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On Wednesday morning, Scott Delaney woke up to an email from an address he didn’t recognize. In a hasty 6 a.m. message, the writer explained to have been hearing from contacts at community-based organizations running substance use disorder and harm reduction programs that “their grants were all cancelled.” The stranger wondered: Had Delaney, who leads&nbsp;<a href="https://grant-witness.us/">Grant Witness</a>, an online database tracking federal grant terminations, heard the same?



In fact Delaney hadn’t — yet. By 10 a.m.,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2026/01/14/nx-s1-5677104/trump-administration-letter-terminating-addiction-mental-health-grants">NPR</a>&nbsp;broke the story that, the previous night, the Trump administration had notified hundreds that their funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) had been terminated, apparently due to misalignment with “agency priorities.” Upwards of 2,100 grants were cancelled, worth a total around $2 billion. Delaney’s Signal threads blew up. Emails and&nbsp;<a href="https://grant-witness.us/submit-samhsa.html">web form</a>&nbsp;submissions reporting specific grant terminations and requesting information flowed in. The Grant Witness team spent the day building a new system to track SAMHSA grants. Come evening, Delaney had put his kids to bed and was settling back down at the computer when he learned the Trump administration had reversed its decision: The cancelled grants are now restored.



In that moment, following the news of reinstatement, silence fell upon the Grant Witness Slack chat. Delaney described a sense of relief, perhaps second only to disbelief: a stomach-clench of mixed emotions no doubt reflecting the experience of mental health professionals across the country. They had spent hours mobilizing, scrambling for answers, only to end up with a new set of questions, among them: Is it over?



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This latest instance of federal policy whiplash plays into a larger pattern that makes it difficult for some to completely shake off concerns. 
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Certain developments on this front have been reassuring. That lawmakers from across the political aisle activated to restore the funding indicates vast support for these programs, which widely focus on suicide prevention and substance use treatment, including for young people. The letter SAMHSA sent rescinding the terminations also seems to promise a quick return to regular programming. “Your award will remain active under its original terms and conditions,” a copy of the email obtained by LearningWell states. “Please disregard the prior termination notice and continue program activities as outlined in your award agreement.”&nbsp;



But this latest instance of federal policy whiplash plays into a larger pattern that makes it difficult for some to completely shake off concerns. This fall, LearningWell <a href="https://learningwellmag.org/article/uncertainty-weighs-on-mental-health-researchers">covered</a> the ongoing uncertainty that has weighed on mental health researchers over the fate of federally funded projects. Throughout 2025, mass grant freezes and terminations by the National Institutes of Health, for example, disrupted scientific research across a range of disciplines. In the case of mental health, the particularly unfunny irony is of course that the stress of these cuts has been damaging to the mental health — and careers and livelihoods — of the researchers themselves. 



“It’s really hard to know and trust, frankly, the information and know how it's going to play out,” said Sara Abelson, the senior director of training and education at The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University. At the junction of mental health and higher education, the ground beneath her has felt shaky for a while now. Amid this week’s cuts, Abelson paid special attention to one grant impacted that provides funds to colleges and universities: the Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention program. According to&nbsp;<a href="https://hope.temple.edu/assessing-insufficiency-federal-investments-college-student-basic-needs">research</a>&nbsp;Abelson has been conducting on federal grants for student basic needs, between 2016 and 2024, G.L.S. touched nearly 250 campuses in 45 states and Puerto Rico. These are the kind of wide-reaching “lifesaving supports” she said have been threatened. Will next time be for real?&nbsp;



Delaney also isn’t quite ready to unwind. Well-versed in the grant cancellation and restoration process, he worries about how long it will take this round. On Wednesday, some grantees shared with him documents, called Notices of Award, they received reestablishing their funding to zero. These NOAs are legal contracts, with the terms offset, in Delaney’s experience, only when a new one is issued. So, he wonders, are the grantees technically owed their original funds at this point? Will some end up pausing their work out of caution? SAMHSA did not respond immediately to a request for comment as to whether revised NOAs will be sent or the expected timeline.



Others worry, because the potential reasons for the original cancellations remain, future cuts may still be coming. Kathleen Ethier, the former director of the division of adolescent and school health at the Centers for Disease Control, believes U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/09/10/linda-mcmahon-rfk-jr-mental-health-students/">expressed views</a>&nbsp;on the over-discussion and over-pathologization of youth mental health issues don’t bode well for the future of related initiatives. “I do think that there is an ideological reason why these grants were targeted,” she said, “and I do think we have to remain vigilant about the ways in which this administration is going to support young people's mental health in schools.”&nbsp;



The continuous federal funding upheaval may have had at least one positive outcome for mental health advocates, though. Now they know how to respond. While Delaney said the initial rush following this week’s terminations — to organize his team and collect new information and field inquiries all at once — felt akin to Whac-A-Mol, previous experience helped him maintain a sense of control. “I think because we've done this before, honestly, I felt ready to tackle this,” he said. “We knew what to do, we knew who to contact, and we were going to be able to put together a database that was going to be really helpful, and we were going to be able to do it really well, really fast.”



“It's really, really energizing to see the vast numbers of folks pull together, the communities activate and mobilize, and you can draw a lot of strength from that,” Delaney said.



You can reach LearningWell Reporter Mollie Ames at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:mames@learningwellmag.org">mames@learningwellmag.org</a>&nbsp;with comments, ideas, or tips.

SAMHSA Grant Reversal Fuels Additional Anxiety in the Field   

Xochitl Casillas’ students were moping again. As the dean of Chicano Latino student affairs at the Claremont Colleges, she had come to expect this phenomenon: When February rolled around, and Valentine’s Day became imminent, those without partners seemed to feel their singledom more keenly than ever. She called them, affectionately, the “lonely hearts club.” She also wanted to help.



Starting last year, Casillas organized an event on Valentine’s Day-eve for students who didn’t want to be alone to come together. The main activity was an art workshop, called Campus Colors and Connection, which asks students to consider the feelings different colors provoke and then create abstract drawings to represent those feelings or related experiences. By sharing their work and thinking with each other, they could learn more about their peers, as well as themselves.



“This is the time where a lot of people who want partnership may not have it,” Casillas remembered telling the group. “But today, this is an opportunity to connect.”



The workshop Casillas led her students through was developed by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artandhealing.org/">The Foundation for Art and Healing</a>, a nonprofit that promotes the arts as an intervention for loneliness. Jeremy Nobel, M.D., Ph.D., a physician and lecturer at Harvard Medical School, started the foundation to explore the impact of the arts on health generally but pivoted towards developing arts-based resources for loneliness about a decade ago. At that point, loneliness was emerging as a predominant mental health concern, and research had begun to suggest what Nobel already suspected: The arts could help.



Today, with loneliness widely considered a national crisis and young adults particularly affected, Nobel continues to believe in art as an antidote. Lately, he and his team have made a special push to bring their work to colleges and universities. Educators, like Casillas, all too familiar with their students’ struggles, have become eager partners. Even those who might question handing crayons to twenty-somethings are considering: Can they afford not to try?



“I think loneliness is where depression was 20 years ago,” Nobel said, “where people didn’t even want to say it out loud.” In other words, Americans may have come around to the idea that depression is a medical condition, rather than a personal defect, but they don’t necessarily treat loneliness with the same open mind. Nobel, whose background is in internal medicine, likes to say loneliness is just a biological signal that a person needs to connect, like feeling thirsty is a signal to drink water. He urges others to adopt this same understanding, or risk the consequences.&nbsp;



<a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3874845/">Evidence</a>&nbsp;shows that, physically, loneliness can make people vulnerable to inflammation, higher blood pressure, and a weaker immune system. Mentally, they may act less rationally and more impulsively; they may begin to see the world as threatening. And the lonelier they stay, the more threatening the world seems and the more difficult it becomes to develop connections in the future. Nobel calls this “spiraling.”&nbsp;



Young people report to be the loneliest of any age group, despite seeming so well-connected online. Even considering the end of the pandemic and return to in-person learning, Gen Z continues to indicate widespread loneliness; in 2024, up to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gwi.com/blog/gen-z-loneliness">eight in 10</a>&nbsp;were saying they had been lonely in the last year. As for why, a slew of familiar explanations abounds, like the impact of social media, drawing youth away from “real” human interaction.&nbsp;



Art and Healing



For Nobel, the connection between loneliness and the arts wasn’t immediately apparent. At first, his interest in the health impacts of creative expression was focused on how it might help treat acute trauma. He had personally sensed the benefits after using poetry to make sense of his feelings about the Sept. 11 attacks. A psychologist overseeing a similar brand of work in a more formal setting confirmed patients were finding relief, specifically across race and class backgrounds.&nbsp;



“The arts seemed to be helpful across all these wide horizons,” Nobel said, “which meant something was going on that really rewired your brain in some important ways.”&nbsp;



In 2003, Nobel launched The Foundation for Art and Healing, eager to explore the effects himself. He kept the focus on trauma-affected groups — first those with military backgrounds, then those dealing with sexual, domestic, meteorologic, and other forms of trauma. As the scope expanded, Nobel heard a common refrain: The programs “made them less lonely and more connected.”&nbsp;



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Brain imaging now shows how areas associated with social connection light up while subjects engage with art. 
</blockquote>



Science was catching up, too.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2022.738865/full">Brain imaging</a>&nbsp;now shows how areas associated with social connection light up while subjects engage with art. Other findings suggest it can reduce hormones associated with&nbsp;<a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5004743/">stress</a>&nbsp;and increase&nbsp;<a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7075503/">“feel-good” ones</a>, like dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin.&nbsp;



As evidence mounted, the foundation turned its attention fully to art’s possible sway over loneliness. In its current form, the organization aims to raise awareness and reduce stigma around loneliness, as well as disseminate research-based programs that help people connect. Offerings include original films, online exercises, and in-person workshops,&nbsp;all&nbsp;within the organization's signature initiative,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artandhealing.org/project-unlonely/">Project UnLonely</a>.



Core to all this work, and meant to maximize its impact, is the foundation’s public health approach. The Foundation for Art and Healing team partners with other businesses and organizations to implement its services, rather than delivering them directly. It also prioritizes simple and low-cost interventions that don’t require prior medical or professional training to implement. “The key is to do things that meet three criteria: effectiveness, scalability, and sustainability,” Nobel said.&nbsp;&nbsp;



While the foundation also targets the general public, the elderly, and workers in high-stress environments, Gen Z has become a particular focus. Community-based organizations like museums and libraries can be good partners for reaching the 18 to 28-year-old demo. But, Nobel said, “by far the most direct way is through colleges and universities.”&nbsp;



So far, the foundation has reached more than 50 campuses and 6,000 students. The institutions range from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health to large public research universities in the south and small community colleges on the west coast. The activities appeal to a range of campus community members, including those in student affairs, residential life, spiritual life, athletics, and even campus museums.&nbsp;



At the Claremont Colleges, students used the Campus Colors and Connection exercise to explore their common cultural identity. When Casillas asked them to represent, through different colors and shapes, what brings them joy, for example, she said her Latino students depicted cooking with a grandparent in the Dominican Republic, swinging in a hammock in Puerto Rico, and speaking Spanish. She watched them become eager to tell their stories and encourage new friends to do the same.&nbsp;



“People are like, ‘Oh, it feels like we're back in elementary school. We're just coloring,’” Casillas said. “But I think they didn't realize how vulnerable they were going to get.” After the 45-minute Valentine’s Day session ended, students lingered to continue the conversation.



