Tag: Events

John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley is one of the great travel narratives. It is an account of Steinbeck’s journey across the country with his dog Charley, in his truck with a camper van. Steinbeck set out to find out “What are Americans like today?” He took his time and drove slowly. He stopped in small towns, spoke with locals, had contemplative drinks around campfires and sipped his coffee in the morning. Steinbeck’s journey was about the opposite of my recent experience traveling overseas with college students.

My travels with college students took place in Greece and Turkey across the span of two weeks. Steinbeck had a lot of time to himself. We were almost always all together. His companion was a dog who sometimes sighed and sometimes barked but largely kept quiet. Our bus contained students who could and did nap but were quite capable of expressing themselves verbally. Steinbeck drove himself; we were driven. He kept his pace slow; we wore ourselves out. He was his own guide; we had professionals. He was somewhat indifferent to where his journey might take him; we had a packed agenda. He was in America; we were overseas. We got, in many ways, different things out of our trips. But we were both edified by our experiences.

Steinbeck learned a good deal about America. I had already been to most of the sites that we visited in Greece and Turkey, but I learned a good deal about some young Americans. I learned who requires iced coffee to get going in the morning. I learned who cared most about historic cannons in town squares. I learned from my students how Kim Kardashian takes a selfie. I learned more slang than is good or useful for me.

A great deal of evidence demonstrates how much students benefit from travel study trips and study abroad semesters. Many students benefit from the more experiential learning style. Learning about Athens in the classroom and then walking around the Parthenon is a special and memorable opportunity. Students come back from overseas trips with more exposure to the rest of the world and often an increase in confidence. For semester-long programs, students can return with enhanced language skills. Study abroad can offer an employment edge. There are so many reasons for students to study abroad. For faculty, the benefits are different but just as real.

Faculty leading a trip overseas should already know quite a bit about the subject and location, but the experiential side of travel study for faculty cannot be had elsewhere. Typically, faculty and college students interact mostly in the classroom. We stand, or pace, at the front. Even if we practice engaged learning, we are largely in control of the environment. We speak mainly on subjects we know about. It can be easy to fall into a pattern. We might even offer some of the same lectures and same examples year after year.

Outside of the classroom and outside of the country, the situation is different. We are not always in control, we do not always command the room or the bus and we cannot operate from a script. Travel study trips show us our own pedagogical limitations, which can be somewhat hidden behind the lectern. Trips force us to be more spontaneous and to stretch. They can also make us more real to our students. Something about being on a bus together all day and trying to scrounge up change for access to a bathroom rehumanizes, or at least deepens the human element of, the student-faculty interaction.

Even better than the opportunity for us and our students to see faculty members more clearly is the opportunity to see our students more clearly. In classes, we might care about and try to engage our students, but they are still students in seats rather than individuals whose food preferences you learn if you spend two weeks in close quarters. In fact, being up close with students can be a reality check about how little we actually understand them. It can be very easy to assume that, especially if we have taught for a while, we get students and know how they think and operate. Traveling with 18 of them can break that illusion in the best of ways.

Travel study takes us out of the laboratory and into real life. That grounding is good, but the reality you gain is often the opposite of disillusioning. Seeing our students learn about Greece and Turkey in person and watching them get excited was a way to rekindle the enthusiasm I had when I first saw these places in person—at their age. Traveling with college students is a powerful reminder about some of the best things about working at a college or university. One of those things is the seeing and sharing the transformation that can accompany acquiring new knowledge and experiences.

The age gap between us and our students is not just about cultural references and gas prices. Some might think faculty members have the advantage when it comes to life experience, but we often do not. It is very easy to interpret the world around us according to what we have personally lived or seen up close. As we get older, we start to expect less and less from life. Our horizons seem to be shrinking. College students—even those with difficult backgrounds and real challenges—are often the opposite. There is a sort of inborn optimism about being 21. Even those who think the world is a mess recognize that their future is full of possibilities. The future may well turn out to be great. We can gain a lot from being around people who feel this way. I was recently asked if college students are annoying to me. I was able to honestly answer that they usually are not.

A Chicago-area philanthropist has backed out of a pledge to give $10 million in scholarships to 1,250 low-income and first-generation college students weeks before the start of the fall semester.

Former Abbott Laboratories executive Jack Schuler announced last month that the Schuler Education Foundation was suspending its two-decades-old Schuler Scholar Program, which gave each recipient $10,000 over four years ($2,500 a year) as well as grants for health insurance and emergency aid, WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR affiliate, reported Wednesday.

To be eligible for the scholarship—and to get access to the tutoring and counseling the program provided—high school students had to maintain a high grade point average, take Advanced Placement courses and attend regular meetings. The scholarship could only be used to attend a select number of small liberal arts institutions, including Elon University in North Carolina and Pomona College in California.

But Forbes reported that risky investments in health-care stocks fueled the financial collapse of the Schuler Education Foundation, as well as Schuler’s personal wealth; his net worth dropped from $1.1 billion in 2021 to around $200 million earlier this year.

In March, the foundation announced that the scholarship program was shutting down, pledging to honor existing scholarship awards.

But in July, the foundation backed out of that promise.

“It is with a heavy heart that we have shared some very difficult news that the Schuler Scholar Program has faced significant financial challenges and has had to shut down its operations,” Mitchell Morgan-Dunham, the program’s director of college counseling, wrote in a July 17 email to students, according to Forbes. “Despite our best efforts to manage these challenges and continue some support for scholars, the program is unable to fund scholarships previously provided to college scholars and high school students.”

Though that email included an apology, the students scrambling to figure out how to pay for college next year say it’s not enough.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Marcus Jackson, a Schuler scholarship recipient who will likely need to get a second job if he wants to stay at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, told WBEZ. “It doesn’t pay the bills. It definitely doesn’t send us through school.”

Five national Jewish organizations have released a list of recommendations for college and university leaders about how to prevent possible antisemitism and prepare for student protests over the Israel-Hamas war ahead of the fall semester.

