem as does the underlying issue of the cost of a college degree.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Restoring the public’s esteem for higher education by promoting lifelong wellbeing and refocusing the conversation on the student experience make up the central mission of <a href="https://thecte.org/">The Coalition for Transformational Education</a>. The Coalition is a learning community of almost 30 institutions across the country dedicated to changing the ways we teach and students learn, each pursuing distinct initiatives that offer best practices in engendering identity, belonging, agency and purpose in students based on experiences known to promote wellbeing.



The Coalition is focused on promoting this transformation across all of higher education by changing the narrative about what matters most in the student experience and encouraging faculty to experiment at the undergraduate level with evidence-based interventions to improve outcomes and wellbeing, and scaling these to all enrolled students. All of the institutions that are members of the Coalition are committed to assessing the interventions they introduce and refining them over time to continually improve their long-term impact.&nbsp;



All members of the Coalition are committed to producing positive educational experiences that touch all enrolled students, not simply those that are focused only on specific populations such as the talented and gifted or the under-resourced or under-prepared. The Coalition is dedicated to making all of these interventions accessible to every enrolled student, regardless of their academic record or financial resources. The Coalition has the potential to transform higher education in ways that allow it to deliver on its full promise of career preparation and personal development, ensuring that students graduate not only with broader and deeper intellectual outcomes, but also with a greater sense of who they are and who they can become.

The Case for Transformational Education

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Jason Weber was particularly attuned to the quiet student who sat in the very back row of the class he was leading. The student didn’t speak out, and rarely engaged. He was, as Weber recalls, very, very, shy. But this classroom wasn’t meant to be a spectator-sport environment. It was Texas Tech’s inaugural cohort of its new leader development program, designed to help students build confidence and purpose through active participation. Weber didn’t stop trying to draw him out, and slowly a relationship formed.&nbsp;



About three-quarters through the semester, the student, Octavio Garza IV, approached him with surprising news.



“He said, ‘I just want to let you know that when I started this program, I didn’t really want to be here. But I just thought, maybe this would be good for me,’” recalls Weber, who in addition to being facilitator of the leader development program, is Associate Vice Chancellor-Leader and Culture Development of the Texas Tech University System. Octavio told him that his experience in this program made him decide to stick his neck out and apply for a student ambassador position, and that he had been selected. &nbsp;



The following year, Weber would see Octavio in public roles around campus, staffing tables and handing out root-beer floats to new students. “This is someone who engaged with students doing things I never thought he would do,” Weber says. “Once I saw him in the hall, and I pulled him into my classroom to speak to a group about his experience with the program. He ended up standing in front of a whole room of people talking for five minutes on his experience and how beneficial it was. He had just completely come out of his shell.”              



Octavio has since graduated, and instead of following a career in law enforcement as planned, he decided to pursue a master’s degree in education while working in the admissions office for Angelo State University, part of the Texas Tech University system. “The school and that program had a huge impact on me,” he says, “and now I’d like to work in a career where I can help students make choices that will change their education, and their life.”



Texas Tech’s program for juniors, Lead Like A Ram, is now in its third year, and has become so popular that the two cohorts fill quickly. Participants meet twice a month for a two-hour learning session, with both groups overlapping over a shared dinner. The program is being piloted in different forms at other locations within the Texas Tech University System, and Weber hopes 2026 will see the launch of a version for graduate students in medicine.



Texas Tech is one of many institutions taking seriously the question, What kind of leaders does the world of tomorrow need, and how do we cultivate them? A 2021 study published by the Harvard Business School identified the top 10 leadership skills in demand for the future of work, including inclusive leadership, engaging and inspiring leadership, and leadership without formal authority. Meanwhile, a 2023 study by the National Society of Leadership and Success concluded that students today aren’t developing three essential skills most needed for the modern workplace: communication, decision-making, and leadership.



Academics and administrators interested in developing leaders through higher education have a new ally in the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Known for a broad range of transformative advancements in education, the foundation expanded its classifications of institutions in higher education to include programs focusing on Leadership for Public Purpose. The foundation defines its interest in university leadership development in this way: “Effective leadership for public purpose transcends functional or instrumental leadership (i.e., personal career or political gain; or narrow business or organization outcomes), in pursuit of collective public good, including justice, equity, diversity, and liberty.”



This year marks the first cycle of the evaluations for the Carnegie Elective Classification for Leadership for Public Purpose, with <a href="https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/elective-classifications/leadership-about/">25 U.S. institutions of higher education</a> held up as pioneers on the national landscape of leadership development, including Rice University.