The simplicity, perhaps child-like nature,&nbsp;of the exercise might push some away. But Nobel said the playfulness is the point. It’s also part of the draw as a less intimidating, or clinical, form of self-care. “We never frame it as therapy,” he said of the workshops. “We often don't even use the word loneliness in our promotion of it.” Instead, the directive is simple: “Create and connect.”



Expanding Connections



The University of New England was an early adopter of Campus Colors and Connection, starting about four years ago. Coming out of the pandemic, Dean of Students Jennifer DeBurro said she and her team decided to take a “10,000-foot view” of the student wellbeing issue: “We were asking ourselves questions about on-ramps: What are some of the additional ways that we could provide opportunities for students to connect with peers in a low-risk, easy way?” That’s when they were introduced to Nobel’s work.&nbsp;



First a one-off program, Campus Colors and Connection is now part of U.N.E.’s orientation program. “They can just talk — talk about what's making them nervous about going off to school, talk about what's exciting, reflect on a memory,” DeBurro said of incoming students.



When it comes to evaluating the workshop, the primary mechanism is the survey students fill out after participating. Questions prompt them to reflect generally on the experience, and so far, the results are positive. The vast majority have reported they would recommend the workshop to others (96 percent), as well as feeling more in touch with their emotions (84 percent) and more connected to their peers (84 percent). 79 percent of those who indicated feeling lonely beforehand said they felt less lonely afterwards.&nbsp;



Yet Nobel recognizes the survey work isn’t as robust as it could be. He hopes to expand assessment to consider the potential impact on student success, including academic performance and retention. “Does being more connected increase learning? All the evidence says it should,” he said.&nbsp;



As the foundation aims to strengthen assessment efforts, Claremont and U.N.E. continue to extend their partnerships with the foundation. Casillas has now led Campus Colors and Connection not only for her Latino students broadly but with a group of student mentors, who learned to run a version of the session themselves. She also brought the workshop to fellow staff.&nbsp;



U.N.E. recently began offering a tailored version of the Campus Colors and Connection for first-gen students. “We continue to talk about it in as many different corners of the university as we can,” DeBurro said, “so that any opportunity we have to bring it to a new population, we do.”



You can reach LearningWell Reporter Mollie Ames at <a href="mailto:mames@learningwellmag.org">mames@learningwellmag.org</a> with comments, ideas, or tips.

Colors and Connections

When Eric Wood talks about the future of college mental health, he does so from the front lines. The longtime director of Texas Christian University’s Counseling and Mental Health Center and past president of the Texas University and College Counseling Directors Association has just been elected the next president of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors (A.U.C.C.C.D.). His tenure will begin in October 2026.&nbsp;



Known for his innovative Comprehensive Collaborative Care Model and award-winning e-book, “A New Narrative for College Mental Health,” Wood is stepping in to lead the nation’s largest organization for campus counseling leaders at a moment when the field, like all of higher ed, is confronting change. We caught up with him fresh off hosting a national symposium on performing artists and athletes and took the opportunity to ask him about A.U.C.C.C.D.’s plans and priorities.



LW: Congratulations on your election as president-elect of A.U.C.C.C.D. What do you see as the major challenges for the organization in the coming year?



EW:&nbsp;We as counseling centers have done a really good job capturing the narrative of how important college mental health is. College mental health has a lot more significance than people realize. If you think about the demographic we serve, the traditional 18- to 25-year-olds, that’s a prime demographic for pretty much anything — substance use, suicide, emerging disorders. It’s also the best time to treat them because if you can treat them then, they may have fewer episodes later, or none at all. Whereas if they wait 10 or 15 years, it's a lot more ingrained and harder to treat.&nbsp;



Colleges and universities have greater access to that demographic than any other health-care system. They live, walk by, and travel by our campuses every day. So the question is: What opportunities does that create if government and other organizations really recognize this?



LW: You’ve become known for T.C.U.’s innovative model of collaborative care. Can you explain what that is and how it ties into your national leadership goals?



EW:&nbsp;We call it the Comprehensive Collaborative Care Model, and it’s reshaping how universities think about their role in mental health. We started it during the pandemic. The mindset had always been that college counseling centers were designed for developmental concerns — the stress that comes from change — not necessarily for students with high mental health needs. But those dynamics have shifted. Now we have students with much higher needs, and our systems weren’t designed for that.



So instead of building hospital-style treatment centers, we built bridges. We partner with community providers who were&nbsp;designed&nbsp;to work with individuals with high needs but who lack the infrastructure and access we have. They come onto our campus, use their programs, and our students stay in school, on our campus, in programs with other college students. It’s a win-win-win: The student’s insurance covers most costs so there’s just the co-pay, and we’ve gotten grants and donors so the treatment centers have the chance for little or no overhead. We’ve trained over 100 schools to replicate various parts of the model.&nbsp;



LW: You mentioned that politics and policy changes are affecting mental health care on campuses. What are you seeing?



EW:&nbsp;If you're in a university that's depending on federal funding, there’s a new level of raised exposure. There’s a perception that if a state or federal funding source doesn’t like something at your institution, they’re going to cut your funding off. People don't realize that even if it had nothing to do with college counseling centers, it is going to trickle down if schools have that cut in funding. When universities face federal or state funding cuts, that trickles down to us. A 20 percent budget cut across campus means a 20 percent cut for the counseling center, too. And yet the demand for services has never been higher.



A lot of the culture-war legislation, like D.E.I. bans, has had unintended consequences. Some states have medical exemptions for those laws, but others don’t. We’ve seen schools cut services that were never meant to be targeted, like gender specific groups with mental health and addiction issues. This is an age group much more likely to seek help on campus than they would after graduation, so when you remove those options, you lose opportunities to intervene early.



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“When policymakers pass laws or set funding priorities, I hope they think carefully about how that affects college mental health.”
</blockquote>



We’re trying to make lawmakers aware that mental health has&nbsp;never&nbsp;been a partisan issue. Surveys show eight out of ten Americans believe schools are responsible for providing health care to students. The narrative we’re pushing is: “Look at the possibilities higher education offers society. Why would you want to limit that potential?”



LW: What other issues are most pressing for college counseling centers right now?



EW:&nbsp;We’re still seeing the ripple effects of the pandemic. And we do know that in this age group one of the things that spiked is their likelihood to transfer. The students entering college now were in middle school during the shutdowns — the classes of 2028 through 2030. That’s a critical cohort with a lot of struggles. They missed key developmental years, and those formative years had a lot of disruption going from middle school to high school, and we see that in their social and academic adjustment carrying over to higher education.&nbsp;



And as digital natives engaged in all the social platforms, they’re used to absorbing all the culture and content and polarizations in society. That’s their reference point, and a lot of them may not know what it’s like to&nbsp;not&nbsp;have that level of polarization. So they’re bringing that to campus. When they see politicians saying certain words or treating each other some way, you're going to see that carry over to how they treat faculty. They see that people just break rules; you see that happening in politics and society, and that carries over into the res halls because that's the frame of reference.&nbsp;



We’re also seeing a higher level of parental involvement. Their parents spent more time with them during lockdowns, engaged in a closer front-row seat to their education, so now we’re seeing that continue — sometimes helicopter-level involvement — in college life.&nbsp;



LW: What’s on your personal wish list as incoming president?



EW: To keep building that narrative and have a stronger voice nationally. We’ve had some success getting attention from politicians and national outlets, but there’s so much more to do. When policymakers pass laws or set funding priorities, I hope they think carefully about how that affects college mental health.



And college is where the developmental concerns play out because this is the prime age. The reason why colleges created counseling centers wasn't because we thought every student had a clinical diagnosis. Most students do not. The centers exist because we define stress as heightened in times of major change, and a major one is when you start college. You only have about four or five of those moments in your life when everything can change. So starting college is one of them — you change where you eat, where you live, your identity, everything — and then graduating college is a second one. So you have so much change bookmarking the college experience. And then you do have associated stressors, like navigating the social environment, and we know that demographic tends to engage in high-risk behavior, so a lot of prevention work is important. That is why college counseling centers exist, and I contend colleges and universities are the best in the world at doing that. But because there's currently a lot more students with high mental health needs coming to campus, the disconnect occurs that we aren’t good at what we're doing. That couldn’t be further from the truth.



The mental health of young people is&nbsp;always&nbsp;going to be a popular, bipartisan cause. We just need to remind people of that and continue the collaboration.



LW: How do you see that collaboration playing out at the national level?



EW:&nbsp;Collaboration is essential. Some states have strong organizations, like Texas, but not all do. One of my goals is to help develop those networks. State laws affect us differently, so we need local collaboration as well as national unity. There’s strength in numbers, whether it’s state collectives, regional conferences, or collaborations across university systems, like the athletic conferences.



It’s also about mutual support. A lot of what’s in the headlines about higher education doesn’t directly involve counseling directors, but it still affects us through funding cuts, political pressures, or staffing shortages. Directors need to come together because having a collaborative amplifies our method, our messages. We need each other to stay resilient.



LW: You just hosted a symposium on athletes and performing arts. What can you tell us about the thinking behind spotlighting those populations?



EW:&nbsp;It really came out of conversations we were having on our campus about performing artists and athletes — two groups that represent the university in powerful ways but have very different kinds of support systems. Varsity athletes get a lot of institutional support, but there are just as many performers and non-varsity athletes who face similar pressures and injuries without the same safety nets.&nbsp;



For example, if a student athlete gets hurt, the university often covers the care, and they can still progress toward their degree. But if a dancer or musician gets injured, they often can’t progress toward their degree because performance is part of their coursework. That difference really highlights why universities need to think more broadly about how they support these students.&nbsp;



So we decided to organize a symposium to explore that. We reached out to experts from Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Harvard — literally the pioneers of performing arts medicine — and every single one of them said yes. We even had ballerina Tiler Peck as a keynote. It turned into a two-day virtual event that drew about 100 sign-ons per session; many of them were in classrooms watching together. It was the first time we’d done anything like it, and it really underscored how much synergy there is between athletic and performing-arts wellness.



LW: How long have you been at T.C.U., and what do you think your election says about A.U.C.C.C.D. and where it’s headed?



EW:&nbsp;I started at T.C.U. right out of my Ph.D. program in 2007 and became director in 2019, so I had one good semester before the pandemic hit. Everything we’ve built since then has been about adapting to change and meeting students where they are.