The recommendations, announced Wednesday, are from the Anti-Defamation League, Hillel International, the American Jewish Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and Jewish Federations of North America.

Guidelines from the group include clearly communicating policies on campus protests and ensuring they’re enforced, providing antisemitism education and training, and maintaining a clear system for reporting antisemitic incidents. The organizations also asked that campus leaders reject boycotts of Israeli products or academic partnerships and ensure faculty members create a “non-discriminatory learning environment.” They called on campuses to prepare for heightened tensions on Oct. 7 in particular, the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel.

Adam Lehman, Hillel International president and CEO, said in a press release that the goal is to provide “college and university leaders with clear guidance and practical solutions for the steps they need to take to ensure a safer and more welcoming environment for Jewish students.”

The release highlighted a survey of 3,084 college students, 527 of them Jewish, by the ADL and Hillel International that found 73 percent of Jewish students and 44 percent of non-Jewish students experienced or witnessed antisemitism on their campuses last fall. It also included an AJC survey of 1,528 Jewish people that found a fourth of Jewish students reported feeling unsafe at a campus event because of their Jewish identity.

“The unprecedented surge in antisemitism on college campuses last year was utterly unacceptable, and yet far too many administrations failed to respond effectively,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO and national director, said in the release. “We insist that all college and university leaders take significant steps to make Jewish students safer.”

The Kern Community College District will pay former Bakersfield College professor Matthew Garrett $2.4 million under a recent settlement agreement.

Garrett, previously a tenured history professor, sued district administrators in 2021, alleging they retaliated against him for accusing colleagues of using grant money for partisan social justice work.

The district Board of Trustees voted to fire him last year after interim president Zav Dadabhoy submitted a 19-page report of charges against Garrett, including unprofessional conduct. Garrett, a founder of the conservative-leaning faculty group Renegade Institute for Liberty, pushed back, saying he was being penalized for espousing his views, including questioning diversity, equity and inclusion work on campus.

In the settlement, Garrett agreed to resign from the college, but he’ll receive an additional $154,520 for back wages and medical benefits since his dismissal. The district will also withdraw and seal all of its 2023 charges against Garrett, as well as any earlier documents that imply misconduct. The settlement says the agreement isn’t “an admission of any wrongdoing or liability by either the District or Garrett.”

The Kern Community College District confirmed it “settled all issues with Matthew Garrett” in a statement to Inside Higher Ed.

“To be clear, the dispute with Matthew Garrett was a disciplinary matter due to his disruptive actions on campus, none of which concerned freedom of speech. Kern Community College District unequivocally supports the right for our students and faculty to share their views and opinions on campus and elsewhere,” a spokesperson said.

“As this is a confidential personnel matter, we will not comment further.”

Garrett told The College Fix that the district had no choice but to settle.

“Facing an imminent ruling in my favor and the prospect of paying millions of dollars in damages, KCCD had only one viable option: settlement,” Garrett said in an email. “To my colleagues at Bakersfield College and nationwide, I say: Keep the faith; we are winning the battle, one case at a time.”

The number of students enrolled in higher education who have a disability has grown over the years, but they still face barriers in completing a certificate or credential. A May report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found only 21 percent of students with disabilities graduate from college, compared to 38 percent of students who do not have a disability.

Colleges and universities have created specialized programs for students with intellectual or developmental disabilities to promote access to higher education and give wraparound supports for students’ unique needs.

Here are four examples of programs that provide certificates, peer support and campus engagement opportunities to neurodiverse learners.

1. Wolverines Elevated: Utah Valley University

Utah Valley University launched a three-year certificate program for young adults (ages 18 to 25) with intellectual disabilities in 2021, thanks to $1.9 million in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Higher Education. UVU graduated its first cohort of four students in spring 2024.

Students who successfully complete Wolverines Elevated (WE) earn a certificate in integrated college and community studies, which includes coursework on self-determination, independent living and career development. WE students can also pursue a second certificate from any offerings at the university.

As part of the program, students are assigned peer mentors who help with student success skills including time management and course management, as well as support navigating Canvas and connecting them to campus resources. Students can also hone their professional skills with job sampling and internships, either on campus or in the community.

2. InclusiveU: Syracuse University

At Syracuse University, students with intellectual and developmental disabilities can participate in a four-year program to earn a certificate in their area of interest by declaring a major, auditing inclusive classes and electives, and completing internships across campus. InclusiveU is a long-standing program at the university and nationally recognized for serving large numbers of students.

The program enrolls over 100 participants each year and invites learners to engage in all campus has to offer.

“Our students are embedded into campus life,” says Brianna Shults, InclusiveU director. “Our students take regular SU classes, live in campus residence halls with their peers and attend social events across campus.”

Nondisabled students serve as campus mentors who help with in-class accommodations such as note taking and studying.

Participant feedback highlights how participants have learned independence, become more confident and feel as though they belong on campus. Graduates also go on to seek competitive full-time employment.

3. Skills for Life: Coastal Carolina University

Living on campus can be the first step in a college student learning to be independent, and the same is true for students with a disability. CCU offers a four-year nondegree program for students with mild to moderate intellectual or developmental disabilities called LIFE, first modeled off CarolinaLIFE at the University of South Carolina in 2008.

During the program, students receive support in their academic instruction and career education, as well as life skills and community engagement. A unique element of the program is its on-campus housing, which places students in four suites and 13 apartments, with 13 residential support staff who assist students with individual needs. Students can also opt to live off campus independently as they’re able.

Program participants can engage in all campus activities, including CCU courses, on-campus housing, student organizations, sporting events, work study and commencement. LIFE students also receive $10,000 in financial aid, regardless of need, and need-based grants between $7,500 and $10,000 annually.

All seniors in the program participate in a 30-hour-per-week internship, gaining 900 hours of work experience in two to three jobs throughout the year. In the past three years, 100 percent of LIFE graduates secured jobs within nine months of graduation.

CCU saw record participation with the fall 2023 class, welcoming 17 first-year students.

