New study explores how universities can improve student well-being

Historically, a university’s primary role has been to ensure students excel academically, but higher education can also change lives by supporting their well-being. Despite growing evidence of the importance of student well-being and an abundance of best practices, most institutions have yet to prioritize it as much as they do enrollment, graduation and grades. 

A new study led by University of Maine researchers provides guidance on how institutions can support and enhance student well-being, and breaks down the various benefits for learners during and beyond their university career. It was published in PNAS Nexus, the sibling journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the academy’s flagship publication. 

The study defines well-being as a combined sense of belonging, agency, purpose, identity, civic engagement and financial stability. Citing a long-term investigation by Gallup Inc. and Purdue University, researchers identified key student experiences that result in improved well-being later in life: working at a job or internship; conducting a project that takes a semester or longer to complete; extensively participating in extracurricular activities; and having at least one professor who either personally cares about their students, encourages them to pursue their goals or makes them excited to learn. 

“There is a growing recognition of the importance of affective student outcomes such as sense of belonging and agency, as well as a wealth of evidence showing that student-centered practices can meaningfully support these. We hope that this perspective paper will encourage other educators to consider how to support well-being in their own learning context,” said Holly White, lead researcher and a Ph.D. student in ecology and environmental sciences. “Plus, there are some really cool initiatives happening at universities around the U.S. that we wanted to share widely!”

Researchers identified six guiding principles for improving student well-being: 

• Embedding well-being into curricula for broader, more accessible adoption. 
• Having each initiative only focus on one or two aspects of well-being, making it easier to create instruction that can also be more immersive. 
• Tailoring initiatives to the student body and university culture. 
• Securing buy-in from faculty.
• Ensuring new offerings are accessible and don’t create additional financial burden for students. 
• Employing an iterative assessment framework at the beginning to make it easier to change or scale up a program.

These guiding principles were determined in part by examining “exemplar efforts to support well-being in undergraduate education” — all varying in scope and level of instruction — from six universities across the nation. 

Among them are Research Learning Experiences (RLEs) developed as part of UMS TRANSFORMS, a multifaceted initiative from the University of Maine System led by a $320 million investment from the Harold Alfond Foundation in Maine’s public universities. First piloted at UMaine and now available System-wide, these semester-long courses allow first-year students to engage in research and other inquiry-based learning at the start of their college career. Many feature small class sizes and summer bridge experiences, and cost the same as any other credit-bearing course. 

According to researchers, RLEs encourage “peer relationships and sense of belonging, as well as fostering agency, purpose and identity through enriching research experiences.” When evaluating the benefits of RLEs on the more than 1,000 students who have participated in them since their introduction in 2021, preliminary data shows significant improvement in their self-identification as researchers, ability to reflect on new information and sense of belonging. 

“A unique feature of our Research Learning Experiences (RLEs) is that they are open to all entering first-year students, no matter what prior experiences students may or may not have had. Our early results on the positive impact of RLEs on overall student well-being is very encouraging,” said John Volin, study co-author and UMaine executive vice president of academic affairs and provost.

Other exemplary efforts to improve various aspects student well-being include Purposeful Work at Bates College, Digital Storytelling at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Quest at the University of Florida, the Design Your Life engineering course at Stanford University and the incorporation of civic and ethical engagement into curricula at Wake Forest University. 

“I think it’s really important to recognize that we can support well-being and student learning, it doesn’t have to be one or the other,” White said.

To gather more insight into these student experiences and enhance their ability to support well-being, researchers recommend more in-depth reviews of existing programs and further studies into the optimal times for assessing and collecting data on them, how decisions regarding their design are made and the funding requirements to support them.

“It’s interesting that while all six exemplar efforts highlighted in this article approach well-being with different best practices, each institution provides their opportunities at scale for all students, and they implement ongoing assessment so as to continually improve upon them. Both are key elements to be sure all students can benefit from these programs that focus on overall student well-being and future career satisfaction,” Volin said. 

In addition to White and Volin, the study was co-authored by Debra Allen, assistant provost of institutional research and assessment; Keith Buffinton from Bucknell University; Richard Miller from Olin College of Engineering; and Marjorie Malpiede and Dana Humphrey from the Coalition for Transformational Education.

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