Volume 15, Issue 2

Colleges and universities have long recognized that helping students to become personally connected and committed early in college is critical to their successful retention and graduation. Getting connected to the institution and committed to the academic process are especially challenging for new students who must quickly master a wide range of academic, personal, and social adjustments. For these reasons, institutions typically frontload a wide variety of services and personnel designed to help new students survive in college such as first-year courses, first-year interest groups, living-learning communities, help centers, advisers, counselors, tutors, and mentors. Recently a new kind of new student support service, personal coaching, is proving in some situations to be more effective than traditional new student services in increasing students’ abilities to connect and commit in college. The authors examine the role of personal coaching in college, reasons it appears to be a powerful intervention in encouraging student academic success, and the challenges it presents for traditional institutional approaches to encouraging new student engagement and persistence.

What does student coaching involve and what considerations make sense in deciding to engage an outside contractor to provide personal coaching? The author explores coaching in light of his own professional experience and uses this reflection as a platform from which to consider the pros and cons of student coaching when deciding whether to choose an external provider or invest in an in-house approach.

Using data from the Wabash National Study, authors examine how students’ perceptions of campus climate influence growth in students’ social and political activism. The goal of this article is to determine to what extent, if any, students’ perceptions of the campus environment affect their orientation toward social/political activism over 4 years of college and to what extent, if any, these effects are mediated by involvement in cocurricular activities. With the recent resurgence in student activism, understanding of campus protesters has again become a needed skill for campus administrators and student affairs professionals. Additionally, as campuses commit to promoting civil discourse and the inclusion of diverse perspectives, improving the campus climates for an important segment of their student population, that being student activists, must be a part of that commitment.

The authors investigate whether Greek affiliation and living in Greek housing significantly influence college students’ health-related behaviors. In addition, based on the findings, this study provides some important implications about the current practice of Greek society in higher education. The authors empirically tested a path model using three waves of nationwide large-scale data sets. Consistent across the three samples, Greek affiliation among college students was positively associated with violent behavior; substance abuse that includes cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana; and infection with sexually transmitted diseases. In addition to the negative effects associated with Greek membership, students living in Greek houses are more likely to be involved in physical fights and use alcohol and marijuana. These findings and the history of studies on Greek environments indicate that a more robust response to altering these environments may be necessary to curb the negative effects.

Many institutions of higher education have chapels, but how often are the chapels used? The authors examine use of chapels on two private higher education campuses in the Southeastern United States. While close to 50% of students visited the chapels on both campuses, visits were primarily for secular activities, although use of the chapels for spiritual purposes was also common. The greater use of chapels for spiritual purposes likely reflects the broader societal shift away from religiosity and toward spirituality. The authors recommend that higher education administrators consider chapels as multi-use buildings that can host religious, spiritual, and secular activities.

While it is widely recognized that campus climate can have a profound impact on students’ academic performance, mental/behavioral health, and character development, campus is not experienced equally across identity groups. For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and asexual (LGBTQA) students, campus often includes added stressors, which can make college more difficult than for the average student and may negatively influence mental/behavioral health outcomes. In this article, the authors explore ways to improve campus climate as a protective factor for LGBTQA students by presenting a statewide program in Arizona with this goal. The program will be discussed within the context of addressing LGBTQA experiences in college to promote well-being.

Many scholars have examined religious privilege in society and on campus, evidencing the privileged place Christianity generally enjoys and the marginalization that Jews often encounter, regardless of the school they attend. That said, in considering the Jewish higher education experience, something else is at play here. When juxtaposed with atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Muslims, and other non-Christians, Jews as a group enjoy perks not available to others. While these benefits are uneven, are overshadowed by Christian privilege, and coexist with ongoing anti-Jewish sentiments, it is undeniable that Jews on today’s college and university campuses enjoy unearned advantages over those who are neither Jewish nor Christian. This article explores the peculiar position Jews occupy on campus: marginalization in Christianity-privileging settings, but primacy among non-Christians.

College students are stressed. This is not news. However, the increasing level of stress and anxiety they report is alarming. Added to the traditional pressures to fit in, succeed, and mature, today’s undergraduates are faced with information overload, a sense of isolation, and the cultural shift from the college experience as a time to deepen inner wisdom (discovering a call) to an emphasis on building a resume (finding a job). In this article the author shares the advance of holistic psychology curricula, the practice of integrating mindfulness into higher education, and a shifting personal perspective on undergraduates’ callings.