Heart

Foster a Relationship-Rich Student Experience

Rationale

Students need avenues to build community and ensure well-being throughout their entire academic career. Such endeavors foster holistic student development and recognize the inherent dignity of the whole person as befits a premier liberal arts college and an Episcopal seminary. A relationship-rich environment with a constellation of touch points and avenues creates a sense of belonging for students and impacts their retention, success, and degree attainment. These are also key ways in which we help students’ self-discovery around identity and culture, urge their exploration of purpose and vocation, foster their active citizenship, and prepare students for success within and beyond their time at the University of the South.

Description

The University is committed to cultivating a diverse, inclusive academic environment that prioritizes the holistic development and well-being of students throughout their academic experience. To achieve this, we will build on existing strengths to implement a comprehensive framework of spaces, opportunities, and programming intentionally designed to foster relationship-rich community-building and a sense of belonging across diverse backgrounds and perspectives. These initiatives will empower students to engage meaningfully with one another, develop essential interpersonal skills and self-awareness, and cultivate a deep understanding of their role as active participants and leaders in civic life. We propose to foster a relationship-rich student experience through:

  • increasing support for inclusive programming that fosters relationship-building with peers, faculty, staff, and mentors,
  • attending to the unique needs of our students who are international, first-generation, low-income, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and athletes, and
  • ensuring that cross-cultural and equitable principles and values are included across all engaged-learning experiences to encourage students to strive for justice and peace and to respect the dignity of every human being, in alignment with Episcopal values and commitments.

Supporting Tactics

Support for Peer Relationships
  • Create a constellation of trained and supported peer leaders for existing and new programs: (a) peer mentors in FYE, Orientation, PRE, Bonner and Canale, athletic teams, and Residential Life; (b) peer learning assistants in gateway courses; (c) student fellows in the proposed Center for Project-Based Learning and Action; and (d) peer mentors in affinity groups for students, using the model of the first-generation peer mentoring cohort.
  • Deepen commitment to speciality houses through expanding their number and providing faculty/staff mentors as these spaces foster community and students’ collaborative and leadership skills. Provide intentionally designed efforts for students in those spaces to reflect on a sense of purpose, meaning, and leadership.
Support for Student-Staff Relationships
  • Discern staff needs for supporting students with the recognition that staff relationships with students matter and that they are important members of a student’s team of support.
  • Provide compensation for staff who choose to lead initiatives with a mentoring component, including FYE one-credit courses, outreach trips, and affinity groups.
Support for Student-Faculty Relationships
  • Develop a series of one-credit courses that follow and build upon the FYE (described in Strategy 1A) in order to provide students continuous “touch points” on themes related to purpose, vocation, and engaged learning. These could include community-engaged learning experiences, Domain-based environmental learning and/or be embedded into a student’s major.
  • Deepen support for faculty to learn about and integrate high-impact practices through funding current fellowships, including the Community-Engaged Learning Faculty Fellows and the Faculty Fellows for Purpose and Career. Expand this model to include other high-impact practices, including faculty fellowships in project-based learning, advising as teaching, and undergraduate research. Funding for encouraging interaction among faculty and student advising and mentoring groups will also be provided.
Support for Student-Mentor Relationships
  • Support and fund infrastructure and programming that makes engagement and mentorship possible with diverse alumni and community members. This includes student involvement with the local Indigenous community, the historic Black community in Sewanee, and partner organizations in the tri-county area.
  • Continue to support Bonner and Canale service interns, Outreach, short-term service, and AmeriCorps programs that work with and learn from local community members.