In the traditional structure of mentoring relationships between advisors and students in academia, the focus tends to be primarily academic. For many students, that focus is enough to assist them in the transition from high school to, and through, college. But according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2012), in 2009 62.3% of college undergraduate students were Caucasian, and the remaining underrepresented students are known to have more challenges to overcome in achieving a higher education. Those students who strive for higher academic success are less researched than those who struggle or drop out of college, but still have similar life difficulties to overcome (Griffin, 2006; Fries-Britt, 1998). Underrepresented students who are high-achievers face a duality of conflicts in transitions. Not only are they adjusting academically to the rigors of academia, but there are also socially adjusting to a predominately Caucasian campus. According to Freeman (1999), this “dilemma, coupled with the fact that most African American high achievers are first generation college students, creates a need for support services to assist these students in their transition to and adjustment within higher education” (p.16).
In 1988, Indiana University-Bloomington created a program designed to recruit and retain underrepresented students from minority backgrounds who were high achievers in the state of Indiana. The Hudson and Holland Scholars Program (HHSP) has over 800 scholars from primarily Hispanic/Latino and African American backgrounds were accepted into the program with cumulative grade point averages above a 3.0. Over 76% of those students have maintained above a 3.0. At Indiana University, the Bloomington campus is predominately Caucasian with only 14.6% of the undergraduate students in 2012 declared as minorities (Office of Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs, 2013). Thus, programs focused on minority retention can be essential in the successful transitions when using a holistic approach to scholar success. This paper examines a successful scholarship program on the Indiana University-Bloomington campus that uses a unique partnership with the School of Public Health-Bloomington to promote holistic wellness for scholar success.
Birth of a New Program
During the 2010-11 school year, the HHSP partnered with the School of Public Health-Bloomington to create the Holistic Philosophy of Scholar Success (HoPSS), a program designed to provide wraparound services to meet the unique needs of high achieving underrepresented students who were members of the HHSP. The partnership was created when the professor teaching a leadership development course- who was also the Director of the Center for Student Leadership Development (CSLD) in the IUB School of Public Health, identified five HHSP students who were having challenges developing the personal and leadership skills required to maintain the same success in college they had experienced in high school. This was unique, not because the students were having challenges, but because they identified through their course assignments that they hadn’t sought assistance for their challenges.
The students were all enrolled in a one credit hour course entitled Participant Leadership Development. The course utilizes a blended learning approach, which includes five classroom meetings, seven online workbook units, and one individual meeting between the student and the course instructor (or a trained and supervised Master of Public Health Student). This blended approach guides students through basic leadership topics including: leadership/followership; goal setting, time management; diversity and communication; teamwork, and achieving balance. The course instructor/CSLD Director then connected with the HHSP Director, and together, they met with the students and developed individual responses to address the needs of each student. At the end of the semester the HHSP Director and the CSLD Director met with the students and identified common issues. They felt significant stress in their family at home, a lack of willingness to ask for help, and a common belief that they were experiencing stress that was different from their peers.
Throughout the following summer, the HHSP director, the HHSP advisors, and the leadership course director worked to build the HoPSS program. In the first year, primary focus was given to selected topics from the leadership course such as time management, stress management, leadership and followership skill building, and learning how to reach out for assistance within HHSP, HoPSS, and in other ways throughout the university. Under the leadership of the Director of the Center for Student Leadership Development, the HoPSS Advisor assists the Hudson and Holland Scholars Program by providing essential campus and community resources through utilization of a holistic approach.
The Holistic Approach
HoPSS utilizes Hettler’s 1976 model of the six dimensions of wellness (National Wellness Institute, n.d.) to reinforce the program goals and objectives of Hudson and Holland Scholars Program. Wellness is defined as “an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices about, a more successful existence” (Hettler, 1984, p. 14). The six dimensions of wellness include a) intellectual, b) social, c) physical, d) emotional, e) occupational, and f) spiritual. The HoPSS program intentionally programs growth sessions within each dimension in order for the scholars to be as successful as can be. During one-on-one sessions with the HoPSS Advisor, students are asked questions relating to each of the six dimensions. Frequently asked questions include: a) How are you sleeping at night? For how long?, b) Are you eating well, what does that mean to you?, c) How often do you exercise and what do you do?, d) How are your relationships going, friends, significant others, family members?, e) what classes are you taking and how are they going?. f) What are the ways you deal with stress, give examples?, g) Are you finding time to connect to a higher power, or participate in your religious activities? h) What are you doing to feel connected to campus and this community? Examples of how each dimension is utilized to promote student success through group topic sessions are as follows.