4. PEERS: Boise State University

Boise State’s inclusive, two-year postsecondary program for students with intellectual disabilities, PEERS, graduated its first cohort of students in May 2023 with a certificate in community and career readiness.

PEERS (short for Providing Exceptional Education and Raising Standards) participants are enrolled in Boise State coursework for credit or as an audit, as well as taking PEERS-specific courses that are pass-fail.

As part of their coursework, students complete paid or unpaid job experiences, which can take place on or off campus, for at least six hours per week during their final three semesters. Three of the 2023 graduates worked at the Boise State Rec Center while earning their certificates.

Program graduates said they learned how to budget, to ask for help and to take each day in stride.

Seeking stories from campus leaders, faculty members and staff for our Student Success focus. Share here.

From optimizing the wheelchairs of tennis players to measuring ice consumption at the games, scientists are conducting and implementing wide-ranging research to support the success and development of the Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer.

However, whether this research should take place at the games themselves is an issue of contention. While some resist the idea, arguing that the same impact can be had away from the field, others are calling for that to change.

One of the latter is Yannis Pitsiladis, a sports scientist at Hong Kong Baptist University. Pitsiladis is a member of the International Olympic Committee’s medical and scientific committee, which helps oversee athlete safety at the games.

While working as part of this group at the Paris Olympics this summer, Pitsiladis is taking with him a team of scientists to research initiatives including novel ways of measuring ambient temperatures—with implications for those competing in extreme heat—and placing sensors on athletes to monitor their vital signs.

Doing this sort of research at the games is relatively unusual. “The International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee don’t really endorse research at the games,” he said. “And the reason is they don’t want to harm the athletes who are preparing and then have a scientist running around them trying to collect measurements. You can understand that causes problems.”

However, he said the leaders of the games trusted him to behave responsibly. “We actually are there to create innovations that then can become part of the games,” he said. “And if you don’t do it at the games, you never know if it’s going to work. So you need to test out your various things … where it matters in the Olympic Games and potentially save a life or save an athlete from getting hurt.”

This year, Pitsiladis is working with about 100 Olympic athletes, providing them with sensors, such as a pill that enters the large intestine and measures core temperature, and heart rate monitor straps, which will allow his team to track their health remotely.

Currently, he said, there is no way to protect the health of athletes until they collapse. “That’s too late, because then you have to deal with an emergency,” he said.

There has been resistance to this from chief medical officers and scientific committees, who think the games should remain research-free and are concerned about cheating, but Pitsiladis hopes these methods will one day become part of the games.

Vicky Tolfrey, director of the Peter Harrison Centre for Disability Sport at Loughborough University, has been working with wheelchair rugby and tennis players, who are susceptible to overheating, on cooling strategies, among other research programs. This work is done from the university’s laboratories and test events ahead of the games, with embedded scientists traveling to Paris to help with physical preparation strategies and planning ahead for the 2028 Paralympics.

The team of scientists working with the British national squads have a track record of working “behind the scenes” and educating the players to be “best prepared,” she said.

Although scientific research has been conducted at the Paralympics, the research that Tolfrey has been involved in is typically delivered in the run-up to the games, leaving athletes free to focus on what matters to them on the day—the sport ahead.

“We are working in a sports facility, where athletes are in sight, and implementing our research has changed the practice of what the players do,” she said, giving an example of players now drinking ice slurries at interval breaks.

“We’ve done all this from the lab and simulated competitions prior to the games—so when it comes to that performance in Paris, they are well rehearsed,” she added. “I get a lot of satisfaction coming back from a holding camp, knowing that, actually, the athletes are now best served.”

That said, for Pitsiladis’s part, he believes that there is a place for research at the games, if done in a responsible way. “I understand that science, if not done carefully, can impede and harm, so it’s got to be done within certain rules,” he said. For him, this includes not directly approaching athletes at the games—they are all recruited prior to the event—and giving them the option to change their minds once they arrive in Paris.

Despite the debate between some scientists and scientific approval committees, academics agree that science plays a vital role in supporting athlete performance and safety, as well as improving health outcomes for the wider population.

“All of these things are what universities should be doing,” said Pitsiladis. “As we learned from the COVID pandemic, I think science unites even more than sport. And then when you add the two together—sports science—wow, you can do miracles.”

To say I dragged myself across the finish line in May is an understatement. By the time I turned in grades and finished the administrivia of the year, I wasn’t sleeping much; I definitely was eating too much fried food and drinking too many adult beverages; I was cranky all. The. Time. And I was crying, a lot, for no reason: pumping gas, checking out at the grocery store, ordering a pizza—turn on the waterworks. I think my dogs were even fed up with my mood.

I was so emotionally, physically and intellectually exhausted that I didn’t even have time to make the annual summer to-do list. You know the list I mean. Most academics make one. It’s the completely fantastical list of all the work we are going to do over our break. I’ve been making one for more than 25 years. Yet for all but perhaps two of those 25 years, I’ve never finished even a quarter of what was on there.

So instead of getting to late August and having a neatly checked-off list of everything I accomplished each summer, I would get to August and have a reminder of the time I wasted—my utter lack of productivity, my inability to make a plan and stick to it, my failure as a scholar to produce copious amounts of writing, my lack of dedication as a teacher to create new and engaging material for my students. What a way to start a new year!

But something strange is happening this summer, because I never did get around to making the list. At first, I just couldn’t muster the energy to write it because I was mostly sleeping and battling migraines during the first week of break. Then, during the second and third weeks, my youngest child was having some problems that demanded much of my time. The fourth week involved travel for a graduation and visit with family. That travel week was when I started to notice a shift.

Most summers (OK, all summers) whenever I would go anywhere, even if it was for “vacation,” I would bring work with me, whether it was an academic text to read, page proofs to review or, at minimum, my computer so I didn’t get too far behind on email. Full disclosure, it was a bit different this year because I knew I’d be on sabbatical in the fall and would not have classes. But even so, I still had hanging over me lots of writing I normally would have felt I needed to do—book reviews, conference proposals, grant proposals, to name a few—as well as various other academic chores.

