Title: Positive higher education: Challenges and opportunities

Panel presenters: Maggie Zhao,  Grace Xia Zhao, and Heidi K. Brown

Overview: Higher Education is a complex landscape with many ongoing changes. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, students in higher education have been facing unprecedented mental health challenges fueled by environmental uncertainties. Positive education has become a pressing and meaningful conversation on college campuses. Positive education that fosters strength and growth is the key to student success. This group symposium proposes to focus on the discussion of positive education in higher ed and present the complexities and multi-faceted approaches to the topic; we present the various ways that higher education embraces strength-led education with well-being at the center of curricular design, co-curricular activities, and assessment.

The presenters share their work in positive higher education from three different angles: understanding student needs and highlighting the role of a positive psychology curriculum on college and graduate school campuses, innovative well-being initiatives, and meaningful assessment of well-being on an institutional level. The presenters’ work highlights the challenges and opportunities of positive higher education today  

Symposium Presentation 1: WeThrive: Nourishing University Students to Flourish using a Strength-based Approach

Presenter: Maggie Zhao, The University of Hong Kong

Abstract: Universities worldwide have grown increasingly interested in recognizing the importance of non-academic attributes and cultivating student holistic development through various curriculum and pedagogical innovations. Alongside the academic knowledge and skills students gain from university studies, non-academic attributes are identified as the core of essential learning outcomes in many higher education institutions. Adopting a strengths-based approach, WeThrive, a positive education program, was developed and delivered to university students to equip them with a set of intellectual, intrapersonal, and interpersonal capabilities at a research-intensive university in Asia. Employing a student-as-partner pedagogy, WeThrive introduced students to multiple positive psychology concepts (e.g., optimism, emotion, meaning, character strengths, positive relationship) to nurture students with positive mindsets and skillsets in a psychologically safe learning co-creation community. A pretest-posttest control group design was implemented to collect quantitative and qualitative data for evaluating the effectiveness of the program. Preliminary findings show that the evidence-based WeThrive program was effective in enhancing university students’ well-being, and their well-being gain sustained one month after the program completion. In addition to highlighting the practical implementation of the study, the presentation will also discuss the challenges and opportunities that higher education researchers and practitioners can review in the application of positive education for nurturing a flourishing university community.

Symposium Presentation 2: Meaningful Assessment of Wellness as an Institutional Learning Outcome in the Higher Education Setting

Presenter:  Grace Xia Zhao, University of La Verne

Abstract: Wellness as an essential higher education learning outcome? Since the publication of The National Bringing Theory to Practice Project, which argued that a liberal education should include intellectual and intrapersonal skills to flourish, higher education institutions have enlisted the personal pursuit of a flourishing life and well-being as an essential outcome of higher education. To reach such a learning outcome, curricular design is only one part of the process. Meaningful assessment of the learning outcome at an institutional level is critical in understanding student impact. This presentation proposes to study the higher education institutions that have installed well-being at the “whole school” level. The presentation will focus on assessment measures and practices the institutions utilize to assess wellness as an institutional learning outcome. The presentation aims to present the challenges and successes of assessing wellness as a learning outcome at an institutional level. Literature with this focus is rare. This presentation will use primarily qualitative research methods focusing on interviews with higher education faculty and administrators in collaboration with the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U).  

Symposium Presentation 3: The Flourishing Law Student

Presenter:  Heidi K. Brown (Brooklyn Law School; joining New York Law School in Fall 2023)

Abstract: While law (and therefore, legal education) is included in the definition of the humanities, it’s time we beckon law schools into the wave of “positive humanities.” Law is a field of words; yet roots and derivations of the term humanities—human, humanity, humaneness—often are downplayed in legal education. Humanity, or the state of being human, can get lost in a morass of seemingly all-or-nothing rules, winners and losers, systemic injustices, ossified hierarchies, and intellectual elitism. Synonyms of humanity—kindness, graciousness, politeness, consideration, philanthropy—often seem absent in many layers of legal education and our legal systems. Toxic competition, scarcity mindsets, cancel culture, and fear abound. Notwithstanding ambitious well-being initiatives, rampant mental health and addiction issues continue to plague law students. Positive humanities scholars are heralding the “eudaimonic turn,” i.e., a shift in attention from an intent focus on brokenness (absence) toward the study of individual and collective well-being. Let’s help legal educators and law students step into the eudaimonic turn. Instead of focusing on unearthing or stirring up problems (absence) around every corner, we can teach students how to invest (and replenish) energy in fostering good (presence). This endeavor starts by re-defining what it means for law students to possess the requisite “character and fitness” to practice law—a requirement for American law students when applying to law school and for acceptance to the bar of every state jurisdiction. This presentation urges law schools to adopt curricula to teach law students (1) how to cultivate individual and collective character strengths, and (2) how to foster multi-dimensional “fitness” to practice law, by nurturing physical, emotional, cognitive, spiritual, social, occupational, intellectual, moral, and artistic well-being dimensions.