I’m honored by the role. I think part of the reason I was elected is because we’ve done a good job at innovation at T.C.U., and I think it shows a shift in the narrative about college mental health. For a long time, the assumption was that we as colleges were limited — that if a student had a serious mental health disorder, they needed to go elsewhere, just like you wouldn’t expect a university to perform surgery. But that’s changing. For example, one of our specialized programs is an intensive outpatient program on campus. I’d love to see every residential campus in America have one. The impact would be generational.



So, I think my election signals that people are starting to recognize the potential and the possibilities of what we can do — and that we can do it at a fraction of the cost, using programs that already exist. And why would you want to do anything to ruin that potential? To have my colleagues across the country say, “We want that kind of innovation leading us forward” — that’s deeply meaningful. It tells me people see the potential of college mental health, and they’re ready to invest in it.

Leading the Next Chapter of College Mental Health

Allie Jutton graduated from high school in 2022 with a pile of Advanced Placement credits and few options to put them to use at the kind of small liberal arts college she wanted to attend. But she knew she could save a lot of time and money if she could find a school that counted her A.P. work toward her degree.



Jutton, who grew up in Lakeville, Minn., landed at the University of Minnesota Morris. It offered the small college feel—just shy of 1,000 undergraduate students—and a well-publicized Degree in Three program, which could save students like her about $20,000 by graduating in three years, instead of four.



Jutton was sold. And now she’s graduating with a degree in psychology and a minor in gender, women, and sexuality studies and plans to attend Minnesota State University, Mankato in the fall for a master’s in mental health counseling.



“I came in with a lot of general education courses already done, like statistics, history, geography, and English,” Jutton said.​​ “It was cost-effective for me and my family, and it allowed me to get my degree a little faster.”&nbsp;



At Morris, the Degree in Three program isn’t a new concept. Students with the drive and desire have always had the option to finish the standard 120 credits to earn a bachelor’s degree in a shortened time frame. However, it wasn’t until 2024 that the college openly advertised that all of its 32 majors could be completed in three years, if students chose to do so.



Morris is one of almost 50 institutions that have joined the College-in-3 Exchange, a nonprofit organization advocating for more undergraduate degree options that take less time to complete. The collective includes a diversity of institutions, from Georgetown University and the University of Miami, to Merrimack College and Portland State. When the incubator started in 2021, a dozen institutions signed on—and the group has grown each year.



“Higher ed needs to be reimagined in all kinds of ways, and this is a very practical way to create a catalyst for rethinking undergraduate education,” Lori Carrell, chancellor of the University of Minnesota Rochester, said. She founded College-in-3 alongside Robert Zemsky, professor at the University of Pennsylvania.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
“Higher ed needs to be reimagined in all kinds of ways, and this is a very practical way to create a catalyst for rethinking undergraduate education."
</blockquote>



Nationwide, about 64 percent of students who start a degree program finish it within six years, with an average loan debt among borrowers of $29,300, according to the College Board. In 2023, Carrell testified to the U.S. House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development about how the College-in-3 concept could improve student retention, degree completion, and career launch, either by developing accelerated 120-credit degrees or creating new curricula that reduce the credit requirement to 90.



“Accreditors have opened their doors to this,” Carrell said.&nbsp;



Not for Everybody



While financial wellbeing is an obvious benefit of earning a degree in three years, the College-in-3 movement continues to head off concerns about less-desirable repercussions for students, like increased stress, feelings of overwhelm, or a rushed college experience.&nbsp;



Jutton shared those concerns, initially. Her fears were eased after mapping out the course work with her advisor, taking into account the credits she brought with her from high school. Still, Jutton worked two jobs while in school, as a resident assistant and also as an assistant in the student engagement and events office. During her second year, she took 20 credits each semester. It was a lot at the time, but Jutton believes the experience also gave her skills that she’ll use forever.



“It taught me valuable life lessons. I’m really good at time management and my organizational skills are better than they were coming into college,” Jutton said. “I was able to recognize when I needed help and ask for it, as well as set boundaries for what I can and cannot do.”



As more institutions are joining the College-in-3 Exchange, they are also considering how to design curricula that take student mental health and wellbeing into account, Carrell said.



“The worry that you’re just going to rush students through and turn degrees into credentials, instead of deep, transformative learning? Nothing could be farther from what we’re doing,” she said.



Janet Schrunk Ericksen, chancellor at Morris, said that since the college started actively promoting the three-year option in February 2024, it’s been well received. The Degree in Three program features prominently on the website, and Ericksen said that it receives more page views than any other part of the site. Visitors also spend more time looking at the information.



“We serve a large percentage of students from historically underrepresented populations—low-income, first-generation students,” Ericksen said. “Giving them this path is important.”



Ericksen acknowledges, however, that completing a 120-credit bachelor’s degree in a condensed timeline isn’t for everybody. It’s easier for those who can use A.P. credit or pursued dual enrollment in high school, earning some college credits before arriving on campus. Most students also take a summer class or two along the way. She believes that certain degrees also lend themselves to quicker completion than others. Physics, for example, requires foundational knowledge before moving on to the next levels, so the major might be more challenging to finish in less than four years.&nbsp;



“It’s not going to work for students who change their major six times or who want a triple major—and we have a fair number of those,” Ericksen said. “But the students who are really focused, they’re saying, ‘Yes, this is what I want, and it’s great to have a clear path.’”



An opportunity for experiential learning&nbsp;



Institutions like Brigham Young University - Idaho, which serves an older population of working adults taking online classes, are finding that eliminating elective courses and reducing degree credits to 90 or 94 are helping students complete programs in majors like business management, applied health, and family and human services. The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, an accrediting body, approved the truncated programs in 2023.



Still, not everybody is sold on the validity of a 90-credit degree. Some higher education experts and faculty members are concerned that it will create a two-tiered system and that employers may not value the degrees equally.&nbsp;



But Madeleine Green, executive director of the College-in-3 Exchange, said the timing for higher education to make such changes is “propitious.”



“For all the questions that are out there about the value of a degree, employability of graduates, the cost of higher education, those are all factors that I think have propelled institutions to think about alternative pathways,” Green said.



Designing three-year degree programs with industry partners is leading to better outcomes, Carrell said. At the University of Minnesota Rochester, for example, students in health-related majors are offered paid internships at the Mayo Clinic, as well as job interviews upon graduation. The partnership has also helped the faculty design a tight curriculum that ensures that students are prepared for the workforce, while building in strategies like block scheduling, success coaches, and capstone experiences that contribute to student wellbeing.



“To know that there are these dire workforce shortages in healthcare deserts and we’re producing people who can go out and serve communities sooner is very, very satisfying,” Carrell said.



Peh Ng, chair of the division of science and mathematics at Morris, said the students she’s helped guide through three-year degrees aren’t missing out on the hallmark experiences of college, like undergraduate research, study abroad, and internships. Still, those who arrive at Morris without having earned any college-level credits have a much more challenging time finishing in less than four years—and often they don’t.



“A three-year program is really not for every student, but if a student tries it and it doesn’t work, then they finish it in four years. So at the end of the day, it bodes well for four-year graduation rates,” she said.&nbsp;



Ng is among the faculty members who don’t agree with reducing credit requirements, especially in STEM fields, where she said the difference between taking 12 courses and seven is “huge.”



“You can’t have two tiers of programs,” Ng said. “I am a strong proponent of not changing the requirements.”



Jutton agrees with Ng—she wouldn’t have wanted to take a lesser load, she said. As she prepares to graduate, she has few regrets. Sure, another year may have afforded her a more robust social life, but she also found friendship and camaraderie among like-minded peers who were also on the fast-track to degree completion. Although Jutton will be younger than many of her graduate school cohort, she still feels prepared to move on.



“I think the biggest thing for me was finding supporters, like my career counselor and the faculty,” Jutton said. “I haven’t met someone who does not believe in me here and that was really important for me to be able to do the degree in three.”

"College-in-3"

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On this episode of LearningWell Radio, Dustin Liu, the senior associate director of the Institute on Purpose and Flourishing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, joins for a conversation about the tropes and truths of working alongside Gen Z. He discusses the complexities of navigating today’s five-generation workplace and how educators and employers alike can make it one where everyone flourishes.



Listen now on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5rCAig1z0nvT2EEhUaFAon?si=c0d0d73fe37346cb">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learningwell-radio/id1732284927?i=1000757054485">Apple Podcasts</a>.



You can reach LearningWell Reporter Mollie Ames at <a href="mailto:mames@learningwellmag.org">mames@learningwellmag.org</a> with comments, ideas, or tips.

Gen Z at Work with Dustin Liu

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On this episode of LearningWell Radio, reporter Mollie Ames hosts best-selling author Daniel Coyle for a conversation about his latest book, “Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment.” He talks us through the biologically-rooted reasons humans need others to be and do well, and how educational settings can be particularly fertile ground for the kinds of connection that flourishing requires.



Listen now on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7iQsSg8YKufhWDGFRdUIaj?si=c4206682d4124f16">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learningwell-radio/id1732284927?i=1000755754356">Apple Podcasts</a>.



You can reach LearningWell Reporter Mollie Ames at <a href="mailto:mames@learningwellmag.org">mames@learningwellmag.org</a> with comments, ideas, or tips.

How to Flourish with Daniel Coyle

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On this episode of LearningWell Radio, we hear from Alexis Redding — psychologist, researcher, and faculty co-chair of the higher education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education — about her new book, "Mental Health in College: What Research Tells Us About Supporting Students."



Listen now on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0sH4yRxMYiiri0ptKy1C6o?si=d44c23b7f6594451">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learningwell-radio/id1732284927?i=1000754480284">Apple Podcasts</a>.



You can reach LearningWell Editor Marjorie Malpiede at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:mmalpiede@learningwellmag.org">mmalpiede@learningwellmag.org</a>&nbsp;with&nbsp;comments, ideas, or tips.