In 2015, renown venture capitalists and tech executives John and Ann Doerr—both Rice alums with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering—decided to make a major investment in leadership at their alma mater. Earlier contributions established their investment in engineering leadership, and they wanted to make it available to students throughout the university.



The Doerr Institute for New Leaders is the result of their $50 million gift designed to empower students with the skills, training, and confidence to make a true difference in the world, through a combination of hands-on, real-world experience, and guidance from personal coaches. The institute has a wide range of programming for Rice students at no added charge: Using a combination of classroom-based learning, excursions to watch leaders in action, one-on-one leadership coaching, and group coaching, the university practices its belief that leaders aren’t born or made, they are grown.



The focus on the word leader over leadership at Rice and many other schools is a conscious one, says Ryan Brown, Managing Director for Measurement at the institute.



“Leader development is about developing the person as a leader and their capacity as a leader, their identity as a leader. When you say leadership development, you could mean the dynamic between a leader and a follower. You could mean that broader social system in place within which leadership is happening and potential leaders are being identified. But you're getting into more organizational or system dynamics, and that's not what we do,” he said. “Because we don't operate within an organization where that leadership is happening in a corporate structure, for example, elevating a person. What we're focusing on is developing each student as a leader, then we actually want our leaders to leave, want them to graduate and go out into the world and then lead there.”



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“If we only helped students to see themselves as leaders, but we had actually turned them into narcissists, then that would not be a good outcome.” 
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The common set of measures Doerr Institute uses in its coaching program includes leader identity—the extent to which you see yourself as a leader, feel capable of leading, competent to lead, and willing to lead. “We also include sense of purpose, self-awareness, a couple of measures of psychological wellbeing, and an intellectual humility measure, which I really like,” Brown said. Contrary to what some might think, leadership is not about decisiveness and persuasion. “If we only helped students to see themselves as leaders, but we had actually turned them into narcissists, then that would not be a good outcome.”



Intellectual humility is a concept and measurement coined by <a href="https://today.duke.edu/2017/03/modest-personality-trait-intellectual-humility-packs-punch">Mark Leary at Duke University</a>, and references the degree to which people are willing to admit that they're wrong when they're presented with good evidence, being open to new ideas, and finding out things that they don't already believe are, in fact, true.



“That has a lot of application just in life and leaders that seems so important today. It’s intricately combined with active listening skills and empathy and all these kinds of things, so it makes for a healthy combination of outcomes,” he says. “We measure those things before and after students go through that coaching program, and we see consistently significant increases in leader identity and self-awareness, sense of purpose, intellectual humility and reductions in psychological distress. So we have this boost in wellbeing that is kind of a good secondary effect.”



Gavin Daves is a junior at Rice, and when he joined his first program at the Doerr Institute, he was fairly certain about what he was looking for. As someone who studies operations research and statistics, he functions in the world of applied mathematics. And he is aware of the social shortcomings within STEM.



“I'd say there is a little bit more of a vacuum or like a hole in leadership within STEM. They certainly have the leadership titles available, but not as much like the soft skills, emotional intelligence skills,” he said. “Some things that we don't get taught in our classes are areas like how to work with the group, or how to deal with conflicts, you know, issues that are dealing with people. But I think those things are also really important when we talk about STEM jobs and careers.”



In high school, Gavin actively considered what he needed to improve on as he transitioned into college. He held some leadership positions in the band and as head of the music honor society, and belonged to a small team of students engaged in an AI competition for MIT. But he suspected that he needed to better develop elements of his personality to shine in order to have impact in his roles.



“I struggled with seeming maybe a little bit robotic to some people, unrelatable, because I came across as someone who was only focusing on the job they had to do. I wanted to work on finding ways to show a little bit more personality and even more passion for the stuff I’m doing, and about to showcase a different side of me and ultimately make me a better leader,” he said.



Gavin was trying to find ways not just to tell people what to do, but also help them grow, and if they couldn’t relate to him and trust him, it was turning into a roadblock. Through the Doerr programs, particularly the one-on-one coaching, he found himself able to immediately apply work on his skills to his part-time job as a data scientist at a tax analytics company.



“I’d say I’m a natural introvert, but I find I’m able to come out of my shell when I’m talking about something I’m excited about, or encouraging people to partake in something I’ve found really beneficial. These qualities transcend leadership, listening well and dealing with conflict, and make you a more complete and better person, overall.”



