On Campus Podcast – From Belonging to Flourishing: Rethinking Student Well-Being in Higher Education

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1. Introduction and Episode Framing (00:06) The host introduces On Campus with CITI Program, explains the podcast’s educational purpose, and frames the episode around student wellbeing beyond counseling centers.
2. Defining Student Wellbeing Beyond Counseling Centers (01:21) Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan explains why wellbeing is broader than crisis response, emphasizing prevention, belonging, flourishing, and institutional structures that help students thrive.
3. Belonging, Purpose, and Flourishing in Higher Education (03:02) The conversation explores belonging as a key part of student wellbeing, including students’ sense of fit, meaning, purpose, mattering, and connection to campus life.
4. Research on Belonging, Mental Health, and Academic Success (06:07) Dr. Gopalan summarizes research showing that early belonging is linked with persistence, graduation, reduced distress, and stronger student outcomes over time.
5. Belonging as a Malleable Student Experience (09:13) Discussion turns to interventions that help students reframe belonging uncertainty, engage with campus resources, and understand that connection develops over time.
6. Context Matters for Belonging Interventions (10:55) Dr. Gopalan explains that simple strategies can help, but their effectiveness depends on broader supports such as advising, institutional resources, and campus context.
7. Building a Campus-Wide Student Wellbeing Strategy (12:51) The conversation covers prevention plus treatment, pulse checks, advising, residence life, interest groups, and measuring wellbeing alongside outcomes like GPA and persistence.
8. Integrating Wellbeing into the Classroom Experience (16:14) Dr. Gopalan describes faculty as key culture creators who can normalize uncertainty, share experiences, and use curricular touchpoints to support belonging.
9. Barriers to Campus-Wide Wellbeing Efforts (19:20) Dr. Gopalan outlines cultural, structural, measurement, and funding barriers, including the need for faculty buy-in, cross-campus coordination, disaggregated data, and research-practice partnerships.
10. The Future of Student Wellbeing in Higher Ed (22:16) The discussion looks ahead to flourishing, continuous improvement, student feedback, data-informed intervention, and equity-centered strategies that distinguish proactive institutions from reactive ones.
11. Closing Remarks and Outro (24:48) The host thanks Dr. Gopalan, encourages listeners to explore related resources in the show notes, and closes with information about CITI Program resources and production credits.

Ed Butch: Welcome to On Campus with CITI Program, the podcast where we explore the complexities of the campus experience with higher education experts and researchers. I’m your host, Ed Butch, and I’m thrilled to have you with us today. Before we get started, I want to quickly note that this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not designed to provide legal advice or guidance. In addition, the views expressed in this podcast are solely those of our guests.

Welcome to another episode of On Campus. As we continue to cover important issues at colleges and universities today, I want to focus on student wellbeing, specifically how institutions can go beyond counseling centers to build a campus-wide strategy. I’m excited to be joined today by Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan, associate professor at the University of Oregon. Welcome to the pod, Dr. Gopalan.

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: Thank you so much, Edward. Appreciate you reaching out. Happy to be here.

Ed Butch: Of course. Very excited as well. So to start, when student wellbeing is talked about today, many people still default to counseling centers as that one area, right? So what would you say is missing from that mindset and why is it no longer sufficient?

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: Great question to start us off. Counseling is a treatment response to a crisis, so it’s necessarily downstream, but I think wellbeing is a much broader construct which goes much beyond responding to a crisis, especially given that counseling centers are at capacity these days. Universities have started thinking about what does it mean to have a preventive approach? So before students even get to the counseling centers, how can we build institutions and structures and supports so that students feel like they belong on campus and they are welcomed and they have the support that’s needed to survive and thrive in the university? So wellbeing I think is much broader than thinking about counseling centers. Many colleges have thought about it in terms of belonging, but I think now the movement is even more. It’s moving from belonging, I would say, to flourishing, which seems to be a big part of how institutions are thinking about what does it mean for a college student to come on campus and have a flourishing experience.

Absolutely right, but I think the clinical model so far has been focusing a lot on thinking about mental health as a key construct, but I think it goes beyond that.

Ed Butch: Great, thank you. So from your research, I guess how would you define student wellbeing in a higher education context and how does that connect to outcomes like belonging and engagement success and as you mentioned, flourishing, which is something that I have not heard as much before?

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: Yeah, I do want to preface that I have primarily studied a student’s sense of belonging. I haven’t thought about wellbeing in that drop construct, but belonging is a key component of student wellbeing in any definition that you could think of. And so I’d say as a working definition, we might want to really think about wellbeing as not just being way more than absence of distress. And it is if students are feeling like they are part of the campus, do they fit in? Do they feel like they can survive and thrive in an academic environment? And so I’ve primarily studied students’ sense of belonging, especially to the university and the campus, but there are many more constructs where we can think about how students belonging with their major, with their particular residence hall. All of those are, I think, key components of thinking about wellbeing. And when I mentioned flourishing, I want to add that I think there’s additional components of our students feeling like they have meaning and purpose.

