Can Student Success in Wellness?

Student wellness is a vital aspect of academic success and personal development. As students navigate the challenges of education, social pressures, and personal growth, maintaining overall wellness is crucial for their well-being and future success. This article explores key components of student wellness and provides actionable strategies for promoting mental, emotional, and physical health among students.

Wellness is a modern word with ancient roots. The key tenets of wellness as both preventive and holistic can be traced back to ancient civilizations from the East (India, China) to the West (Greece, Rome). In 19th-century Europe and the United States, a variety of intellectual, religious and medical movements developed in parallel with conventional medicine. With their focus on holistic and natural approaches, self-healing and preventive care, these movements have provided a firm foundation for wellness today. Wellness-focused and holistic modalities have gained more visibility since the 1960s/1970s under the writings and thought leadership of an informal network of US physicians and thinkers (such as Halbert Dunn, Jack Travis, Don Ardell, Bill Hettler, and others). As these have evolved, proliferated, and gone mainstream, they have informed the healthy-living, self-help, self-care, fitness, nutrition, diet and spiritual practices that have become a flourishing wellness movement in the 21st century.

Defining Wellness

There are two important aspects to this definition. First, wellness is not a passive or static state but rather an “active pursuit” that is associated with intentions, choices and actions as we work toward an optimal state of health and wellbeing. Second, wellness is linked to holistic health—that is, it extends beyond physical health and incorporates many different dimensions that should work in harmony.

Wellness is an individual pursuit—we have self-responsibility for our own choices, behaviors and lifestyles—but it is also significantly influenced by the physical, social and cultural environments in which we live.

Wellness is often confused with terms such as health, wellbeing and happiness. While there are common elements among them, wellness is distinguished by not referring to a static state of being (i.e., being happy, in good health, or a state of wellbeing). Rather, wellness is associated with an active process of being aware and making choices that lead toward an outcome of optimal holistic health and wellbeing.

Wellness Is Multidimensional

Wellness is about more than just physical health. Most models of wellness include at least six dimensions (and sometimes up to 9 or 12):

Physical: Nourishing a healthy body through exercise, nutrition, sleep, etc.

Mental: Engaging the world through learning, problem-solving, creativity, etc.

Emotional: Being aware of, accepting and expressing our feelings, and understanding the feelings of others.

Spiritual: Searching for meaning and higher purpose in human existence.

Social: Connecting and engaging with others and our communities in meaningful ways.

Environmental: Fostering positive interrelationships between planetary health and human actions, choices and wellbeing.

Students and Wellness A March survey from TimelyCare found a majority of students (59 percent) identified their grade point average as the most important measure of success in college from a list of options, followed by greater knowledge (54 percent), completing a course of study or graduating (53 percent), or getting a desired job (46 percent).

Higher education professionals who work in student success, however, are more likely to see persistence, degree completion and student thriving as important measures.

A new journal article, published in PNAS Nexus, argues institutions of higher education should focus less on student outcomes such as retention and graduation rates and grades and instead include measures of wellness and development. The article’s authors offer six metrics that contribute to lifelong well-being and how higher education can implement practices to foster them.

The background: Student success for many stakeholders in higher education is based on the experiences that happen in the classroom or related to learning. But a 2015 Gallup study found six key college experiences that are linked to wellness and degree completion:

Having at least one professor who makes you excited about learning.

Having professors who care about you as a person.

Having a mentor who encourages you to pursue your goals.

Working on a project that takes a semester or more to complete.

Having an applied internship or job.

Being active in extracurricular activities and organizations while in college.

However, fewer than 3 percent of alumni have engaged in all these activities, showing opportunity for higher education to better engage with students to promote lifelong outcomes.

“Colleges and universities must take an active role in ensuring students have the opportunities to engage in pedagogical activities that have the potential to foster their long-term well-being and happiness,” the article authors write.

What matters: The report authors, pulling from a variety of definitions of well-being, identified six key factors higher education can promote for lifelong well-being and success.

Sense of belonging is the most common concern of college students today and has been demonstrated as an important factor in retention and student outcomes.

Agency, or the idea that one can change and lead their life circumstances, is “particularly important for young adults as they begin to navigate their place in the world,” according to the article.

Purpose, or meaning in life, is associated with well-being, grit and resilience when faced with life’s stressors.

Identity is a key focus for college students as they navigate their characteristics, affiliations, experiences and worldviews.

Civic engagement is one area in which higher education helps prepare students for their lives as active citizens and can include community-oriented activities.

Financial wellness is a growing concern among students in higher education, and a lack of financial well-being is correlated with student debt, lower well-being and a higher risk of leaving college.

DIY: For colleges and universities looking to implement more well-being initiatives, the article’s authors provide six guiding principles:

Embed well-being into the curriculum. To reach a wide range of students and remove barriers to participation, wellness offerings should be part of undergraduate programs.

Identify targets. Not every initiative needs to foster all components of well-being, but successful programs have one or two focus areas, which makes it more manageable.

Tailor offerings to the institution. Practices should account for the college or university’s specific student body and university culture.

Measure outcomes. An iterative assessment strategy before launching can inform program changes and how to scale successful work.

Win faculty buy-in. Faculty influence and leadership are important factors in delivering wellness in the learning environment.

Mitigate student financial need. Not all students are able to participate in activities, such as an unpaid internship, due to financial constraints, so providing opportunities without an additional financial burden is key.

The report identifies mentorship and authentic and experiential learning as two of the most impactful strategies to address lifelong well-being in undergraduate students.

Mentorship is positively tied to many of the measures researchers identified as important metrics of success and can be particularly beneficial for marginalized students. Problem- and design-based learning and community-based projects can facilitate students’ identity development and boost student agency and autonomy, as well.