Like Rice, Washington University in St. Louis has a new initiative dedicated to developing leaders, and like Rice, it came through the generosity of a visionary alum. The $20 million George and Carol Bauer Leaders Academy places values-based leadership development at the center of the university for all students, building on the philanthropy of previous gifts supporting pockets of leadership—for Danforth Scholars, and the business school.



The Academy, still in its first year, will support research and oversee student leadership programs across schools and all ages of students in co-curricular programs, imbuing them with the best practices in leadership development and personal character formation. It also benefits the campus community with workshops, faculty grants, professional coaching, and a campus-wide Leadership Week.



“We look at leadership through what we call the 70-20-10 model, with 70% of your leadership development coming through experiences, 20% through mentoring and coaches, and 10% through academic coursework,” said Julia Macias, director of student leader development for the Academy. “This might be a little shocking, coming out of an academic institution, but we really think there are a lot of different ways to exercise what you’re learning and try things out and innovate what’s ultimately going to solidify their leadership development. Everyone, regardless of formal status, has the potential to influence and energize others to achieve a common goal. And so we really think about ourselves as developing people to become purpose-driven leaders of character and capability.”



Those character skills, and their wide-ranging benefits in both work and life, are a critical part of what so many students find binds disparate parts of their lives into a cohesive, values-based whole.



“Before, I didn’t think about how much being a good leader has to do with being a good person. Like, you have to work on yourself, first. And when I did my first program, they told me I should really work on my optimism and my empathy. And I was like, What does that even have to do with being a leader?” says Thara Venkateswaran, a Rice senior in ROTC headed to commission as a Naval officer in May. “But I realized that it really does, and emotional intelligence plays a huge role.”



As an executive officer, the second in command of the entire unit, she is responsible for managing 45 people, including all the freshmen. “Honestly, it’s a constant process of reflection and working on yourself. Because there is a lot of overlap between personal struggles and leadership struggles, professional and personal life. Really, everything is applicable to everything.”

Character and Leadership

The college years are a crucial time for young adults to cultivate the skills of leadership and character, which significantly influence not just students’ personal and professional development, but shape the values of the next generation of leaders. Mastering values-based leadership helps students effectively guide and inspire teams, fostering collaboration and problem-solving abilities that are vital in today’s dynamic work environments. Moreover, developing strong character traits such as integrity, empathy, and resilience lays the foundation for ethical decision-making and builds trust with peers and colleagues. Together, these skills not only enhance academic and career success but also contribute to creating purposeful change within oneself, one’s community, and beyond. The educators entrusted and charged with imparting these skills must translate abstract ideas into practical frameworks. What does it mean to teach character? To nurture leaders of integrity and purpose? Steve Sosland, vice chancellor for Leader &amp; Culture Development for the Texas Tech University System, has spent his career finding answers to these questions across different organizations and sectors.



Higher education is Sosland’s fifth industry. After graduating from West Point, he began his career in the U.S. military, where he spent 11 years as an infantry soldier. He later worked in corporate America, first in the restaurant industry and later helping other junior military officers find jobs in the business world with companies that sought to hire veterans for their leadership and character skills. In 2010, Sosland became the chief operating officer of Hill Country Memorial hospital in Fredericksburg, Texas, where he and a team of leaders transformed the then-failing hospital into a pillar of excellent healthcare and leader development, for which President Obama awarded the hospital the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 2014.&nbsp;



Sosland’s first role in higher education was as the executive vice president and chief people and performance officer at the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center at Fort Worth. Today, in his role at Texas Tech, Sosland reflects on this unlikely trajectory and highlights the thread that connects each disparate sector and organization: in every dimension, his career has been dedicated to “working with organizations to incorporate a values-based approach to leadership,” which, he says, “advances personal development, quality of life, and wellbeing by helping individuals live in alignment with their own core values.”&nbsp;



Sosland’s own life is an example of this dynamic process. Today, he says his purpose is “to influence those who will transform the lives of others,” but that mission wasn’t apparent to him at the outset. “When I was in my twenties, looking ahead at my career, I could not have predicted the path,” he explains. “When I was in my fifties, looking back at it, I wanted to find the common thread, and what I found was that I had worked in environments with a strong sense of core values and a culture built around those values. That culture was either there when I arrived, or I used leadership development as an opportunity to create it.”