When I was packing for the graduation trip, however, I realized I didn’t have any work I needed to bring because I wasn’t working on anything. There was no list. Somehow, I was four weeks into a gloriously unscripted summer! I boarded a cross-country flight with only movies and pleasure reading uploaded to my iPad. Not only was my backpack lighter without my texts and my laptop, I was lighter.

I spent a week at my sister’s house actually being with my family. I didn’t take any Zoom calls; I didn’t excuse myself to go to a coffee shop “just for an hour” to get some work done. I didn’t sneak off to bed early so I could read an article. My mind was with my body, not on the list of things I wasn’t doing. I started to wonder what the rest of the summer might be like if I didn’t make the list I had been planning on the plane ride home.

The list, dear reader, did not get made. I am spending the summer without a plan. And it is liberating! I don’t feel guilty about all the things I am not doing because I didn’t make any promises to myself to get anything done. Ironically, without the guilt weighing me down, I actually am having a productive summer. I wrote the abstract for a new article in the locker room of the gym because the idea hit me out of the blue while I was on the treadmill. I was on the treadmill because I don’t feel compelled to be (futilely) sitting at my computer all day and have been able to start exercising again. And I am in the midst of planning two workshops for two very different audiences because I have had time to reconnect with other human beings in my community, having actual conversations where I am fully present and engaged because I am not worried about taking time away from the things on the list. (And now I can add this essay to the accomplishments.)

Truth be told, even if I didn’t have a few things to point to and say, “Look what I did this summer,” I would still say this summer without the list has been a good one. So I didn’t write three articles and draft a proposal for a new conference. I wouldn’t have done that anyway, even if it was on the list as it has been so many times before. The life-changing difference this summer? I don’t feel guilty about not doing it.

I saw a colleague yesterday who asked me how my summer was going. Without missing a beat, I said, “Great!” This is the first time since starting graduate school I didn’t complain that it was going too fast or that I wasn’t getting enough done or that it was too short.

A few precious weeks are still left in the summer—I hope you can burn your list and enjoy. You may start the semester with the same amount of work crossed off (read: little to none), but you may very well have a chance to recharge just enough to make it to the holidays.

The world is more connected than it has ever been, from the people we interact with, how we conduct our business and whom we have the opportunity to serve. As a result, college graduates today will join an increasingly global workforce—and their ability to step into service through global engagement cannot be left to chance.

Cultivating Global Citizenship in Students

At Taylor University in Indiana, the Christian university where I serve as dean of global engagement, we take responsibility to participate in greater global citizenship in response to God’s call to bless and serve all nations. But every higher ed institution, no matter its religious affiliation, have an important role to play.

Developing a global mindset in students is essential not only to preparing them to step into their vocation after college but also for shaping them into leaders who can serve a world in need. In a day and age when colleges around the nation are cutting global study programs as a means of institutional belt-tightening, I urge American institutions to find other ways to meet expense reductions.

Too often, global engagement is simply limited to one-off abroad programs or short-term international trips. Studying abroad should not be an opportunity for tourism that is open only to wealthy students. These opportunities should instead be seen as the catalyst for a lifelong pursuit of cross-cultural learning experiences and global service.”

American higher education is the global gold standard for good reason, and a key element of our nation’s strength has come from deeper and broader global engagement for generations of college students. Global engagement can—and should—be a holistic component of the university experience for every student, through study abroad opportunities and by bringing the world to campus.

After all, none of us can reach a world that we do not understand. Too often, global engagement is simply limited to one-off abroad programs or short-term international trips. Studying abroad should not be an opportunity for tourism that is open only to wealthy students. These opportunities should instead be seen as the catalyst for a lifelong pursuit of cross-cultural learning experiences and global service.

Expanding Access to Study Abroad

I have witnessed firsthand how demand is growing among students for international engagement opportunities. Across the country, I am pleased that study abroad programs are finally on the rebound after the pandemic. This trend is reflected in our own institution, as we send one-fourth of our student body to study internationally each year, including through a monthlong program each January, during spring and summer breaks, and on semester-long programs. This past academic year, Taylor students traveled to 25 countries and areas of the world, and we are always scouting out new places for our students to engage.

Students return from these study abroad or international mission trips with greater empathy and cultural intelligence and a more global perspective. For example, during a trip to Ecuador this summer, one student was captivated by the chance to visit historical islands, swim through pitch-black caves and hike mountains reaching 10,000 feet. However, her most profound experience came from the relationships she built with the people of Cuenca and her fellow students, along with the insights she gained about God and the world through Ecuadorean culture.

Additionally, 84 percent of students who studied abroad report feeling more equipped to enter the workforce—along with the 80 percent who reported that studying abroad increased their ability to adapt to diverse work environments. Making global engagement a central part of students’ experience benefits not only them but also the future of the workplaces they will join.

However, the unfortunate reality at the national level is that a gap exists between students’ desire to study abroad and their ability to pursue these opportunities. Though 72 percent of students are interested in studying abroad, only 10 percent do so before they graduate. And even more concerningly, the number of colleges that list international education as one of their top five priorities has dropped nearly 20 percent since 2012.

Student mental health is a growing concern for higher education administrators and practitioners as national rates of anxiety, depression and loneliness among college learners grow. Surveys show mental health is impacting students’ enrollment decisions, their academic success and even how they consider their college experience.

Administrators say they’re aware of the issue, but institutional investments in resources have yet to reach all students equitably.

A 2023 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed, conducted by College Pulse, found only one-third of college students had used any of their institution’s mental health services, including in-person counseling, telehealth and off-campus referrals.

The Hope Center at Temple University published a report in May, commissioned by the Ruderman Family Foundation and in partnership with the Healthy Minds Network and Boston University, that analyzed nine common digital mental health interventions at U.S. higher education institutions. 