Talking College Student Mental Health with Alexis Redding

Happiness today is most often associated with comfort, or momentary pleasure, but our founders envisioned something very different when they drafted the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, “the pursuit of happiness” may be the most misunderstood phrase in the national vocabulary.&nbsp;



As we approach our 250th anniversary as a country, a new course at Arizona State University aims to clarify the term “happiness” and, in doing so, remind us of the virtuous ideals on which our nation was founded. “What the Founders Meant by Happiness: A Journey Through Virtue and Character” is&nbsp;a partnership between A.S.U. and the National Constitution Center, and course co-creators Ted Cross of A.S.U. and Jeffrey Rosen, the center’s&nbsp;C.E.O. emeritus.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Based on Rosen’s book, “The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America,” the course explores how the study of classical virtue shaped the founders’ understanding of happiness, character, and civic duty. But in creating the course, Rosen and Cross hoped to do far more than correct an interpretation that has been misconstrued over time. The course engages students in getting to know our founding fathers and mothers who, despite their flaws, made the pursuit of virtue something that would guide the growth of the country.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The course’s title, “What the Founders Meant by Happiness,” is revealed in the first part of the course, stemming directly from Rosen’s body of work as a constitutional scholar.&nbsp;“The founder's happiness did not mean ‘feeling good,’ but ‘being good’ — not the pursuit of immediate pleasure, but the pursuit of long-term virtue — meaning self-mastery, character improvement, and lifelong learning,” Rosen said.&nbsp;



The course draws reflection from learners about how the original meaning of happiness can be held for individuals and society today.&nbsp;



“We hope that students and learners become reflective on not only what happiness means to them but which of those values and virtues they would like to adopt in their own lives and what implications that may have on how we interact with one another,” said Ted Cross, who leads&nbsp;<a href="https://pi.asu.edu/">Principled Innovation</a>,a character education initiative at A.S.U. that places character and virtue at the center of decision-making.&nbsp;



The open access, online course has 12 modules and is currently available <a href="https://pi.asu.edu/courses/civic-virtue/">at A.S.U. without credit</a> (though Cross hopes that will change over time) and on the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/education/civic-virtue-course">National Constitution Center’s website</a>. Those who complete all 12 modules receive a certificate. The co-creators describe the course as “providing a framework to cultivate civic identity and character at scale, modeling how institutions can democratize character education while reinforcing civic flourishing.”



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
Rosen said the aim of this course is to shed light on a critical pillar of our democracy: holding dear a common understanding of what it is we stand for.
</blockquote>



The second part of the course revisits the founders’ stories — from Thomas Jefferson to Benjaman Franklin to Phyllis Wheatley — revealing their moral sources for recovering happiness as the pursuit of virtue and self-control. Key to this telling is their humanness in borrowing their insights from philosophers like Aristotle and Cicero and their admission that their quest for moral fortitude often eluded them. It was the pursuit that mattered most. Explained in this context, Cross said, the content becomes relatable.&nbsp;



While it stands on its own from a content perspective, the course itself reinforces the missions of both its founding organizations. As part of A.S.U.’s Principled Innovation, it fits nicely within the character education framework, which has been adopted by A.S.U. President Michael Crow as a foundational design aspiration of the university. The school is promoting the course not just to students but to educators at A.S.U. Prep, the university’s preparatory charter school, and other K-12 educators.&nbsp;



As the nation’s only institution dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding of the constitution, the National Constitution Center has been marketing the course throughout the country, hoping to attract students and life -long learners alike to engage with all or some of the modules. The course is the latest addition to the center’s growing suite of educational resources initiated by Rosen when he was the president and C.E.O.&nbsp;



Rosen said the aim of this course is to shed light on a critical pillar of our democracy: holding dear a common understanding of what it is we stand for.



“People should think as they will and speak as they will, but we need models to inspire us,” Rosen said. “We need exemplars. Without a consensus about our heroes, it’s difficult to invite people to envision happiness in this once familiar but now forgotten way.”



The course underscores another important tenant of democracy in America by examining the juxtaposition of freedom and self-control, once again illustrated through the intentions and practices of our founders. “I’ve always believed that democracy depends on political self-government,” Cross said. “Our founders set up a system that has many degrees of freedom, but it depends on individual citizens being able to manage themselves and interact with each other in virtuous ways.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



The course was launched in February 2026, and the response thus far has been positive, in part due to an engaging storytelling format (a hook Cross said was intentional for younger learners). But time will tell if deeper meaning about virtue and self-control will come through for a generation often criticized as being isolated and self-absorbed. The co-creators believe the lack of moral exemplars this generation has experienced, both in popular culture and leadership, may actually increase the course’s appeal.&nbsp;



“We know that young people want to be happy,” said Cross, who has taught courses in positive psychology. “My contention is if you learn to be good, you will also feel good, that there is a root to feeling good that comes through character development, purpose, and meaning.”&nbsp;



Rosen agrees and sees the course as an example of a renaissance of character education in the U.S.&nbsp;



&nbsp;“We’ve had a tremendous reaction to the course thus far and we are hoping that this will be part of the movement for the cultivation of virtue that is increasingly strong in America today,” Rosen said. “There's a hunger for this right now in this country.”&nbsp;



You can reach LearningWell Editor Marjorie Malpiede at <a href="mailto:mmalpiede@learningwellmag.org">mmalpiede@learningwellmag.org</a> with comments, ideas, or tips.

Knowing What We Seek 

Adding three to the “staying” side and another three to the “going” side, I recently opened a spreadsheet to keep track of the friends who I will (not) see as often around campus throughout junior year. It was only once I began to record my friends’ impending study abroad adventures that I accepted the truth about my own college life: I will not sacrifice a semester at school in order to go abroad.&nbsp;



I feel this looming sadness as a sophomore at Georgetown University, which has a particularly global-minded student body. Studying abroad at Georgetown feels more like a rite of passage than the right opportunity for a certain kind of student. About 16 percent of bachelors-earning undergraduates nationally will study abroad, while Georgetown boasts a 57 percent abroad rate. In our School of Foreign Service, the percentage hovers around 80 percent. For this reason, many Georgetown students no longer waste their precious breath to ask if a peer plans to study abroad. Rather, students ask each other where they are traveling and for how long.&nbsp;



Whichever way the conversation goes, the student staying on campus becomes accustomed to bearing the burden of proof for his own decision. For some, foreign travel is just so obviously enriching for their career paths that they could hardly imagine it not applying as clearly to their friends’ journey. Others just cannot fathom how anyone could opt out of taking a semester-long adventure.&nbsp;&nbsp;



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Sometimes pursuing an unconventional path for the sake of being true to oneself actually requires as big a leap — as much self-introspection and reliance — as chasing adventures on the other side of the world.
</blockquote>



The typical student who chooses not to go abroad is one familiar with hearing that he will regret it for the rest of his life. The language of regret is hardly unique to studying abroad. So many decisions to abstain from what others are doing are vulnerable to self-doubt when they are expressed. What was once an assured decision sounds uncertain in the voice of a student who has lost his confidence. Sometimes pursuing an unconventional path for the sake of being true to oneself actually requires as big a leap — as much self-introspection and reliance — as chasing adventures on the other side of the world. There is more than one way to realize our full selves in college, including by learning to trust our own instincts.



Especially at Georgetown, it is no coincidence that most students study abroad during their junior year. When I saw the peak of academic rigor, my junior fall, in the distance, I promised myself that I would instead opt for the rolling hills of Florence, Italy. Little could be better than escaping dining hall food for cacio e pepe, all while augmenting my pre-law G.P.A. with classes that past villa dwellers had told me were a breeze.&nbsp;



But the longer I waited for my once-in-a-lifetime study abroad experience to begin, I realized that college itself was a life-altering experience.&nbsp;The opportunity to live abroad for such an extended period of time may never come again, but college also feels quite precious.&nbsp;Friends, classmates, and professors are an inevitable part of student life, but they only form a community when they live and work in close proximity. Study abroad professors offer valuable knowledge, but they are still unlikely mentors when compared to a professor whose office is just a short walk away from a residence hall back on campus.&nbsp;



Even if abroad coursework covers major or general education requirements, there may be more that a student wants out of their degree. A degree can become more than an arrangement of words on a diploma since unique classes can imbue a student’s coursework with personal significance. Many college students still remember the drag of taking obligatory classes in high school and revel in realizing the academic freedom that was long withheld from us.&nbsp;



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The opportunity to live abroad for such an extended period of time may never come again, but college also feels quite precious.
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That abroad coursework even covers major or general education requirements is also never guaranteed. For up to a week before new semester class registration, thousands of students are piecing together the right classes with the best professors, to fit the right requirements at the right time. For students like me who double major with a minor, a good semester schedule is already almost as puzzling as it gets in college. Nothing kills a good study abroad plan quite like discovering that two required classes conflict timing-wise and that overloading credits is the only excruciating solution.&nbsp;



Students can find themselves studying abroad despite these constraints, but the pain tolerance should be higher for students whose course of study necessitates a journey abroad. If I was a Classics major, my degree path would feel incomplete without a semester abroad in Italy. As of now, I remain convinced that Washington D.C. is the right place to further my education and experience in American politics.&nbsp;



Leading with what convinces me is enough to feel satisfied with my own decision to stay, even as so many people I care about are going. There is some irony here: the study abroad decision that I would most likely regret would have been prompted by an exogenous fear of regret itself. If I ever go abroad, I want it to be because I led myself there, not because I mistook someone else’s path for my own.



Aaron Polluck is a sophomore at Georgetown University studying government. He writes for The Georgetown Voice.

Study Abroad Is Not for Everyone

At a time when public conversation often seems defined by fragmentation, colleges are increasingly asking how they can help students develop the habits of thoughtful disagreement. A growing number of institutions have created centers focused on civil discourse, hoping to foster intellectual complexity, humility, and respect. Davidson College’s new Institute for Public Good reflects this broader movement while also drawing on a distinctive institutional history — a culture shaped for generations by an Honor Code that places character formation at the center of learning.



In August, the small liberal arts school in North Carolina formally established the institute as a hub for civic engagement, ethical leadership, and open dialogue. Home to only around 2,000 students, Davidson has quickly attracted unusually strong support for the project, including more than $50 million from a combination of private and public funders.



The early momentum reflects a central claim of the institute’s leaders based on the school’s core identity: that the most meaningful civil discourse is rooted in a broader culture of character formation, rather than programming alone.



According to Chris Marsicano, the inaugural director of the institute and a Davidson graduate, this new initiative is the college’s “attempt to plant a flag in higher education and say, ‘We’re going to do this right.’”



“We’re going to develop the leadership for the next generation of leaders, and we're going to do it in the ways that we care about when it comes to character,” Marsicano said. “We're tired of seeing political leaders who do not have integrity, and certainly the American public are.”



The institute’s first major contribution came from the Educating Character Initiative (E.C.I.) at Wake Forest University, whose $750,000 grant and seal of approval evidently opened the floodgates. Since the beginning of 2026, Davidson has announced a $4 million grant from the Department of Education — the largest federal award in the college’s history — and, most recently, $47 million raised from a handful of alumni and individuals. In honor of one family of donors, the center has been renamed the D.G. and Harriet Wall Martin Institute for Public Good.



Honored Traditions



Marsicano didn’t always think of Davidson’s focus on honor and integrity explicitly as “character education.” But now, he finds, the shoe fits.&nbsp;



“In some ways, I’ve always been into character education,” he said.



The same could be said of Davidson as a whole. Its signature Honor Code dates back to the college’s inception, and every year, the newest students continue to participate in a formal ceremony where they sign their names on the pledge not to lie, cheat, or steal.&nbsp;



The implications are academic, but not only. Perhaps the most notable feat of the Honor Code is that it holds up beyond the classroom. Somehow, it doesn’t simply slip from students’ minds once they’ve closed their blue books or handed in their papers.



