Canonical research and identity-evasive best practices have pushed Student Affairs Professionals (SAP) to limit the applicability and effectiveness of involvement for a swath of the student body. By examining the push for involvement on college campuses, it is imperative to critically examine the impact traditional forms of student engagement have…

Peer mentoring programs have repeatedly shown that peer-to-peer support is a vital part of the transition process for new college students. Sometimes, what a student needs most in those imperative years is someone who can identify with them and provide the advice needed to get them to the finish line. In August 2019, the University of Nevada, Las…

Based on Nancy Schlossberg and her colleagues' extensive interviews with 100 retired adults, Susan Komives describes six predominate pathways retirees took to make meaning of this new transition in their lives. These pathways identified people as continuers, adventurers, easy gliders, involved spectators, searchers, and retreaters. Using the…

Traditional ideas about teaching and learning can run deep. Stephanie Bondi shares her experience of sharing power, voice, and responsibility with her students on a radical scale.

Planning programs with learning outcomes that address diversity issues on campus can become fairly routine--a "plug and play" task--for a director of multicultural student affairs at a private, religious, predominantly white liberal arts university. However, connecting with African American and other minority students when they arrived on campus…

In this article, the author provides a model that juxtaposes leadership, critical theory, and learning to address the needs of educators, the organization, and students. This model provides educators with a foundational approach to nurture students' critical consciousness through self-awareness and to actualize transformational change within their…

The number of studies conducted on college-student attrition is overwhelming. But few examine the impact of adding an early-intervention assessment tool to existing retention programs. Too often, colleges and universities conduct initiatives with similar purposes as disconnected efforts; retention programs in particular can benefit from a more…

Are athletics a positive or negative educational force? The viewpoint widely shared across academe is that participation in intercollegiate athletics has a positive impact on students and contributes to learning and moral development. Often, this notion is captured in the phrase "character development," a shorthand way to describe the individual…

Like many of the author's colleagues in higher education, he has long maintained that their work is primarily about forging personal connections within their campus communities by engaging students in a variety of learning activities. He fervently believes that learning must be broadly conceived to include an array of cognitive, social, and…

Belonging to a personally meaningful community of learners is a powerful predictor of a student's retention and academic success. Being part of a community that is intentionally built on recognizing, valuing, and learning from the diversity within that community can further deepen students' understanding of self, others, and the global community…

In the last issue of "About Campus," the author outlined the research studies that she presented with Eric J. McIntosh, Denise Nelson, and Shannon Pothovenin in 2009, which led to the creation of the Thriving Quotient, a reliable and valid 35-item instrument that measures the changeable psychological qualities in students that affect their ability…

In this article, the author shares his own learning on the challenges and the responsibilities as a student and as an instructor in the process of engaged learning. The author shares that his hope of telling his experience is to prompt educators to think about teaching and learning in ways that challenge some traditional assumptions about students…

In this article, the author shares her research findings on the differences between how men and women respond to college. She explores some of the cornerstones of the undergraduate experience--living away from home, interacting with faculty, being academically engaged, and learning about diversity--and how they contribute in unique ways to women's…

Violence prevention groups on college campuses, in schools, and in communities are increasingly aware that violence against women cannot end unless men take an active role in stopping it, and the failure of many men to take the issue of violence against women seriously cannot be overlooked. At the University of South Carolina (USC), collaboration…

Ethos, the fundamental character of a culture that underlies its beliefs and customs, can create strong emotional attachments if it is thoughtfully conceived and carefully nurtured. Adrianna Kezar describes how several institutions tend this fundamental character, with positive results for student engagement. (Contains 3 notes.)