Do they think that the colleges are helping them understand what their meaning and purpose in life is? And so I think that’s becoming a broader construct as well. So I would imagine that belonging is a key component and that’s the aspect I have studied most. But I think wellbeing is a broad construct thinking about students’ ways of flourishing in a university.

Ed Butch: Yeah, thank you for that because that’s really I really wanted to get at with the heart of this episode is that that wellbeing does go beyond what we have typically though of for many, many years. And I think maybe many universities started to sense that a bit five, 10 years ago or so, but now it’s really becoming much stronger that they have to think about this. And I really like that you brought up that outcomes portion and making sure that students feel comfortable knowing what they can do once that degree or certificate or whatever it might be that they’re pursuing is then complete.

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: Yeah, absolutely. And I think there’s another construct that a lot of researchers have also begun to talk about in terms of flourishing, it’s do they feel like they matter? Their sense of mattering in a university. Do they feel like there are other people who know them and who feel like they can go to them if they need help? So I would say those are also constructs and concepts that we want to be thinking about when we’re thinking about supporting students’ wellbeing that goes beyond counseling centers and mental health crisis.

Ed Butch: Yeah, yeah. So as you mentioned, your work has really explored the role of belonging and student outcomes. So in the research that you’ve done, I guess, what would you say is that relationship between belonging and mental health and academic success?

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: Yeah, absolutely. So I think people have been studying belonging for a while now and I’ve been involved in a few different studies. One first thinking about whether student sense of belonging in a large sample, how does that look? Does it change over time? Does it matter how they feel when they get on campus? What is the effect of students’ sense of belonging, especially during those early transitional years when we know that that’s when students are going from their small high schools maybe to this big university? What does it look like during that transition? So I’ll highlight three findings from a few different studies that I have done on this topic. One topic really thinks about whether students’ sense of belonging in the very first year on campus, what is the downstream effects of that student’s sense of belonging? So we find that students who have a strong sense of belonging in that very first year, have significantly higher rates of persistence.

They come back to campus, they drop out at lower rates. They are persisting for longer in the two and four years. And in the most recent study, we used a national sample of students who began college in 2012 and we followed them up over six years in a national study. We didn’t follow them up, but the National Center for Education Statistics followed them up and we actually find that the student’s sense of belonging on the very first year has an effect on their graduation rates. So they actually complete college at much higher rates and that seems to hold even when we control for a whole bunch of other factors. So that’s one of the first studies that I would point out. And in that study, we also find that a higher sense of belonging in the very first year buffers students from the mental health concerns that we might see if they go to a counseling center.

So we find that they report lower levels of academic distress, lower levels of mental health distress. And that’s something that we highlighted in the first study and we are looking deeper into. The second study I would highlight within that context is we were happening to measure students’ sense of belonging prior to COVID. And one of the studies, and we had an opportunity to actually reach out to the students from one university in the Mid-Atlantic during COVID. And we found that when students had a higher sense of belonging before COVID happened, they were able to reduce or that was a buffer against mental health distress. They reported lower levels of anxiety and depression in this sample when we controlled for their first year sense of belonging before COVID. So even during I think transitional periods like COVID, if students felt like they fit in the campus and they belonged and they had a community, then I think they had higher rates of mental health.

The last study I would like to highlight is that student sense of belonging is malleable, right?

Ed Butch: Mm.

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: It’s not just that it happens to be at one point in time. The larger representative data sets capture this at one snapshot. But in smaller studies, we have actually done interventions that look into how can we improve students’ sense of belonging and what does that intervention have in terms of effects on their academic performance and other outcomes? And we find that in these significant interventions of simple reading and writing exercises that can help students reframe what it means to come to belong on campus and that if they have this uncertainty about belonging in the very first year, what are some ways that the other students have navigated this transition? And when they read about how other students have navigated this transition and they reflect on that experience and they understand that belonging happens over a period of time and that they have time to come to belong on campus, that helps them engage with the campus resources more and flourish at a higher level.

And so that’s the other study where we have been able to give students simple interventions to reframe what it means to come to belong on campus and what that intervention has in terms of effects on their academic performance.

Ed Butch: Yeah, that’s really interesting. In my previous work, I taught and redesigned some curriculum for first-year experience courses. So it seems like something like that, that simple reading already could be something that could easily be implemented pretty widely in something like a first year experience course.