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, host Ashley Mowreader spoke with one of the report’s four authors, Sara Abelson, assistant professor and senior director of training and education at the Hope Center. Abelson digs deeper into what digital mental health interventions are, how they aid student well-being and the overarching need for more data regarding these interventions and the students using them.

An edited version of the podcast appears below.

Inside Higher Ed: If you can just sort of lay the landscape for us, what are these interventions and where did they come from?

Abelson: Digital mental health interventions refer to the use of digital technologies for mental health support prevention and treatment. They provide behavioral or psychological strategies through technological features like websites or mobile applications, apps, virtual reality online platforms.

Some digital mental health interventions allow students to self-manage symptoms, while others use some form of support either to increase engagement or to provide additional intervention, but they really range.

Many are preventative resources—they help students with less acute needs or potentially reduce the need for mental health treatment—while others are providing mental health treatment and helping students who are already experiencing mental health symptoms.

That gets into the specifics. But maybe to just zoom out a little further before diving right into the specs of digital mental health interventions, I would just highlight that I think we’ve really seen growing and increasing use of technology to support mental health.

We see that nationally, internationally and certainly at college campuses, I think, as our data demonstrates, students’ needs around mental health have been growing. Rates of depression, anxiety have nearly doubled in the last decade, and more and more folks are turning to technology and thinking about how technology can help, again, both prevent problems and help students who are already struggling with mental health symptoms.

Inside Higher Ed: I wonder if you can talk about that combination. It’s not necessarily that technology is replacing in-person care, counseling and things like that, but how it works in supplement to those services?

Abelson: I would say that was one of the key findings from our work.

In our interviews, we spent a lot of time speaking with decision-makers and mental health leaders at college campuses, and heard again and again that these technologies are not replacing, and cannot replace, in-person services at colleges and universities. But there there’s a hope that they can supplement and that they can complement what is already going on.

And I say hope because one of our findings from our report is that we need more research and data and evidence to understand exactly what they’re doing and who they’re reaching.

But I think we heard from many decision-makers that they are sometimes pairing these with their counseling center so that they can meet students’ needs, say, outside of business hours if their counseling center isn’t available at those times, or perhaps they have a population of students who speak different languages, and they aren’t able to serve their needs in their campus counseling center.

They might look for digital and mental health interventions that could meet the needs of those students, or they’re also looking to complement and think about holistic support for students.

So again, maybe the counseling center is really focused on treating students who are experiencing mental health symptoms, but they’re looking for a digital solution that would help prevent problems, prevent students from needing the counseling center, help students who have subclinical symptoms, who can strengthen their mental health and their positive psychological well-being and improve their students’ academic outcomes that way.

There’s a range of ways that colleges are considering these interventions, but absolutely as complements and supplements to in-person services.

Inside Higher Ed: The report found that there wasn’t a lot of data around what these interventions can do or what they’re doing. Can you talk first about what are those metrics of success when we’re talking about mental health interventions? And then, how does that tie into these digital interventions and what we’re looking for in talking about data?

Abelson: It really depends on which digital mental health intervention you’re considering, or in general, which mental health intervention you’re considering. Because there’s a lot of potential outcomes and metrics of success, and college leaders really have an opportunity to, again, think about a holistic model of support, to think about preventing problems and treating problems, and you’d want to look at different metrics and outcomes.

So some digital mental health interventions are designed [for] and serving to reduce symptoms, like reduce symptoms of depression, reduce symptoms of anxiety among students who are experiencing an anxiety disorder … whereas other interventions are really designed to support students or prevent problems from developing.

Those interventions you might look at, “Are they increasing student sense of social support?” which is known to be really important for mental health. “Are they increasing students’ sense of belonging? Are they improving positive mental health? And is this sort of metric and outcome or flourishing or other types of outcomes that you might consider?” It really depends.

And I would say that those metrics outcomes translate, so that might apply to an in-person program or intervention at a college or university, or a digital intervention. And in both instances, you want to not only look at outcomes and sort of what it’s achieving that way, but also we talk a lot about usage in our research and guide.

We know there’s a difference between efficacy—so whether an intervention produces a result in ideal circumstances, like a laboratory or a randomized control trial—and what happens in real-world settings, when you roll it out on a college campus, who participates for how long do they participate, what benefits are realized, given how they are engaging? Those are really important things to look at, again, both with digital and health interventions or in-person services as well.

Inside Higher Ed: What are the key findings of this report? What does that mean for higher ed?

Abelson: I want to highlight to this work was very much a collaborative project. I’m delighted to be here today, but also really want to give a shout-out to my close colleagues and regular collaborators from the Healthy Minds network, Dr. Sarah Lipson and Daniel Eisenberg, who I did this work with, alongside Dr. Steven Schuler, Ashley Johnson, Michelle Liu and Shannon Ogden, all a big, big collaboration to get this work out there.

We really concluded that, although significant research has demonstrated that digital mental health interventions can be effective at improving mental health, the majority of widely used interventions in college settings have limited direct evidence of effectiveness and student populations.

So again, just to phrase that differently, outside of working with college students, many digital interventions have been studied and shown to be effective, but when we looked at specifically the ones that are currently being commonly adopted at many U.S. college campuses, that there really is a lack of studies of their effectiveness with college students. We highlighted a need for more rigorous studies including experimental designs to, again, look at: What are they achieving? How effective are they? How do they work for diverse populations and institutional settings?

That’s another thing we found is there’s really a need to look more closely at how they’re working across the range of students that are utilizing them. We also continue to need more research to understand user uptake and engagement. As we’ve rolled these out in real time, in real life on college campuses, how are students engaging with them and participating over time?

Inside Higher Ed: When we talk about digital mental health interventions supplementing counseling services, most often those counseling centers who may need services to be supplemented are those that may be underresourced. They might be [in] rural locations and they can’t have a huge counseling staff, or they might have a very diverse student population, like you mentioned, speaking different languages. I thought it was interesting that metrics like access and diverse populations weren’t being tracked, because we’re talking about these services as especially good for those reasons.

