To Persist, To Thrive, To Succeed

On July 1, a substantial reconfiguration of departments took place at Hollins at a scale that is unusual in higher education.

“In spring 2021, we began to imagine what it would look like, and take, to create a signature student experience ecosystem that enables all Hollins students to succeed, persist, and thrive at Hollins,” wrote President Mary Dana Hinton in a piece for Inside Higher Ed published earlier this summer. “We desired to create a division—or, in our institutional parlance, area—that will be responsible for ensuring all student experiences outside of the classroom are coordinated and focused on holistic student success and well-being—academic, social, physical, spiritual, and emotional.”

Principles at the heart of the reorganization include the need for deep collaboration between areas in support of student academic success—especially between the office of diversity, equity, and inclusion; academic affairs; and student affairs—and the need for a comprehensive structure to support student success and persistence.

A combination of two realities has hit the college landscape and played a factor in this restructuring: the pending demographic “enrollment cliff,” where the number of high school graduates over the coming decade will begin to drop precipitously, and the rise of mental health struggles in younger generations.

From 2013 to 2021, depression and anxiety in college students more than doubled, according to survey data collected by the Healthy Minds network from over 350,000 students at more than 300 campuses. While the COVID-19 pandemic certainly exacerbated many educational challenges, the declines with mental health were well documented and disturbing before the country quarantined itself. Many colleges are struggling to fill open jobs in certain areas, including for counselors. Hollins found itself in this boat last year as well.

Thriving during one’s college years is an art, but plenty of research suggests there is a science to it as well. At Hollins, the ultimate goal for students is to graduate, but increasingly connected to that goal is for students to thrive. That is, not merely to cross the finish line, but to do so vigorously, with a sense of accomplishment and pride.

Hollins does reasonably well in graduating its students within four years, doing so at a rate that consistently lands it in the top third of private colleges in Virginia, but President Mary Dana Hinton sees room for improvement and has made it an early priority for the university.

Not just the integration of services, but an intentional integration of support.

“Holistic support cannot mean creating boxes we expect students to open for themselves to receive services, one at a time, but rather creating an environment where receiving support is a more natural part of their walk,” Hinton said. “Just making assistance available isn’t enough. The onus is on us, not the students, to ensure the needed services are utilized.”

The presence and intentionality of support services for college students has been evolving, slowly, for decades. Orientation programs for first-year students, for example, are far more involved at most colleges today than they were even a decade ago, and many college students prior to the 1990s may have had barely any orientation program at all; their parents dropped them off, and they were expected to figure it out.

The goals of SSWBB are as follows:

• Holistic student well-being— academic, social, physical, and emotional 
• Deep collaboration between areas in support of student success, especially between the office of diversity, equity, and inclusion; academic affairs; and student affairs  
• A comprehensive structure to support student success and persistence  
• Student belonging  
• Deep, authentic personal concern for, and regular, intentional engagement with, students  
• Understanding of and respect for campus traditions  
• Regular professional development to support the strengths and professional needs of the staff 

Key Areas / Pillars Under the Office of SSWBB:

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 
• Health and Counseling  
• Student Success (formerly Academic Support)  
• Student Affairs (including Housing and Residence Life, security, and activities)  
• Spiritual life and counseling