This year’s theme: Academic Well-Being & Educating the Whole Student.

There is a significant body of national research around building a campus culture of wellness, a “well-being university,” as George Mason University calls their ongoing institution-wide effort.¹  Well-being is complex and multifaceted, of course, including but not limited to wellness that is physical, spiritual, emotional, social, environmental, and financial (this list comes from our own Wellness Center). Each of these impinges upon our students’ academic well-being, which itself has been studied in terms of concepts such as academic purpose, sense of belonging, growth mindset, self-efficacy, resilience, and flourishing, among others.² Research also shows that student well-being is linked to crucial issues such as the quality of learning, equity for underrepresented students, community engagement, civic responsibility, degree completion, and success after college, not to mention happiness and fulfilment in life. 

The UE Symposium planning committee would like your input³: Are you knowledgeable about one of the above aspects of well-being or wellness? Or, are you especially interested in one of these or in some other aspect of well-being and wellness in the university context? Please send your experiences, concerns, and suggestions to Jeff.Franklin@ucdenver.edu. Thank you. Happy semester end!

¹     Nance Lucas and Paul Rogers, “The Well-Being University,” in Donald W. Harward, editor, Well-Being and Higher Education: A Strategy for Change and the Realization of Education’s Greater Purposes, Bringing Theory to Practice, 2016, pp. 191-197.

²    For one good example, see Saundra Yancy McGuire, Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation, Stylus Publishing, 2015.

³   The UE Symposium Planning Committee is Mary Baitinger, Sarah Fields, Christy Heaton, Amber Long, Margaret Wood, and myself, with regular input from Provost Rod Nairn and Vice Provost Linda Bowman.