Abelson: I think you’re raising great points. I think one thing going on is that this has all happened very quickly.

Research takes time to do, and I think some of that is just catching up. We had a global pandemic that drastically changed the landscape overnight; these interventions started being developed more quickly, colleges and universities started using them more quickly, I’m not sure we’ve ever seen a faster pivot, in terms of this space [mental health for college students].

I think there is interest in the work, and many are seeing the need for it. And it’s just taking some time to research, do it and get it out there. We just heard from some colleagues in response to the report, so they reached out to say, like, “Oh, we’re studying this, we’re looking at this, we’re wanting to examine how diverse student populations are using these technologies.”

But I will also say, these are long-standing problems, like our mental health services have not always equitably served our populations. We know that students of color are far more likely to be struggling with symptoms of a mental health disorder and not accessing care. And that applies to whether you’re talking about in-person services or digital services.

I think there’s a hope that these applications and interventions will better serve those populations. But there really is a need to sort of involve them in the work and the design from the front end and to be asking these questions and collecting the data to see whether that hope and that possibility that those not being served or being underserved by campus counseling centers are being reached and better served by digital interventions.

Inside Higher Ed: Another element highlighted in the report was funding for these interventions. How should administrators be critical in choosing different interventions?

Abelson: I think there’s a need for the decision-makers and those who are investing the funds to really demand the data and evidence to ask the hard questions. To not just pick an app because it looks good or promises good outcomes. But to really say, “Where have you rolled this out? What [does] the user engagement and uptake look like? What outcomes have been delivered where this intervention is being implemented?”

There’s some of it where, yes, there’s like pandemic funds available and important investments were made. And this is not to discourage investments in mental health. I think the data and evidence is clear that students are struggling, and those struggles have increased, and we all need to be doing more. And so I really do think, when the funds over all aren’t enough, and aren’t sufficient—we as a country and internationally underinvest in mental health compared to physical health.

And so when the funds are limited compared to the scope of the challenges and the need, we need to be really critical and careful about the investments and making sure that where we do invest, it’s the best investment—effective investments to be driving improvements and outcomes for students.

Inside Higher Ed: Where do you hope this report pushes the conversation around tech for mental health services?

Abelson: We are always gonna be champions for more data and evidence about what actually works. This guide on digital mental health interventions is really part of a larger initiative and work that I’m doing in partnership with, again, my colleagues at the Healthy Minds network, Dr. Sarah Lipson and Dr. Daniel Eisenberg, and as part of our larger dedication to helping college and university leaders and decision-makers and funders really know what works and access the evidence that does exist in that space. And also create more evidence and understanding of what actually works to move the needle and improve outcomes.

I hope we continue to get more of the data and evidence. As I mentioned, this is a space that has evolved quickly, and we’ve got to catch up with some of those things.

I also hope we continue to prioritize the needs and inclusion of diverse student populations. We’ve talked about that here. But I think that needs to continue to be a top priority. I think there’s really a chance to focus on the students that are not being served by our current systems, and we have really important population-level survey data to know who that is.

We do that work at the Hope Center, surveying and studying: What are the population needs on a college campus when it comes to student basic needs? We do that work at the Healthy Minds network, understanding what are student needs, who’s not being served by current services, who’s not accessing care? I think there’s a chance to really focus on those students and populations as we do this work.

One other piece I would add is that I hope technology and digital solutions can be a part of helping us connect students to the full comprehensive set of holistic supports they need. I think too often we do our student success work in silos. You’ve got one initiative focused on mental health, we have another focused on basic needs, we have another focused on advising and credentials, and students don’t encounter one issue at a time.

We see in our Hope Center survey data that 64 percent of students who are facing housing insecurity are also experiencing food insecurity, 72 percent of students experiencing significant mental health symptoms are also experiencing basic needs insecurity. I feel like technology has a potential to really help get students the care and the resources they need across issues. And I’m excited by that potential. I think there’s more work to do to get there and to achieve that. But that’s one space I hope we continue to go with this work.

Inside Higher Ed: And having efficacy data is also important, not only like you mentioned in finding which interventions are serving the right students, but also in helping identify students who are not using those services and making sure that access is a priority. So as we’re looking at data from the research side, there’s also the institutional investment in making sure that that data is used cohesively across the holistic system to look at, like you said, basic needs, academic interventions, etc.

Abelson: Yes, yes. We work closely with colleges and universities at the Hope Center through our Hope Impact Partnerships. Figuring out how to actually collect the data and use the data and translate the data into action—it’s a constant challenge.

We spend so much time and energy in collaboration with colleges working to do that. It’s a challenge at the state level, too. I just came from so many conversations of states trying to figure that out. I think that, yeah, looping it back into sort of continuous quality improvement is such a challenge. And it’s such a need, especially as this work continues to evolve, student needs are changing, the solutions available are changing—you really do need to have your systems right to have the data, understand what’s happening and update that over time.

Inside Higher Ed: Speaking of student needs, we’re seeing a lot of younger, like those traditional high school into college-age students, feeling lonely and isolated. And some of that is tied to social media and the digitalization of their worlds. Do you think there’s ever a risk in this digitalization of mental health care as well that it will create a bigger digital bubble?

Abelson: That is a great question. I feel like, to answer that question, I, a little bit, have to step out of my research expert role and more put on my mom hat.

I don’t think anyone has the answer there. I think we all have to be working together collaboratively to figure out how to harness technology for good, right, and not for bad when it comes to mental health. And I think we need more and are getting more evidence to understand: Where is it causing harm? Where is it isolating young people? Where is it leading to divides and where is it bringing people together? Where is it connecting students who are otherwise feeling isolated in their communities? Where is it helping us effect change as we deliver and scale interventions?

I think one is never going to replace the other. I think that can’t be said enough. I appreciated you opening with that—that this is really going to be about pairing in-person engagement effectively with technology for the benefits it brings.

I don’t think we really have answers yet on how to make it not be a bubble, how to get the students who aren’t getting into in-person care but have the right in-person support for those who that’s going to benefit.