Connor Hines, a senior at Davidson, said the Honor Code shaped his thinking long before he arrived on campus. His mother, an alumna, had invoked the code to teach him the difference between right and wrong.



“I can hear her saying, ‘Well, when I went to college, we had this Honor Code and you weren't allowed to do X, Y, Z,’” Hines said. “And so that really has been the lens which I've viewed most of my life through and grown up around.”



Hines, now the president of Davidson’s student government, insists the Honor Code really does play out in the everyday. He said his peers and professors operate with such a distinct level of care for and sense of accountability to each other that his friends from other schools comment on the difference when they visit. The vow to return a lost wallet, Hines explained, translates similarly to an effort to remember personal details about others and make them feel known on campus among the crowd.



“If it were just a parchment statement hanging up in our academic building that you don't interact with, sure, it would probably fade away,” Hines said. “But just with the number of opportunities that you have to interact with the Honor Code, I think is what continues its enduring strength.”



Davidson’s emphasis on civil discourse has been similarly enduring. The school’s original debate clubs, the Philanthropic and Eumenean Societies, are known to have been the heart of early social life. The groups’ dueling members used to stand on the balconies of their adjacent matching brick buildings on the quad and battle back and forth on chosen issues.&nbsp;



Although the societies don’t function today as they once did, the original sites remain, and every four years, the college republicans and democrats face off from the same balconies to debate the presidential election. A crowd of several hundred more students gathers to spectate.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
"The ability to disagree with each other is in our D.N.A."
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The Eumenean Society remains a student-run civil discourse organization, while Philanthropic took on a more literary focus. At current Eumenean meetings, students pull random topics out of a bowl to debate that range from federal housing policy to M&amp;Ms versus Skittles. Davidson students continue to feel the pull towards intensive engagement with each other in both the liberal arts academic and social life.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“The ability to disagree with each other is in our D.N.A. We are a liberal arts college in a purple state on the border between two states,” Marsicano said. “We have people who are conservative from New England and liberal from the south. We have people from abroad who are as libertarian as they come and socialist students from right down the street. That is who we are.”&nbsp;



Marsicano added that the protections for freedom of speech upheld in Davidson’s constitution are among the strongest “of any college in America.” “Any student group can invite anybody to campus to speak, and the administration cannot stop it from happening,” he said.



Hines, a political science major who grew up a short drive away from Davidson, considers himself a moderate conservative. His best friend and roommate for the last four years is a communist, the first Hines had ever met.



“I've spent way too many long nights and hours in the library having discussions and debates around policy, politics, political theory, probably to the detriment of my work,” Hines said.&nbsp;



“You can have those conversations because we're a small school — 2,000 people — yes. But the diversity of thought within those 2,000 students is incredible.”



&nbsp;A New Home



Now both the Honor Code and the tradition of civil discourse are taking up residence in a new home: the Martin Institute for Public Good, which will be operating out of the historic Philanthropic and Eumanean buildings.



With the Martin Institute organized into four categories of programming, the Honor Code falls under Ethics, Honor, &amp; Leadership, while civil discourse is part of Deliberation &amp; Free Expression. The other two areas of work are Public Policy &amp; Research and Arts and Public Life.



These categories capture not just the variety of topics the Martin Institute is bringing together but the diverse approaches. Within the same center will be an arm for community engagement opportunities, for academic development and innovation, and for public policy and other research.



“It is probably the most ambitious academic initiative at Davidson College in the past 30 years because it is trying to follow a model that, at least to our knowledge, is not followed elsewhere fully,” Marsicano said.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
“Our model is one that builds up character in a time where people are starving for it."
</blockquote>



The funding from the E.C.I. is supporting work in Ethics, Honor, &amp; Leadership, where the primary initiatives include faculty grants to incorporate character education into curricula and a national convening bringing together student honor councils at various colleges.



The national convening, which has been held twice now, is a chance for students around the country interested in ideas of academic and general integrity to discuss their common or unique challenges and help each other work through them.



Artificial intelligence and its implications for cheating, for example, have become particularly pressing concerns in recent years. Even if no one is entirely confident in the best way forward, Hines said, it’s exciting to be building a “network of leaders between schools that we can rely on if we continue to have questions or as we just navigate the challenges that we face.”



Hines also spearheaded the production of Davidson’s first-ever Celebration of Honor, a week-long, all-campus event to highlight the impact of the Honor Code. Programming spanned a panel of stand-out Davidson alumni discussing the legacy of the Honor Code in their lives to less formal gatherings, like an ice cream social, Hines called opportunities to “just connect.”



Another effort benefitting from E.C.I. support is an ongoing attempt to develop a new version of the Personal and Social Responsibility Inventory, a tool used to assess different facets of campus climate, to include academic freedom. That resource would allow Davidson to measure its own success in that area and help other campuses do the same.&nbsp;



The $4 million from the Department of Education will go towards Deliberation &amp; Free Expression programming, specifically the development of a Deliberative Citizenship Network. Through the D.C.N., Davidson will be supporting a group of 100 other institutions in their efforts to train faculty, support students, form partnerships, and engineer new tools to strengthen campus discourse around contentious issues.&nbsp;



Marsicano said he’s not overly concerned that the funds from the Department of Education could be affected — that is, revoked — like other federal grants to higher education in the last year. But he was firm that should the money be threatened, Davidson won’t be sacrificing its own vision or values for the sake of staying afloat.



While Davidson focuses on bolstering opportunities and resources for its own community where its traditions run the deepest, it anticipates a new road as a leader in this work for others.



“Our model is one that builds up character in a time where people are starving for it," &nbsp;Marsicano said. “They're starving for exemplars. They're starving for training and education.”&nbsp;



“We just happen to have a model that is set up to do it.”



You can reach LearningWell Reporter Mollie Ames at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:mames@learningwellmag.org">mames@learningwellmag.org</a>&nbsp;with comments, ideas, or tips.

The Davidson Difference

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hZt4doNbZ4
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 This story from Olin College of Engineering graduate Michael Costello finds him wondering which pieces of his high school identity to bring into college. In the absence of actively cultivating his identity, he discovers his ability to flourish in college gets tangled up — like hair that hasn’t been cut in a while.

Storytelling | "Split Ends," Michael Costello

Julia entered college in 2023 pretty sure of two things: that she wanted to major in either art history or French and that she wanted to study abroad. At the time, her dream career involved working in and around museums. 



Now a junior, she is majoring in both French and art, but considers her third major, business, her “primary field” — and sees going into finance a means to all her desired ends. She regrets that study abroad is no longer in the cards, collateral damage in the struggle to meet strenuous requirements for all three departments.&nbsp;



“One day when I exit the corporate world and I've made enough money, I would love to use my business skills and connections in the art world and be able to travel,” Julia said. “When I got on campus, I started to appreciate that there’s a difference between the things you want to do and the things you actually do so you can someday work in the things you want to do.” 



Her calculation reflects a broader shift taking place on college campuses across the country. The rising number of students pursuing double majors — and sometimes triple majors — has increased five-fold at some universities, as students strive to differentiate themselves in a competitive job market and hedge against an uncertain economic future.



But as students stack credentials, advisors and mental health professionals are raising questions about what may be lost in the process: not only balance and wellbeing but also the exploratory, formative aspects of college that can shape a life and career in less easily quantifiable ways.



The Credentials Arms Race



Some observers note what they call a “credential arms race,” the growth of students accumulating academic achievements to remain competitive.&nbsp;



Data from colleges across the U.S. suggest that the share of students graduating with more than one major has risen significantly over the past decade. Reporting by The Hechinger Report has documented a wide spectrum of increases: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has seen a 20% increase; Brown University, 97%; Harvard, 334%; and Drexel, a 591% increase.



Administrators acknowledge the trend is part of a broader socio-economic picture: students worrying about job prospects and attempting to increase their career viability and areas of expertise. Students often frame the decision pragmatically; in an era of economic volatility, rising tuition costs, and rapid technological change, pursuing multiple fields of study can feel like a form of risk management.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
In an era of economic volatility, rising tuition costs, and rapid technological change, pursuing multiple fields of study can feel like a form of risk management.
</blockquote>



But advisors say the motivations are varied, and evolving. Today’s students are navigating a labor market shaped by automation, shifting industry demands, and heightened expectations around early career readiness. Many feel pressure to demonstrate both specialization and versatility at the same time — a challenging balance for anyone, let alone someone still discovering their intellectual interests. And as college costs skyrocket, many feel pressure to make a degree, or degrees, matter as much as they can.



“There’s a sense that students want to keep as many doors open as possible,” said Nigel Richardson, the assistant provost for university advising and student success at the University of Florida. Richardson said he and colleagues increasingly hear from students who arrive on campus already planning to double major or add multiple credentials. “A lot of students are thinking more means better,” he said. “If I have more credentials, that’s going to make me more competitive.”&nbsp;



Hedging Bets in an Uncertain Economy



Students’ motivations for stacking majors are often deeply pragmatic. Many are aware that the labor market they enter after graduation may look quite different from the one that existed even a decade earlier. News headlines regularly discuss artificial intelligence, layoffs in once-stable industries, and the possibility that workers may hold many different roles over the course of their careers.



Even when students don’t explicitly cite A.I., advisors say the broader sense of uncertainty influences how they approach their education. Richardson noted that students are increasingly thinking strategically about how their academic choices position them for employment. Some combine technical and non-technical fields, pairing disciplines like data science with psychology, economics with public policy, or business with the arts.&nbsp;



“Students are thinking about covering bases, but they aren’t fully aware of the costs,” Richardson said. “It’s this desire for more, and their answer — in this environment that they’re in and paying for — is another academic program.”



Alyssa, a sophomore at a highly competitive school in the northeast, has always found child studies fascinating. She speaks eloquently about her fascination with what makes children tick and evolve while maximizing their potential. Working with a nonprofit dedicated to the wellbeing of under-resourced children, she said, has always been her passion. But not her current path.



“I always knew I wanted to have a corporate moment first — to have a sustainable lifestyle — and later, after I’ve been a corporate strategy expert, I can segue into being the head of a nonprofit for children, get globally involved. I’m passionate about that work, but I’m more passionate right now about being corporate first because that’s going to make my life way easier to support in the long run.”&nbsp;



She applied to college with child development as her intended major, knowing it was a less-competitive route into that school. Once she was accepted, she set the groundwork to add a major in business and set her sights on pursuing consulting firms. She just completed a career fair in New York to be introduced to the Big Four, an opportunity she secured by getting involved with her school’s career office early in her first year.&nbsp;



“You have to do all these things because everyone else is doing all these things. It’s not enough to be a double major. You also have to be in the business frat — which I didn’t get into, after trying three semesters — and minor in Chinese or math or data science and have extra-curricular leadership. Everyone’s just generating anxiety,” Alyssa said. The competitive campus environment she describes is one where students are running on all cylinders to be and do everything, realizing that academic credentials alone may not be sufficient to secure employment. Energy and commitment might be the most valuable resources of all. “You have to be really intentional with your time,” she said. “You can’t risk not succeeding in a course, not graduating on time.”&nbsp;



When Efficiency Meets Opportunity



Clearly, not all students double major expressly out of fear of job competition and instability. Many are making room for two strong interests. Some have the advantage of arriving on campus with significant numbers of Advanced Placement or dual-enrollment credits. This allows them to fulfill general education requirements quickly — and puts them on an efficient path, if they choose to maximize the use of credits towards multiple credentials for the same time and cost. Others benefit from financial aid structures that cover a set number of credits, encouraging them to maximize the academic opportunities included in that tuition.