Intellectual. Supporting the intellectual efforts of each student is the number one priority of HHSP. Intellectual wellness is not just about developing the appropriate study techniques or memorization skills, but about developing the ability to be creative, stimulate the mind through critical thinking, and develop the desire for life-long learning (National Wellness Institute, n.d.). HoPSS provides opportunities for students to engage with each other through game nights that challenge students intellectually but in a fun social atmosphere.
Social. The social dimension of wellness focuses on how the individual fits into the community and connects with others (National Wellness Institute, n.d.). HoPSS and HHSP provide activities for social engagement at all events and focus solely on group bonding throughout the year through game nights, ice cream socials, and community service activities. In addition to group bonding, understanding relationships (“Friendships 101”) has been a popular topic. Students experience the death of past relationships and the growth of new ones frequently throughout the first year of college. Navigating through the emotional turbulence of those experiences can be overwhelming and understanding the natural flow of relationship development and attrition is important.
Physical. One’s physical health includes daily exercise and healthy eating. An example program to meet the physical dimension of wellness includes nutrition counseling for dorm life eating entitled “Eat This, Not That –Residence Life Edition.” For those living off campus, trying to shop intelligently in a world of mixed messages can be difficult; therefore, HoPSS incorporated a nutrition label 101 program in which participants were surprised to know how little they knew about what they were purchasing.
Emotional. University life can be emotionally challenging due to the transitions being experienced. Understanding feelings and emotions, managing stress appropriately, and making choices based on those feelings are important aspects of emotional wellness (National Wellness Institute, n.d.). Students in HHSP have had the opportunity to attend sessions that help with stress including effective time management, de-stressing social activities, and relationships.
Occupational. Finding satisfaction in one’s life by choosing the right career path is a tenet of occupational wellness (National Wellness Institute, n.d.). Building upon the foundations of HHSP for scholar’s academic growth, HoPSS sessions include choosing the right major, being well rounded for recruitment, or preparing for the job search.
Spiritual. Acting in congruence with one’s beliefs is one of the components of spiritual wellness (National Wellness Institute, n.d.). Helping students recognize how the choices they make on a regular basis can impact their future, the people around them, and the environment at large is an essential component of HoPSS. With the introduction of “YOLO, you only live once,” students’ judgment can be clouded at times based on the situation they may be in. The HoPSS Advisor can encourage students to use this motto as a more positive and productive one than it is currently accepted among young people. The topic session of “What harm can it do?” was highly attended and participants were engaged in the topics of morally controversial leisure including binge drinking and recreational drugs.
Transition Resources
An additional component of HoPSS to promote success includes transition resources and retention through intervention strategies. Scholarship programs that assist students from underrepresented populations have the opportunity to improve the number of students who graduate and secure professional or graduate school positions, especially when the students enter the university with high cumulative grade point averages (CGPA) and test scores. But unfortunately even high-achieving students can do poorly at some point during their education. One of the mistakes made by advisors, staff or faculty is the assumption that students will come knocking on a door when they need help. According to Bowman, Kite, Branscombe, & Williams (1999) “assertive students of any race will certainly reach out”, but Caucasian students receive more encouragement to do so while “the rest of the students remain in limbo” (p. 29).
One of the main reasons for using the term high-achieving rather than gifted is due to the potential, if one continues to work hard, to achieve high grades, leadership status in campus organizations and communities, and receive the career positions dreamt about. This also indicates how one has the potential to fail academically when life stressors become too much to handle. In studies on underrepresented students who fail to live up to the academic potential in college from their high-achieving status in high school is due to the lack of mentoring programs or knowledge of the programs available on campus and feelings of non-assimilation (Novels & Ender, 1988; Fries-Britt, 1998; Arnold, 1993; Freeman, 1999). Considering underrepresented students are less likely to reach out for help, mentoring programs need to be developed as a conduit for communication and transition resources in order to find methods to help students recognize their own potential early in their college career.
One method to assess how well students are adjusting to college life is through an online 64-question assessment of eight characteristics of successful students (Downing, 2011). The eight characteristics help define the actions taken by successful students as compared to those who are struggling. A successful student would demonstrate that they a) accept self-responsibility, b) discover self-motivation, c) master self-management, d) employ interdependence, e) gain self-awareness, f) adopt life-long learning, g) develop emotional intelligence, h) believe in themselves (Downing, 2011). The self-questionnaire provides a score for each of the eight areas in a range between 0-80. The range is further divided into three brackets of making choices towards success, 0- 39 rarely, 40-63 sometimes, and 64-80 frequently. The assessment structure provides both the student and the advisor with a baseline rating in order to empower the student to do better in each area.