I do think we need to do a better job of turning to students and asking them and listening in this space. I’ve just come from several student panels where they just do a brilliant job of emphasizing the extent to which [they] need both and how continuing to engage in person continuously over time is so important to their health and well-being. And they are on technology and will be using technology and we can’t ignore technology if we’re going to be serving our students up today. I think it’s always a both-and, and we ought to do more listening to the students voices and their direction on the path forward.

Listen to previous episodes of Voices of Student Success here.

Transfer students and their success have become a high priority for administrations in many colleges, universities and higher education systems, a welcome shift in institutional focus. Though transfer has long been central to the undergraduate experience for a large segment of learners in the United States, the myriad ways that transfer happens in practice can make it difficult to effectively track, aggregate and publish information useful to faculty, staff and, most importantly, students.

Unavailable, confusing or inconsistent information often poses major challenges for incoming transfer students. Although many institutions and college staff members endeavor arduously to facilitate transfer student success, widespread institutional opacity combined with a lack of publicly available data and metrics comparing transfer paths make the task of facilitating transfer much more difficult.

To try to address these issues at the City University of New York, the ACT project developed the Transfer Explorer (T-Rex) website. T-Rex makes transfer credit policies openly accessible and interpretable for every pair of CUNY’s 20 undergraduate colleges. First launched in 2020, T-Rex has since been expanded to provide degree requirement information and a platform for comparing credit transfer options across colleges and programs, among other features. It has now had close to 200,000 unique users. T-Rex has proven to be such a useful and successful model that it has inspired the development of a national version of Transfer Explorer, which will be hosted by not-for-profit Ithaka and go live later this year with data from an inaugural set of institutions from four states.

However, providing students and transfer professionals with accurate, transparent planning tools concerning credit transfer is only one part of the puzzle. Transfer-related data is often highly complex (for example, CUNY has over 1.5 million course transfer rules), and often most student outcome data is only accessible to administrators within each individual institution. To wrap one’s head around the overall implications of a college’s transfer policies, including in terms of transfer students’ success, quantitative metrics serve a very important role.

Measures relevant to transfer student success can be calculated by individual institutions that receive transfer students and those that send transfer students and by consortia of both types of institutions, including university systems. Many measures of transfer student success are calculable with institutional data and may provide important insight into the quality of an institution’s transfer student–related policies and environment.

Here are some examples: What percentage of transfer students re-enroll after their first semester? How do transfer students’ GPAs change in their first post-transfer semester? What percentage of vertical transfer students graduate within three years? What percentage of transferred credits are accepted and how many credits on average count toward transfer students’ intended majors? And how do all these outcomes vary by major? Such metrics, especially when measured across years, offer institutions opportunities to identify areas where progress has been or where improvements could be made.

New transfer students are not served when they unexpectedly find prior credits are not accepted by their destination institution, or when they find they are unable to enroll in courses counting toward their major. Such diversions to academic progress can lead to an early exhaustion of financial aid, imperiling degree completion. Transparency by means of relevant metrics may help institutions better enable positive outcomes and decision-making by current and potential transfer students.

Rethinking Measures of Transfer Student Success

Institutions, including those receiving transfer students, can use several standard measures of student success, such as retention and graduation rates. However, these measures are often calculated excluding transfer students. Although first-time, incoming students do offer a more homogeneous sample for such measures, the exclusion of transfer students from these metrics hides important aspects of a higher education institution’s practices and quality. Not including transfer students in these metrics also puts transfer students’ well-being and success at risk—they may be overlooked as institutions race to optimize the measures that feed into rankings or prioritized reporting requirements.

Calculating student success metrics with all students, as well as separately for transfer students, and making that information public can provide valuable information for students considering enrollment, but also for institutions as they attempt to improve their outcomes across their entire study body. Historically, CUNY has made transfer student success information publicly available within its performance management metrics and student data books.

Nationally, since 2017, institutional student success measures gathered and published by Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System have included award completion rates (undergraduate degrees or certificates) for transfer students. However, these statistics are not considered graduation rates and are instead found in the Outcome Measures IPEDS component. We encourage the outcome measures to be more widely considered and disseminated, as they represent important information for students considering transfer to an institution.

Another set of measures, the median times between a student’s application, acceptance or commitment to attend and that student’s credit transfer evaluation, are measures that also can be made public, as they are in CUNY T-Rex. These measures are important considerations for students, because registration choices may depend on how and when prior coursework transfers.

Institutions that send transfer students, oftentimes community colleges, may lack the resources and staff capacity to comprehensively track students’ outcomes following exit from the institution. However, most can obtain data from the National Student Clearinghouse concerning where their students subsequently enroll and graduate and other student outcomes.

Combining the college’s own administrative data with the National Student Clearinghouse results, measures can be used to answer questions such as: How do graduation rates of transfer-out students differ across destination institutions? What is the average time to degree among transfer-out students who subsequently graduate at each destination institution? What is the distribution of credits students are earning at the sending college prior to transfer? And how do these metrics differ across majors?

Knowledge of students’ frequent transfer destinations as well as success rates at the receiving colleges are potentially valuable for transfer advisers and administrators seeking to facilitate inter-institutional transfer pathways that lead to student success. Although every student differs and students’ fit with a receiving college or degree program can vary, receiving colleges may differ systematically in their receptivity and facilitation of transfer students. Knowledge of past success rates can be used to help students make informed decisions most likely to result in degrees and subsequent success.

As useful as National Student Clearinghouse data is, it comes with limitations. For example, it does not include information concerning how courses and credits transfer from one institution to another. Collaboration between institutions can enable the sharing of such data and of metrics that help to measure and compare institutions’ transfer friendliness. Data sharing across institutions that constitute common transfer pathways can enable more detailed analyses of how specific courses count toward a student’s major at the transfer destination.