In such cases, adding another major can appear to be an efficient use of resources. Students may reason that if they are already enrolled full-time, pursuing an additional field of study adds value without increasing cost. It’s just slicing and dicing your time in a focused way. Some institutions have also designed interdisciplinary programs that make double majoring cover even more ground.&nbsp;



But efficiency can come with tradeoffs. Richardson introduces students to the idea of a “T-shaped” education — one that combines breadth across disciplines with depth in a particular area of expertise. He cautions that pursuing breadth can sometimes come “at the expense of depth,” limiting opportunities for sustained research engagement or deeper learning within a primary field. The major itself is only one piece of the professional profile, he stresses, along with research, volunteering, and shadowing, all part of a holistic experience.&nbsp;



“If you’re not going deeper into a topic, you’re not increasing your level of understanding or opportunities for hands-on expertise or fruitful relationships with faculty and classmates. Students might think it’s going to make them more competitive. But they could miss that meaningful engagement that’s expected within each of these respective departments in their pursuit of this double or triple major.”



The Stress of Optimizing



Completing multiple majors calls for careful academic planning — timing when required courses are offered — and a willingness to take on heavy course loads. Students may need to coordinate requirements across departments, enroll in classes offered only once per year, and forgo scheduling flexibility.



Kirsten Behling, the associate dean of student accessibility and academic resources at Tufts University, said her office frequently works with students managing the demands of double majors or combinations of majors and minors.



“Students are generally a little bit overwhelmed with the amount of content that they have to cover and how tricky it is to organize getting into the courses you need when they’re offered,” she said. “With multiple majors, they hit the burnout button earlier. They may think they’re doing O.K., until they aren’t.”



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“With multiple majors, they hit the burnout button earlier. They may think they’re doing O.K., until they aren’t.”
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Academic coaching services can help students develop time management strategies and adjust expectations when workloads become difficult to sustain. Behling noted that students sometimes feel locked into rigid academic pathways once they commit to multiple programs or realize they have to miss out on certain options. The inability to participate in study abroad or other experiential learning opportunities can be a significant loss, she added, given the role such experiences play in developing independence, cultural competence, and professional skills.



Missing out on options also has a very everyday component: just plain missing out on hanging out. Mental health professionals find that heavy academic loads can reduce the time students have for social interaction, exercise, and rest.



Eric Wood, the director of counseling and mental health at Texas Christian University, said it is logical that students taking on multiple majors feel the weight of increased demands on their time.



“If you’re doing double majoring, you’re doing more courses,” he said. “You have more demand from faculty, more demand from coaches, and less time socially — even less if you also are holding a part-time job.” Wood said concerns about the job market are common among college students, particularly graduating seniors. “I think it’s only natural that they are absorbing what they hear and read about the economy and job market and A.I. and doing everything they can to protect themselves. But sometimes you don’t realize that frantic protection isn’t actually protecting you.”



When students respond to that anxiety by seeking ways to strengthen their academic profile, counselors try to gently remind them that additional coursework is not the only or best path to career readiness. “Some advisors encourage students to consider whether adding another major will genuinely support their goals or simply add pressure,” Wood said.



A Narrowing of the College Experience?&nbsp;



College has traditionally been framed as a time for intellectual exploration and personal development, as well as career preparation. But students may feel pressure to optimize every aspect of their academic trajectory, leaving less time for activities that contribute to broader growth. Networking events, internships, leadership roles, and collaborative projects often require time flexibility that becomes harder to maintain alongside dense academic schedules.



Behling observes that many students increasingly approach higher education with a highly instrumental mindset. “There’s definitely a ‘means to an end’ mentality,” she said. “I have to do this thing that looks good in order to get this job or this graduate school entry, and sometimes this is emphasized by family, too. If the Tufts experience becomes a means to an end, it’s less about the collegiate, holistic experience — which is something I really believe in — and more the drive, drive, drive to get to the other side of graduation.”



Students are doing what they think they need to do to get a job, Behling said. But that perception may not always reflect employer expectations. Advisors often emphasize that internships, research experience, and interpersonal skills play a significant role in hiring decisions.



Richardson encourages students to ask&nbsp;why&nbsp;they want multiple majors and what they hope those additional programs will accomplish. A second major can contribute to intellectual growth, he advises, but it is not the only way to demonstrate versatility. Often, he finds that students are motivated less by curiosity than by a desire to reduce uncertainty.&nbsp;



“Oftentimes when I’m having this conversation, what comes out is risk management: ‘I have to have the funds; I have to make sure the doors are opened.’ I often don’t hear much about intellectual exploration, and I try to find ways to help them remain curious,” he said. “There are many different ways to approach their preparation to graduate, which could include multiple majors, but there might be other skills and personal attributes that end up mattering a lot more.”



A Recalibration of Success



The rise of double and triple majors suggests that students are responding actively to changing expectations about education and employment. Yet advisors emphasize that academic credentials represent only one dimension of readiness. Relationships, experiences, and intellectual curiosity often shape opportunities in ways that transcripts alone cannot capture.



The challenge for students — and for institutions — may be finding ways to support ambition without sacrificing wellbeing or the broader developmental value of the college experience. Meaningful one-on-one conversations with influential faculty advisors can help. But it’s more easily done in the context of a larger culture shift. In an arms race, it’s hard to unilaterally walk away.



“I do think I do a pretty good job trying to be in the present and appreciate where I am. I love my school. It feels like home, and I love spending time kicking back with my friends,” Alyssa said. “But then I look around at what everyone else is doing, and I feel so dumb that I’m not doing more. It’s just so much harder than I thought.”

Stacking Majors in an Age of Anxiety

Despite battling a double-bout of Covid-19 and strep throat, Destiny Barletta is smiling when she joins our Zoom call. The director of alumnae connections at Wellesley College even dressed up for the occasion, sporting a lime houndstooth blazer (and summoning the signature pantsuits of her institution’s most famous graduate, Hillary Clinton). There’s very little, apparently, that could keep Barletta from talking about her work supporting the professional development of Wellesley alumnae.  



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And that means all of them. Unlike many colleges and universities whose career centers focus on enrolled students and more recent graduates, the prestigious women’s college in Wellesley, Mass. has, for the last ten years, extended services to alumnae of any age or stage. As Barletta explains, career is rarely one-and-done, particularly in our rapidly changing world. At Wellesley, career development now means embarking on a lifelong search for growth and meaning. After all, even former Secretary of State Clinton navigated her share of job transitions — and weighty ones at that.



As the offerings at Wellesley’s <a href="https://careereducation.wellesley.edu/">Center for Career Education</a> continue to become better known, more are taking advantage. 1,915 graduates attended advising appointments between June 2024 and 2025, nearly 300 more than in the previous year. With LearningWell, Barletta describes what that lifelong professional engagement looks like in practice, why it’s important for alumnae and students alike, and how it’s bringing a global institutional community closer together. 
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LW:&nbsp;I thought we could start by talking about your title — the director of alumnae connections. What exactly does that entail?&nbsp;



DB:&nbsp;So that entails thinking about career education in terms of alums and their careers, much in the way that many career centers work with students — exploration, industry advising, and&nbsp;support&nbsp;around very functional things, like cover letters and application materials and interviewing. All of those kinds of conversations that we have with students, we also have with alums, but tailored to where alums are in their careers — all the way from those second destination roles to thinking about what an active retirement might look like.&nbsp;



Reentry to the workforce after a break for some kind of caregiving is something that happens a lot. Wellesley is a women's college, so that is an important part of&nbsp;many conversations. And then we’re also thinking about opportunities and programs for alums to connect with students as a part of career exploration. So, how can alums be a valuable resource for lived professional experience for students?&nbsp;



LW:&nbsp;Was yours a role that always existed at Wellesley? Or at what point did you all decide to dig more into the&nbsp;alumnae&nbsp;piece?



DB:&nbsp;This did not always exist at Wellesley. About 10 years ago, the&nbsp;career center&nbsp;at Wellesley was reimagined and became what now we call&nbsp;Career&nbsp;Education. And at that time, with a very generous gift from an alum, we began to offer career advising for alums for their whole careers. So at that point in time, this role came into existence.



LW:&nbsp;Do you know what the thinking was behind that decision to invest more in&nbsp;alumnae engagement?



DB:&nbsp;It was a commitment to the idea that&nbsp;graduation&nbsp;isn't a stopping point for&nbsp;an intentional&nbsp;career journey. We do such good work&nbsp;around experiential learning to help&nbsp;students see that their professional identities, in a variety of ways, are integrated into their broader life experience, and it's not just one thread that you can pull out that then stops the moment you graduate. So if we are doing our work really well, students graduate and see&nbsp;their&nbsp;career journey is just that — a journey. It's something that you continue to tend to and&nbsp;navigate, as you build skills, build experiences, build connections, and explore.&nbsp;



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"If we are doing our work really well, students graduate and see&nbsp;their&nbsp;career journey is just that — a journey."
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And so that ability to continue to connect with Wellesley around networking and advising becomes really important. And we appreciate that requires an investment. It's an investment in staffing and in training and in funds. But it also helps our students to see that when we say that this is ongoing work, we mean that. We're here through the duration of that, and your fellow people in your Wellesley community are here for that.



LW:&nbsp;I like that because I imagine with Wellesley grads, who are so high performing, there could be a lot of that feeling like, “My first job needs to be my last.” Do you find that’s a pretty common sentiment?



DB:&nbsp;Yes, that is very true — true of Wellesley students and grads, but also more broadly. There is this sense that what comes on the other side of graduation needs to be right. You need to get it right. And helping graduates think about what does “right” mean for them, that is a values question. But also, what we know about the future of work is that having a flexible, skills-based approach that is grounded in some really solid experiential learning can prepare grads for a variety of first destination roles, with this kind of underlying assumption that there isn't a single “right” thing. There is just a thing that is going to utilize skills and experiences you've built and provide you with additional opportunities for meaning and growth so that you have a sense that what comes next is also important.



LW:&nbsp;Do you see trends in terms of the age or stage of&nbsp;alumnae who&nbsp;come to you most often?