University programs that implement the assessment and supportive On Course materials generally target students who are in an academic probation course or as part of a first semester freshman program (Hutson, 2006; Kamphoff, Hutson, Amundsen, & Atwood, 2006-2007; Rutschow, 2012; Lifton, Cohen, Schlesinger, 2000). Results vary among improvement of scores of each characteristic based on the self-reported questionnaire. When taking into account the students’ CGPA, the results all show improvement from intentional programming based on the eight characteristics (Downing, 2011).
The HoPSS Program uses the On Course strategies to assist high achieving scholars recognize their strengths and weaknesses as freshman to gain awareness for better transition into college and successful transitions through and beyond college. Each of the characteristics of successful students also relate to one of the dimensions of wellness. Depicted in Figure 1 is the HoPSS holistic approach of assisting high-achieving underrepresented students in succeeding during the first year of college and beyond.
Program Evaluation and Future Research
In the Spring 2013 semester, the HoPSS program was used as an intervention program in freshman scholars on Grade Watch, under a CGPA of 3.0 and at risk for a loss or reduction of scholarship assistance from HHSP. Fifty students were instructed to meet one-on-one with the HoPSS Advisor in which 34 students complied. During the session, students were given the self-questionnaire (Downing, 2011) and guided through a holistic set of questions based on Hettler’s six dimensions of wellness. Anecdotal results indicate the potential for successful intervention by using a holistic approach. An intentional evaluation of this intervention program is being developed for implementation during the academic year of 2013-14 between the HHSP Director and the HoPSS Advisor.
Since the HoPSS program is in it’s infancy, strategic program evaluation is currently being developed. In the past, formative evaluation has included informal questionnaires and interviews with participants immediately after attending a session, whether one-on-one or group. The collected information was then used to inform best practices for the next session or semester’s programming. In addition, information was used to inform administrative offices of both HHSP and the Center for Student Leadership Development of the program’s strengths and weaknesses in semester and annual program reports.
Developing strategic program evaluation tools based on the model in Figure 1 will allow students, staff, faculty, and administrators across campus to see the impact of developmental relationships on the holistic development of successful underrepresented students at Indiana University. To complete this task, the authors are working with HHSP to integrate HoPSS program evaluation into key monitoring elements of scholar success currently in place throughout the school year. Thus a longitudinal multi-method study will take place following one cohort from freshman year to graduation. Douglas (1997) indicated the use of “periodic assessments through focus groups, interviews, or surveys” will help provide clarity of program benefits (p. 98). Although focused primarily on the single cohort, evaluation of the HoPSS program by HHSP staff and administrators, members of other cohorts, and outside stakeholders will also be acquired. Just like the holistic philosophy of scholar success, the evaluation methods will be a holistic approach to program success.
Implication for Future Application
As with any program development, the evaluation of effectiveness is important for the sustainability of program implementation and the integration of knowledge gained for continued improvement. The HoPSS program evaluation data will inform this program as well as other campus efforts connecting theoretical frameworks and practical application. These connections can result in a model, which may be replicated on other campuses. Data gathered will also assist in dispelling cultural stereotypes about high achieving underrepresented students, leading to an expansion of cultural influence on their success. Together, this programmatic research can broaden the understanding of common issues relevant to high achieving underrepresented populations to enhance advisor/student relationships.
Conclusion
Attending college is challenging in different ways for each student. For underrepresented students the challenges may be similar to majority students, but the best ways to assist underrepresented students as they address these challenges needs may be different. Many high-achieving underrepresented students have the extra burden of personal and family pressure to succeed either from successful parents/siblings or from being first generation students. Campus programs designed specifically to aid in the successful transitions from high school through college and beyond have been shown to improve student success (Hutson, 2006; Kamphoff, Hutson, Amundsen, & Atwood, 2006-2007; Rutschow, 2012; Lifton, Cohen, Schlesinger, 2000). The combined frameworks provided by both Hettler (1976) and Downing (2011) delivered in a culturally supportive and understanding program for supporting high achieving underrepresented students has provided a strong structure for the HoPSS program. As the HoPSS model moves forward, we seek to continue our evaluation efforts to measure how this program impacts the public health, educational success, and ultimate satisfaction and graduation rate of our HHSP students at Indiana University.
Figure 1. Holistic Philosophy of Scholar Success Model. This proposed model combines Hettler’s Dimensions of Wellness Model and Downing’s On Course Success Principles.
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