Summarization of overall outcomes related to course transfer also enables identification of transfer-favorable institutions and institutional paths. For example, the average number of transferred credits not accepted and the number of credits accepted that are counted only as blanket electives are relevant to understanding how favorable a receiving institution’s transfer policies are in respect to another institution.

Data sharing across institutions need not necessarily require the transmission of identifiable student-level data. Instead of relying on many individual institutional websites, often with outdated and confusing course equivalency policy information, platforms like T-Rex seek to aggregate and make transparent course equivalencies in a multi-institutional space.

Almost Every Institution Is a Receiving and a Sending Institution

Most bachelor’s degree institutions are used to thinking of themselves as transfer recipients. Most community colleges are used to thinking of themselves as sending institutions. However, the vast majority of colleges, regardless of sector, function to some extent as both sending and receiving colleges. Within the CUNY system, traditional vertical transfer from community colleges to bachelor’s degree institutions represents a plurality, but not a majority, of credits transferred; the remainder consist of credits transferred from and to every type of CUNY college.

It is thus worthwhile for institutions to consider, regardless of sector, both how well they are doing at serving students who transfer in and how well they are preparing their students to transfer out.

Looking Forward

Within institutions, awareness of transfer students’ needs and success may be lacking. Metrics can provide valuable information, enabling better support and awareness of transfer students’ successes and challenges. Students themselves have much to consider when making transfer decisions and face incredible challenges, partially due to a lack of publicly available and relevant information. Platforms such as T-Rex seek to highlight transfer-supportive institutions and institutional paths, enabling students to make more informed choices and institutions to improve their support of these students.

Although declining enrollment continues to take a terrible toll on many higher education institutions, removing the structural and systemic obstacles faced by transfer students is a partial solution within reach and long overdue. With the calculation and dissemination of transfer-relevant metrics, individuals and institutions on their own, or in collaboration, have the power to measure, understand and begin to ameliorate at each institution the issues preventing transfer students’ success. Such transparency and accessibility would help to ensure that more students of all characteristics and backgrounds are enabled to make optimal decisions and successfully attain the degrees and futures that they seek.

Colleges and universities are wellsprings of data, both inside the classroom and outside, but not every campus stakeholder has the skills and knowledge to access and understand the available data.

Faculty, staff and administrators at Portland State University in Oregon can learn how to harness data and engage in evidence-based decision-making by participating in a new campuswide initiative, the Student Success Data Champions Program.

The short-term program helps employees understand available data, its limitations and their responsibility in reporting student outcomes to help them be better informed in their ideas and work.

What’s the need: While Portland State has experts in data sourcing and analysis, others across campus are not yet equipped with the tools and wherewithal to use institutional data, despite the importance of data in student success work, explains Erica Wagner, vice provost of student success. “Student success is often seen as the responsibility of all campus employees. However, we frequently rely on anecdotes from a small number of students about their experiences.”

As an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander–serving institution (AANAPISI) and Hispanic-serving institution, Portland State is also dedicated to equity in its work, which comes from disaggregating data and understanding how different identities participate in institutional systems.

How it works: An invitation was sent to all faculty, staff and administrators in fall 2023, and the program launched with a one-hour kickoff in December. From 70 applications, 20 individuals were selected and 19 participated.

“The selection process included representation from across campus (position type, cross-organizational units, vertical depth, minoritized backgrounds of all kinds, etc.), applicability to their work, demonstration of curiosity regarding student success and what they hoped to get out of the program,” Wagner says.

Stakeholders attended four two-hour, in-person workshop sessions from January to March, delivered by staff members from the office of assessment and research, institutional research and planning, and the office of student success. Program leads developed content with a focus on equitable data use, Wagner says.

Each session exposed attendees to existing campus data and resources that all faculty and staff can use, including institutional data sets maintained by institutional research and business intelligence solutions offices or completed student surveys.

“We did this to ensure that we were modeling a process that the participants could use once they went back to their regular offices and their day jobs, where they would not have the same kind of immediate support they enjoyed during the program,” Wagner says. “We also knew that relying on existing data would mean the institutional burden of supporting the program would be lower.”

Participants learned to utilize Excel, Tableau and Portland State’s internal reporting tool, Cognos, and how to connect data sources together.

During the term, participants were encouraged to read the book From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education, which was provided to each person and referenced during workshop sessions.

Embedded in the program were five coaches—data professionals who work across campus. These coaches helped refine participants’ technical skills such as pivot tables, merging data and other Excel functionalities, as well as how and where to access data.

Participants also contributed to a larger research project, working across departments and divisions in the university to utilize existing data to understand student success at Portland State. The cohort was divided into five smaller groups, each supported by a coach, and the research groups met over the three months of the program.

At the end of the program, research groups presented their findings in a 90-minute wrap-up session, which was open to campus stakeholders to ask questions and engage.

The impact: Postsurveys showed participants had a better understanding of and confidence in using student data for decision-making and were applying skills to their jobs or sharing their new skills with colleagues. A month after the program ended, one individual created a presentation for their coworkers to highlight the tools they learned. Another participant now encourages colleagues to explore existing data rather than creating a new survey to send to students.

Wagner and her team plan to continue the program in the upcoming academic year and are investigating licensing the program so other institutions could duplicate it.

DIY: For another institution looking to model the initiative, Wagner offers four pieces of advice.

1. Focus on winter term. Applications for the program opened in the fall, and a kickoff event introduced program members to each other prior to the start of the winter term. All programming took place during the winter term, and final presentations took place the first week of spring, which accommodated the various schedules of stakeholders.
2. Create a budget. For 20 participants and five coaches, Wagner recommends a budget of $40,000 to $60,000 to provide stipends for those involved as well as other incentives such as catering, event space and equipment, to make the experience worthwhile.
3. Building community. Even after the program ended, participants indicated they wanted to continue to meet periodically to learn about new data sources, hone skills and support one another in addressing student success concerns.
4. Work across campus. In the selection process, program leads were intentional about getting a mix of different roles and responsibilities present, which opened up cross-campus dialogue and helped individuals expand their network within the institution.

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