DB:&nbsp;We do. So we think of engagement in two ways: individual advising appointments and then participation in a webinar, an event, a cohort,&nbsp;programming.&nbsp;In&nbsp;terms of appointments, probably 60 percent are 10 years out or less, and then about 40 percent are folks who are further along in their career.&nbsp;Engagement in&nbsp;programming, events, webinars, cohorts tends to be a bit more even across class years.&nbsp;



But we do see, in terms of advising, now that our model of engaging with alums throughout their whole career has been in place for a decade, our appointments are increasing. Because as you continue to have students who know, as they graduate, that this is an opportunity that remains available to them, they continue to engage.&nbsp;



LW:&nbsp;What about trends in industry or profession? Are there certain jobs you see&nbsp;alumnae&nbsp;come to you for help getting?



DB:&nbsp;I mean, there are trends for Wellesley students broadly, and our alum data tracks mostly with our first destination data in terms of industry. But we do see a five-years-out uptick, when many alums are entering a career transition: “I thought I was going to do X, and now I realize that is not the path I'm interested in pursuing. So what am I thinking of next?” You see it almost like clockwork. And while that uncertainty is hard, the ability to&nbsp;seek&nbsp;more intention than just checking a box and climbing a ladder is, in and of itself, a really positive thing.



LW:&nbsp;You mentioned individual advising as one key service. Are there others that you think of as being most impactful or popular?



DB:&nbsp;We do a yearly webinar&nbsp;series, which generally features alum panels with conversations about what it looks like to work in certain industries — human resources, environmental impact, patient-facing healthcare, biotech,&nbsp;consulting, all of these kinds of&nbsp;different industries. And so that gives alums an opportunity to hear from other alums working at various stages in their career and in various roles in a broader industry and then to continue to connect with those alums&nbsp;for career resources.&nbsp;



We also offer a program&nbsp;based on the Design Your Life program out of Stanford for alums who are in a place of transition and want to be in an alumnae&nbsp;cohort as they use that Design Your Life framework.&nbsp;The&nbsp;sessions are led by our&nbsp;alumnae&nbsp;career advisors, and we do those twice a year in a series.&nbsp;This is the fifth year, and participants find it very helpful.&nbsp;They&nbsp;bring a certain shared experience of their Wellesley time,&nbsp;which creates&nbsp;a foundation that feels safe and can be very generative.&nbsp;



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"They&nbsp;bring a certain shared experience of their Wellesley time,&nbsp;which creates&nbsp;a foundation that feels safe and can be very generative."
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LW:&nbsp;Do a lot of&nbsp;alumnae&nbsp;come to you with questions around changes in the workplace or for guidance around technology and A.I.-type skill building?



DB:&nbsp;We definitely do talk about upskilling. Because how people are thinking about skill development is shifting — I think rightfully so — in terms of the idea that you go in this kind of linear or vertical fashion, and then sometimes you need to stop and build a new skill, and then you continue up. It really is a much more fluid and ongoing approach. And you're always thinking about: What are your skills? What are your experiences? What tools do you need to onboard? And then those tools offboard, and something else comes along.&nbsp;



It's been really interesting. So much of just the career space is teaming with conversations about A.I. You can't escape it. But one of the threads that's coming through is the power of a really solid liberal arts&nbsp;education&nbsp;that helps as a foundation for navigating all of these changes. And we definitely see that's true.&nbsp;



LW:&nbsp;Do you see a throughline between your career services work with&nbsp;alumane&nbsp;and a generally more engaged culture of&nbsp;alumane, either with students or with each other?&nbsp;



DB:&nbsp;Wellesley does&nbsp;have a very&nbsp;strong&nbsp;alumane&nbsp;network. I also think there is a sense of being motivated toward sharing and generosity because people often remember a time of uncertainty, of vulnerability. And it's such an opportunity for people who felt, in their own experience, that there was an opening for support, for guidance, for information, when they see that they're now in a place to provide that.&nbsp;



And it gives a sense of perspective, especially in this moment.&nbsp;This is a challenging time for students to be graduating into the workforce, and having that voice of alums who have gone before can provide a sense of perspective: “I graduated in ‘08 when the collapse happened and what I came into also felt really challenging.” Just this ability to see that others have navigated different, but also challenging, experiences in a way that was ultimately successful for them can create&nbsp;a&nbsp;support line that&nbsp;is&nbsp;important for students who are graduating, and then also for the alums.



LW:&nbsp;Do you think that culture is also strengthened or unique in some ways because Wellesley is a women's college?



DB:&nbsp;I do. There seems to be this kind of structure when conversations happen within a Wellesley context that you have the expectation that you will be seen and heard, and you don't have to fight for that, which is really powerful.



You can reach LearningWell Reporter Mollie Ames at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:mames@learningwellmag.org">mames@learningwellmag.org</a>&nbsp;with comments, ideas, or tips.

Advising for Life

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University of Washington professor Elizabeth Kirk regularly arrives early to her introduction to nutrition class and stands outside the lecture hall to welcome her students inside — all 500 of them. She also grants every student email a personal response, reflecting a philosophy that the essential transaction of higher education is the connection between instructors and students.



But lately, Kirk has watched her students become increasingly withdrawn and has been eager to try out new ways to engage them. A recently launched, interdisciplinary initiative at U.W., called Five for Flourishing, wants to help.&nbsp;



In 2024, a team of U.W. administrators spanning student and academic affairs developed Five for Flourishing to guide faculty members like Kirk in the implementation of strategies to promote connection in the biggest classes across the university's three campuses.&nbsp;



The strategies are: adding language to class syllabi that expresses support for student wellbeing; setting up a slide before each class offering wellness resources or prompting students to engage with one another; reminding students before major assignments that they are opportunities to grow rather than reflections of intelligence; organizing small student groups that meet weekly; and instituting mid-quarter evaluations for students to offer feedback on the course.



Taken together, the strategies mean to improve wellbeing by cutting through the feelings of anonymity that can run rampant in huge classes. The interventions set the precedent that professors want to connect with students and care about their personal and academic success. The intended outcomes — sense of belonging, classroom engagement, and intellectual risk-taking, among others — are those often associated with smaller courses and more intimate faculty-student dynamics.



Part wellness intervention, part student success initiative, Five for Flourishing grew out of the needs of several departments. Its dual focus is captured in its interdisciplinary leadership, which includes the provost’s office, the Center for Teaching and Learning, and the U.W. Resilience Lab, a hub for campus wellbeing efforts.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
The interventions set the precedent that professors want to connect with students and care about their personal and academic success. 
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According to Penelope Moon, the director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, what makes Five for Flourishing unique is the way all five interventions come together, and the unlikely team that assembled them. “The package is an innovation,” she said. “The partnership is an innovation.”



Marisa Nickle, the senior director of strategy and academic initiatives, laid the groundwork for Five for Flourishing. While U.W. staff may be “naturally collaborative,” she said, they tend to be “structurally siloed.” That was a barrier she was prepared to overcome.



With her boss, vice provost for academic and student affairs Philip Reid, Nickle had attended the presentation of another wellbeing initiative that she liked but feared was overly complicated. Curious about how a simpler version could work at U.W., they sought advice from Moon as well as Megan Kennedy, the director of the Resilience Lab, which promotes campus wellbeing through research, education, and strategic programs.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Kennedy was ready to lend her expertise and welcomed the cross-departmental nature of the initiative. “I think the question universities are trying to answer around mental health is: How do we distribute the responsibility beyond student life and the counseling center and crisis services?” she said.



What many institutions need, Kennedy added, is “a really clear pathway for how everyone can take responsibility.”



But wellbeing interventions in academic spaces are not always easy to implement for time-pressed faculty. Nickle said a major question steering the work was: “How can we bring student success into the classroom and do that in that lightweight way that also thanks faculty for their time and effort?”&nbsp;



With Kennedy and Moon both on board, and critical support and funding from Vice Provost Reid, the group began to develop an official program, first by deciding on the strategies themselves.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“It came together fairly quickly,” Moon said. "It was pretty easy to identify the things that probably would help, and then we dug into the literature to confirm suspicions.”



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“How can we bring student success into the classroom and do that in that lightweight way that also thanks faculty for their time and effort?”&nbsp;
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Once the five strategies were established, the team turned to enlisting faculty members for a two-year pilot phase of the project, during which educators would institute the interventions in two classes. The recruitment didn’t present much trouble, given plenty of professors, like Kirk, were already interested in incorporating these kinds of learner-centered techniques.&nbsp;



Not surprisingly, Kirk had been using some of the Five for Flourishing strategies before the program existed. Mid-term evaluations, for example, were standard practice for her and continue to be. She’s long valued how they allow students to feel heard and her to respond to their needs in real time.



Other interventions, though, were new to Kirk, like the “growth-mindset” reminders. It’s another way she’s appreciated being able to establish a rapport with her students.&nbsp;



“This is just my way of assessing how well I'm getting across to you — how well you are understanding what it is I'm saying,” she now tells her class before tests. “Because if I need to revisit some things, I want to do that.”



While Kirk doesn’t expect one practice to expel her students’ performance anxiety completely, she thinks they appreciate the sentiment. One even wrote in the course feedback that the language “made me feel calmer.”



Samantha Robinson, a professor in the chemistry department, teaches lectures with between 100 and 300 students. The uphill battle is made steeper by chemistry’s reputation as one of the most difficult and demanding subjects.&nbsp;



“They hear horror stories. They’re under this impression that we're ‘weed-out’ classes,” Robinson said. “And that isn't ever our goal.”



In 2025, Robinson started implementing Five for Flourishing in two courses that tend to draw those without strong chemistry backgrounds — those who might feel particularly uncomfortable or nervous about the class.



“Those are really great student populations for this sort of an initiative because they are feeling pretty intimidated to be in a STEM class in a lot of cases,” Robinson said. Five for Flourishing, she hoped, could increase their sense of belonging and support.&nbsp;



Over time, Robinson determined which elements of the program she found helpful. She likes the syllabus and growth-mindset language and the “moment-to-arrive” slides. The midterm evaluations present more of a challenge because, given the highly structured nature of her courses, she can’t plan to change much about them half-way through the term.



Both Robinson and Kirk came out with mixed reviews of the effort to have students meet weekly in small groups. They know it’s difficult to get students to get together on their own outside of class.



Robinson found that the students in a 120-person course were more likely to meet than those in her 285-person class. Kirk tweaked the structure so that the groups gathered during “quiz sections,” a pre-existing T.A.-led class time.&nbsp;



More formal assessment of the initiative has also been ongoing since the beginning thanks to the contributions of Lovenoor Aulck, a data scientist working in the provost’s office.&nbsp;



Aulck developed pre- and post-course surveys to assess the impact of the five interventions on students’ reported sense of belonging, confidence, and academic support, among other measures. Aulck said he’s found “small positive gains,” based on data from the first year of implementation.&nbsp;



Some of the promising findings include that, by course end, students were more likely to indicate feeling accepted and comfortable being themselves in class and less likely to indicate feeling worried about being judged negatively based on their identity.



But data collection is in its pilot phase as much as the rest of the program; and the Five for Flourishing staff plans to continue tweaking each facet of the work as needed.



