Strategic Presidential Leadership and Wrap-Around Student Services

As we anticipate and prepare for the Department of Education’s upcoming summit in Washington, DC, this piece focuses on the theme of the gathering: Raise the Bar: Attaining College Excellence and Equity.

As the department has said, the summit reflects its “commitment to ensuring that students of all backgrounds, ages, and income levels can succeed in any postsecondary pathway.” The event will focus on two critical areas for student success: (1) securing the mental health of America’s college students, and (2) attaining college excellence and equity advising.

Thriving communities: A national movement

College and university presidents strive to create thriving campuses by fostering a welcoming and inclusive environment where everyone feels a sense of belonging. Think of your own campus, or one with which you are deeply familiar. Picture a student finding sanctuary in a quiet corner of the student union after a difficult day. Or a first-generation student, either commuter or residential, who is excited to return for the new semester thanks to a supportive mentoring program and a helpful advising office. Imagine an environment where every student feels that the institution and individuals within the institution care about them and their success.

These are not isolated anecdotes, but rather they reflect a movement within higher education toward building thriving campus communities and identifying the vital conditions necessary to make it so. Institutions are shifting the narrative, asking: What does it take to create a community where every student feels embraced, supported, and empowered to flourish?

The original Thriving Communities initiative is a national framework outlined in The Federal Plan for Equitable Long-Term Recovery and Resilience, published in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan identifies the vital conditions for health and well-being that create and sustain a healthy community that has, at its core, a sense of belonging for every community member. As the plan pointed out, “Healthy, fulfilling relationships and strong social supports provide a foundation for individuals and families to thrive. These relationships and supports build social ties, trust, and cooperation in communities and foster connections that bring people together and shape a common vision.”

Nationally, the vital conditions within the thriving community’s framework include access to education, health care, food, housing, transportation, and employment. This framework provides a road map for leaders to envision, create, and lead unified communities. Rather than thinking about each vital condition as a separate variable, envision an ecosystem in which all of these vital conditions intersect and—together—result in every community member thriving and feeling that they are exactly where they belong.

The higher education model

This “thriving communities” model is not only applicable to regional communities; it is also a perfect fit for higher education institutions and the vital conditions that are needed for faculty, staff, and students to feel they belong and succeed. Presidents and institutional leaders who are besieged with internal and external pressures and politics can bring together and implement these conditions.

In a previous post, I discussed the four criteria needed for presidential leadership to effectively manage crises:

1. Students, faculty, and staff on campuses must feel safe from physical violence;
2. Students, faculty, and staff should have emotional and mental health support when needed;
3. Campuses should be an educational haven for students to learn and demonstrate critical thinking, healthy conversations, perspective taking, and intercultural communication to successfully cross lines of difference; and
4. Leaders must consistently communicate to the campus community that the first three criteria are the institution’s top priorities.

Keeping those criteria in mind and extending them to the national Thriving Community initiative model, successful presidents and institutional leaders should embrace and provide access to the following vital conditions for every student:

1. Supportive mental and physical well-being
2. Nurturing, caring, on-going, and effective advising
3. Housing on- or off-campus
4. Learning in and outside of the classroom
5. Support services needed for academic success
6. Financial support services
7. Food on campus or through food pantries
8. Employment during their educational journey and post-graduation

The higher education ecosystem

As with any physical environment, the higher education community (whether virtual or face-to-face) is an ecosystem where each of these vital conditions must coexist in concert with the others to truly become a thriving community for every student. Successful presidents lead with a focus on these vital conditions with the vision of how, when, where, and why these conditions can coexist, be supported, and be accessible to all students.

We know from the literature and from anecdotal experience that when a student feels that at least one faculty member, staff member, or peer cares about their well-being, the student is more likely to graduate and secure employment post-graduation. This element of caring is an institutional obligation that applies for both undergraduate and graduate students.