By Chris McGrath
When it comes to student success, what happens in class is just one piece of the puzzle. College students are influenced by the entirety of their environment – including physical, technological, psychological, social and organizational factors – and this can mean the difference between thriving and struggling. Is it easy to navigate the college and its systems, or do students feel like they are set up to fail? Do our physical and virtual environments promote belonging, wellbeing and positivity? Are students receiving the support and resources they need to overcome obstacles and flourish? Or do they receive cold, transactional messages about what they have to do, and what will happen if they fail to comply?
The emergence of positive psychology over the past 20 years has highlighted the interplay between happiness and strength-building, and its role in affirming positive mental health and well-being.
Imagine what the post-secondary student experience would be like if our communications and practices focused more on affirming students’ strengths and resilience, and less on deficits and incapability.
Research published by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario provides some insight. It found that academic probation letters that used positive psychologically attuned messaging – language aimed at recognizing strengths and reducing feelings of shame, stigma and guilt – led to more favourable student engagement, decreased dissatisfaction, and improvement in subsequent academic outcomes. Conducted in part by Melissa Gallo, now George Brown’s Director of Student Engagement and Career Success, this research suggests that a positive-psychological approach could yield similarly positive outcomes from other communications such as conduct decisions, letters about late fees and faculty-student emails.
In reading more about positive psychology, I marvel that it has taken such extensive research to prove what those who raised us taught us so well: to be nice. But it’s definitely about more than being just nice. Over the course of 30 years as a radio host, Bernard Meltzer encouraged his listeners to think before they speak, and only do so if what they were about to say is true, kind, and necessary. I would add that, in striving towards optimal student experiences, we must also aim for communication that is inclusive, engaging, and strength-building.
Colleges and universities rely on standards in many ways. We use them to regulate programs and qualify students for their credentials, and also to set expectations for rights and responsibilities associated with being a member of the college community. As a result, we sometimes need to take and communicate actions that might be considered negative or unwelcome by the student who may not meet those standards. But many of the policies, standards and assessments we use to establish and measure social and academic 'compliance’ are rooted in exclusionary interlocking systems of power and privilege, of colonialism and white supremacy. This mindset that sometimes defaults to what students have to do in order to comply, or to meet expectations, reproduces historical barriers to success – especially for students from equity-deserving communities.
So, rather than thinking about how we control or regulate experiences to align with standards of the organization, how do we create and cultivate conditions for students to flourish and succeed in community?
George Brown College Wellness Ambassadors
At George Brown College, we have recently experienced success with our Wellness Ambassadors, who use a positive-psychology and social norms approach to helping students feel safe and included while on campus during the pandemic. Rather than policing mask compliance and reprimanding behaviour, the ambassadors approach a given situation with consideration for the reality that being on campus during a pandemic can be stressful for people. A person not following the rules may in fact have already navigated a whole network of new rules. They contend with rules about masking and social distancing in their apartment buildings, on full buses and subways getting to campus, and while being screened when they arrive.
While a compliance or policing approach would not take this into account, psychologically attuned approaches recognize that behaviour is a function of the relationship between a person, their environment, and how they make meaning of it intellectually and psychologically. These approaches default to the opportunity to help people keep themselves safe by strengthening their capacity to live by these “rules.”
I am neither for what some have argued is organizational hand holding, nor sheltering students from the real world. In fact, I challenge such critics to demonstrate that a full-time student who has two part-time jobs to pay tuition and childcare expenses, and who commutes over an hour daily on transit, either needs their hand held, or isn’t living in the real world. Instead, I offer that with a diverse student community whose experience is arguably more complex and more stressful than ours (as people in authority) may have been, positive psychology and a strengths-building approach allow us to see a pathway of potential with compassion for complexity.
Reimagining how we communicate with students
As colleges and universities commit to meeting the unique needs of diverse learning communities, how can we better align what we say and what we do? I believe we need to reimagine how we communicate with students at times when they aren’t making progress towards their goals and success, rather than towards our standards or expectations. Using positive psychology to build skills and strengths, even in the most subtle ways, can help students pivot from feeling like they’re not good enough to believe that they can overcome the challenge in front of them.
By communicating our unshakeable belief in our students and their potential, we’re ultimately building on what we already do so well: care deeply for our students, while helping them understand themselves and the world around them. And in a world that feels more complex each day, our students need this from us now, more than ever.
Chris McGrath is the Vice-President, Student Success at George Brown College.