Leader &amp; Culture Development at Texas Tech takes a comprehensive, bird’s-eye view approach to bringing values-based leadership and purposeful work to the university system’s five campuses. “If we are going to help students, it is fundamentally important for us to first focus on faculty, staff, and administration,” Sosland says. “If we work with the students by directing them to leader development programs and helping them become leaders of character, but they don’t see role models around them, then it brings into question all of our work.”&nbsp;



The Path to Purpose



To ensure that students have those role models, Sosland works directly with university leadership, shaping the tone and character of the institution. Part of that work involves&nbsp; exploring purpose, both personally and institutionally. “The way that I work with senior leaders — college and university presidents, deans, department chairs — is by helping them to identify their purpose, both personally and for their entity,” he says. “We then identify their challenges — be them challenges of morale, wellbeing, efficiency, inter- and intrapersonal issues — and we address those challenges within the cultural environment, taking a people-first approach. I call this concept generational leadership. I might very rarely interact with students, but I interact with deans to help them lead their department chairs, who then help the faculty members, who help the students.”



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“Our work reminds them of what was already inside of them.”
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<a href="https://www.gallup.com/education/248222/gallup-bates-purposeful-work-2019.aspx">Purposeful work</a> is often described as “aligning who you are with what you do.” Sosland describes this alignment as “a sense of oneness in a person’s values at home and at work, which is one way to define integrity: from the root integris, meaning oneness or unity.” Though research suggests that purposeful work can promote wellbeing and fulfillment throughout life, a <a href="https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/reports/on-edge?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email">2022 Harvard University study</a> found that 58 percent of teens and young adults reported having little to no sense of purpose in life. It is a remarkable figure, but not an entirely surprising one. In a 2021 study of more than 10,000 young people across 10 countries, 56 percent of 16- to 25-year-olds surveyed said they <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/88npnp/fifty-six-percent-of-young-people-think-humanity-is-doomed">believed humanity was doomed</a> due to the climate crisis. The study, published in <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00278-3/fulltext">Lancet Planetary Health</a>, also found that 60 percent of respondents blamed their national governments for this bleak state of affairs.&nbsp;



Amid a youth mental health national emergency, growing sentiments of dread and <a href="https://thred.com/culture/offbeat/understanding-gen-zs-expected-uptake-in-nihilism/">nihilism</a> plaguing young people, and Gen Z taking to the internet to voice their existentialist views in the form of <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/kamala-harris-coconut-tree-meme-explains-vital-truth-2024-election-rcna163682">political memes</a> and parody videos, the idea of finding purpose could seem almost quaint. But initiatives focused on character and values-based leadership have material impact and the potential to change lives—particularly the lives of college students, who are on the lookout for purpose and in the process of creating and sustaining their core values.



To make the case for purpose, leaders in higher education must not overlook the fact that high tuition costs and poor financial wellbeing lead students to increasingly seeking pay over purpose. In addressing this concern, Sosland cites James Truslow Adams, who coined the phrase “the American Dream” in his 1931 book The Epic of America. “Adams said that our college education largely focuses on how to make a living, but perhaps it should be how to make a life,” he explains. “How to make a living is important, but I think that as universities, we’ve lost our way. We are so hyper-focused on teaching how to make a living that we lose sight of teaching how to make a life. What we are doing at the Texas Tech University System is raising these as equally important matters. We are focused just as much on building the character of the students as we are on helping them get a job, because it is their character that will help them survive in challenging times. We are preparing them to find work that aligns with their core values.”



Grit is one value that comes up in Sosland’s conversations with higher education leadership, faculty, and students. “When it comes to purpose, we are asking, Why do I exist? We ask it on a personal level, and we ask it on an organizational level. Why does this organization exist? How do we create an environment that is rich and allows people to grow and develop to their full potential? And how do we do it so that, along the way, they gain the skills of resilience and grit that will get them through life’s challenging times and help them when they face failure?”&nbsp;Dr. Angela Duckworth, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and renowned scholar of grit and self-control, <a href="https://angeladuckworth.com/grit-book/">defines grit</a> as the combination of passion and perseverance toward a long-term goal. Sosland cites Duckworth’s philosophy of grit as influential to his work in character and leadership development. “Our universities are in West Texas,” he explains. “Most of the population of Texas is in the eastern third of the state, but West Texas is largely rural. Our universities primarily serve rural areas with harsh weather conditions — sand storms, harsh winds, harsh temperatures. In these conditions where a lot of our students grow up, they have to be resilient. They have to navigate tough environmental conditions just to survive. Their grandparents and great-grandparents lived through the Dust Bowl. In their backgrounds, grit and resilience are imprinted deep within them. But, as with anyone, this gets lost. They get caught up in the what-ifs of life, and they sometimes forget what was imprinted from parents and teachers and coaches early on. Our work reminds them of what was already inside of them. That is what identifying and living in alignment with core values does for both individuals and organizations.”

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