That doesn’t mean the program can’t grow at the same time. Already, the group has collaborated with the University of Georgia to help engineer its own version of Five for Flourishing called Wellbeing by Design.&nbsp;&nbsp;



As the U.W. team monitors their own progress, and swaps stories with partners near and far, perhaps students nationwide will begin to find their big classrooms feel a little smaller.



You can reach LearningWell Reporter Mollie Ames at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:mames@learningwellmag.org">mames@learningwellmag.org</a>&nbsp;with comments, ideas, or tips.

Five for Flourishing 

Many 18-year-olds who step onto campus hungry for possibility may not believe that four years later, they could walk across the graduation stage feeling more uncertain than ever. While it is easy to blame the students, this all-too-often outcome is reflective of the failure of a higher education system that has become exemplary at producing compliant students but far less so at encouraging creative thinkers.&nbsp;



As someone who feels privileged for my positive college experience and the post-graduation time that followed, I can’t help but wonder how a different set of expectations could have benefited me and my generation. What if, instead of striving for measures of output that stay with us temporarily (the conveyor belt model), we were encouraged to build intellectual capacities that stay with us forever (the creative engine model). Maybe then Gen Z would feel more engaged, more fulfilled, more productive, and more prepared for our careers.&nbsp;



The Conveyor Belt Model&nbsp;



Many colleges have done an excellent job of building a culture of pressure, comparison, and G.P.A. obsession. Often, this consists of rigid majors and predetermined career tracks. Creativity is often treated as a “less important” extracurricular, not central to learning. This results in decreased risk-taking within our learning. My post-grad friends are often reporting a LinkedIn doom scroll, chronic burnout (already), anxiety, and a loss of intrinsic motivation to “do.”&nbsp;



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It’s not that Gen Z can’t handle college; it’s that college isn’t exactly handling Gen Z. 
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We grew up in a world far from predictable — with limitless information, an unstable economy, mental health challenges, environmental concerns, rapid growth in technology and media, political polarization, and socio-cultural vulnerability, especially for marginalized groups. Older generations may mistake Gen Z burnout for fragility, but I argue this interpretation misses the point. The learning ecosystem within which Gen Z currently operates is built on dated values and old assumptions. It’s not that Gen Z can’t handle college; it’s that college isn’t exactly handling Gen Z.&nbsp;



The Creative Engine Model&nbsp;



As opposed to the conveyor belt producing students who can check the boxes, fostering creative learning environments for students could help Gen Zers achieve improved wellbeing and more success entering the workforce.&nbsp;



Believe it or not, Gen Z students want&nbsp;“<a href="https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/the-uncheatable-projects-students-want">uncheatable projects</a>,”&nbsp;as coined by educational consultant Michael Hernandez in a pedagogical philosophy I explored in my final undergraduate education course. This approach includes&nbsp;transitioning traditional assignments into multimedia projects where the motivation is the experience itself, not the output (the grade). This drives student engagement and works against the conveyor belt model. It encourages intrinsic curiosities and passions, rather than shallow memorization, translating into longer-lasting learning. It avoids the infinite “Whac-A-Mole” (referenced by Hernandez) of repetitively policing new shortcuts students use — especially as A.I. tools rapidly evolve — as the desire to learn comes from within. In this model, students can strategically implement tools to improve their work, rather than resorting to abusing them. The truth is if Gen Z students want to cut corners, they will figure out how to do so quicker than educators can ever stop them. This method faces that head on, utilizing purpose and personal connection.&nbsp;



Creativity and passion must be treated as learning priorities, rather than extracurricular activities that come second to classroom work. My peers hustled in their internships, extracurricular activities, and jobs; yet we were trained to say, “School comes first.” Shouldn’t they both matter? How can these extracurricular learning opportunities work hand in hand with class to enhance one another? Think back to high school: Can you recall the answers from a random exam? Likely not. How about your favorite field trip or project? More likely. The same cognitive processes of creating long-lasting learning align from younger to older ages, especially when uniquely tailored to the students to feel more meaningful and less flat.&nbsp;



Please, encourage us to fail.&nbsp;



Often, the penalization of making mistakes in the current system makes it undesirable to fail. In that context, no one would take the risk to mess up. One way to combat this is through less conventional, interdisciplinary studies. The less binary the answers, the better. This is more holistically reflective of the real world we live in after all. Another is through ensuring students are met with an elaborate support system of relationships that make them feel safe enough to fail. This support system is essential — a mutual system of care. We are constantly encouraged not to fail but seldom learn how to fail, learn, and recover.&nbsp;



A great example of this is the makerspace model.&nbsp;



A makerspace is a welcoming, hands-on environment with tools and resources to collaboratively design, explore, tinker, and create. Access and encouragement to use this kind of model should be broader than just in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics), as it trains us to navigate uncertainty and to problem solve with confidence and resilience in a community.



As we add risk to our education journey, we ask that educators in higher education do the same. Changing a system is unpredictable and entering the unknown is often not a desirable route. But, we cannot keep fostering the conveyor belt culture when learners’ potential deserves so much more, particularly in these rapidly changing times. Educators and students alike must agree to learn together through a transition, taking reflective and precise note of what works and what should be changed.&nbsp;



We need a more humane and timely college experience to better prepare students to walk the graduation stage.&nbsp;



One that treats creativity as an essential skill, not a hobby.



One that treats risky exploration as productive, not wasteful.



One that avoids treating students as empty vessels to be filled with information to reproduce. 



This may not change the job market that Gen Z faces, but creating the opportunity to support young people to tackle the complex issues of today’s society far better prepares them for the post-graduation transition they face. We have the potential to graduate an energized cohort of young people by imagining boldly, questioning deeply, and re-building creatively. I am inspired by my generation, and our post-secondary education system should consider how to more effectively support our potential.&nbsp;



Nicole LeVee graduated from American University in 2025 and is pursuing her master's degree in learning development and family services at the University of Colorado Denver.

College should Be a Creative Engine — Not a Conveyor Belt 

Around 500 professionals across higher education logged on Thursday for a webinar focused on how to institutionalize a culture of wellbeing on college campuses.&nbsp;



The virtual event, called “<a href="https://learningwell.org/beyondsilos/">Beyond Silos: Bridging Academic and Student Affairs to Advance Student Wellbeing</a>,” was a joint initiative of the LearningWell Coalition and U.S. Health Promoting Campuses Network, two national organizations dedicated to promoting health and wellbeing at colleges and universities.



The webinar was inspired by the understanding that the efforts of a few positive actors on campus, no matter how committed, can’t move the wellbeing needle alone; they need the support of each other and collective action of the wider institution to make meaningful change.



“What if our systems were designed so that without any external intervention, they produced wellbeing and flourishing just by the way that they function?” asked Kelly Gorman, one of the four panelists and the director of the office of health promotion at the University of Albany.



The other three experts included Jennifer Fee, the assistant director of curriculum and training development for the Skorton Center for Health Initiatives at Cornell University; Angela Lindner, the interim vice provost for undergraduate affairs at the University of Florida; and Joe Tranquillo, the associate provost for transformative teaching and learning at Bucknell University.



Marjorie Malpiede, the editor-in-chief of LearningWell magazine, moderated the session, which began with a discussion of why a whole-campus approach to wellbeing is the right one.



Several of the panelists described how implementing wellbeing efforts institution-wide creates a system of support for students that extends beyond bare-bones crisis management or clinical mental health care. The goal is not just to keep issues from worsening, they said, but to foster new heights of flourishing.&nbsp;



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“What if our systems were designed so that without any external intervention, they produced wellbeing and flourishing just by the way that they function?”
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Jennifer Fee noted how these kinds of wrap-around supports are key to student academic performance. As for faculty and staff, she said, developing the whole-campus approach pushes them to practice creative problem solving and work across differences and between departments — that is, “beyond silos.”



On a higher level, Joe Tranquillo called out how the whole-campus approach, and ideally improving student wellbeing outcomes on a mass scale, might be influential in improving public trust in higher education as a whole.&nbsp;



“I think that we need to show what transformations are occurring in our students — how they're becoming these amazing citizen leaders that are going to go out into the world and do great things,” he said.



But the panelists weren’t shy about identifying the challenges that come with trying to unite different departments and disciplines under a common goal, even one as non-threatening as wellbeing. Institutions of higher education, they noted, are famously quick to factionalize and historically slow to change.



Angela Lindner called one foundational barrier to institutionalizing wellbeing a “challenge of the heart.” “This is less about how to do the work,” she said, “and it’s more about convincing folks that it's important to do.”



Lindner described a steady struggle to inspire broad interest in an issue that faculty and staff may perceive to be outside their usual focus and adding to their already full plates. From there, sustaining any energy that does emerge is another battle.



Buy-in from top leadership is particularly key, given presidents’ ability to fund and promote a wellbeing agenda. But again, the panelists said, such a champion is not so easily won or kept.



Still, the spirit of the panel remained hopeful. All four experts are as familiar with the obstacles to institutionalizing wellbeing as they are the workarounds.



“One mistake is only paying attention to the coalition of the willing,” Tranquillo said he’s learned. “That feels good. It works great at first because you make really quick progress… But what it does is it means that there's then a bunch of people who are not included in the change.”



Tranquillo urged the audience to be persistent in efforts to draw fresh support, but also to be patient with the process. “Sometimes the best you're going to do is to get them to stop fighting you,” he said.&nbsp;



Gorman added that bringing in new and diverse leadership for projects can help expand involvement as well as impact. “You can't have just one person or one office leading everything,” she said. “You need leaders from all different areas to bring their perspective to the table.”



Most of Fee’s attention is directed toward helping faculty understand the importance of incorporating wellbeing in the classroom and then actually doing so.



“I have to make sure that they're seeing the strategies that I'm sharing with them as not one more thing, but helping them do their jobs better, contributing to the academic success of students,” she said.



The online toolkit Fee developed, called WISE (Well-being in Scholarly Environments), includes evidence-based resources for instructors to, for example, write a wellbeing-forward syllabus or develop coursework that builds connections between students.



The need to develop ways of tracking and measuring student wellbeing was also a recurring theme. Clarifying the desired outcomes can reveal gaps in the work and roles that need to be built, Tranquillo said.&nbsp;



“There should be dashboards,” Lindner added. “It should be open and available, and everybody can see how we’re doing in this agreed upon set of wellbeing metrics across the board.”



Meanwhile, buy-in may build with time and necessity. Faculty will come up against wellbeing’s impact on academic performance; residential life will see repercussions for social involvement; admissions will connect the dots to stop-outs and retention.



“At some point, when you get to a level of root cause analysis,” Gorman said, “you're going to be on the same playing field. You’re going to be at that same table.”



You can reach LearningWell Reporter Mollie Ames at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:mames@learningwellmag.org">mames@learningwellmag.org</a>&nbsp;with comments, ideas, or tips.

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