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: Absolutely. Yeah. So I think this is again, a big finding from our study is that simple strategies could be helpful, but it really also matters what the larger context looks like. So you can have a first-year intervention, but if you don’t have other supports in the university that helps students navigate what that looks like after they leave the first-year experience, then the intervention does not seem to have an effect. So we find that the context matters too. So you still need to have good advising. You need to have these other institutional supports that might be needed, but then the effect can be pretty high when students are provided with these strategies but are also supported with these other institutional factors that might drive some of these negative effects when they drop out. So that’s what our study found that it matters, but it doesn’t matter in the same way in different contexts.

While the intervention worked in some universities, it did not work in some other universities. And we find what are some of the barriers to why the intervention might not work. And since this an active line of research, there have been many studies where they’ve been trying to replicate some of the work on belonging and while it replicates in some places it does not in some others. And so we are trying to understand what might be these contextual factors that drives these effects.

Ed Butch: Yeah, very interesting. Well, I look forward to seeing some follow-ups on that then.

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: For sure, for sure.

Ed Butch: So when a university is, again, thinking about this campus-wide strategy, do you have any examples or ideas from your research in terms of some best practices in terms of implementing a campus-wide strategy?

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: Absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it should be a campus-wide strategy, so it should absolutely have more of a prevention plus treatment component. So how can we think of pairing an upstream design with the belonging interventions? Or how do we ensure that clinical need is met by combining it with some of these other institutional supports of advising first-year experience, residential hall experiences, having interest groups that might help students find other community? And so I do think that institutions should start thinking about belonging and wellbeing just as much and seriously as they take retention or persistence rates, right? So there should be quite a bit of pulse check, multiple surveys, not very long, you don’t want students to take a lot of surveys, but I think there should be a lot more pulse checks on when they come on campus, how are they feeling?

Have they been able to reach their advisors? Have they been able to find someone on campus with whom they feel like they can learn something and feel like they can navigate some of the million forms that they have to fill? And so I think those sparing strategies should be important. I also think that we should be tracking belonging and wellbeing just like an outcome. You should be measuring it at different points in time to understand what does the student pathway look like? What happens to belonging when they get their first fall grades? Because that’s again, a big moment where they suddenly realize, oh, college is not like high school. It’s a lot different. And so how are ways in which we can check that at different points in time? So I’d say it should be really a well-resourced strategy, which has some of the clinical components that we should be absolutely focusing on-

Ed Butch: Right.

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: … for students who need them the most, but I think it should be paired with institutional supports where students have access to just a community and special interest groups and first year experience and all of those different things that can promote students’ sense of belonging, especially during this transitional stage. So that’s what I would say is to think about it as a campus-wide strategy, think of it like an outcome just like you would think of GPA or persistence, measure it at different points in time and engage with the students at different points in time to understand what are some of the cliffs when this changes? Is it after their first grade? Is it before their first grade during the finals week? So those are things I think institutions can do a much better job of.

Ed Butch: So since we’re thinking about this campus-wide and everything as well, and you not only are doing this research, but you’re teaching as well, are there some ways that you can really integrate this into the actual classroom academic experience as well? Advising and centers and groups are all great, but obviously students are in the classroom quite a bit. So have you seen any ways or implemented any ways in the classroom experience?

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: Absolutely. Yeah. So I sometimes say that faculty are like the first responders. We have far more contact hours than any counselor does. And then there’s quite a bit of evidence that the understanding that you’re not alone, the students for them to know that everybody goes through these phases of feeling uncertain about whether they belong on campus. Do they feel like they have all of the resources? And so actually faculty are, I think, first responders. And I think some of the studies, I can share some of the citations, but there are some studies that have come out where having conversations with faculty where faculty tell them, students about their own experiences of going to college and how it’s not always been hunky-dory for them either. That sharing that you’re not alone, that it takes time to cultivate this sense of belonging, to find your good friend, your close friend.

It might not be your roommate in the very first week of classes, and those are things that I think faculty can share with students. And I think there’s been some rigorous interventions that have been done in some of the universities and I’ll be happy to share some of the links for those studies with you at the end of the call where you can maybe share that as part of your show notes and we’re finding some promise in some of those interventions. So I’d say faculty are absolutely some of the key culture creators in college and they have a strong role to play in helping students feel like they can come to belong on campus. I also think that other curricular touchpoints like the first-year seminars potentially sometimes even in the syllabus, you can communicate to some students that you have a rigorous syllabus, but then there are some classes and some syllabus that says, “This is a weed out class. Look around you and you might not make it to the next class.”

And stuff like that are cues that might really signal to students, especially vulnerable students that they might not come to belong. And so really having some of the big first year freshman classes to be taught by faculty who understand what it means to come to understand what it means to do well in school and sharing some of the troubles that they have had and sharing with students that they’re not alone when they feel uncertain about their sense of belonging I think has had some positive effects. And I think we should continue to test those rigorously and try and do that more.

Ed Butch: Great points there. Thanks so much. So looking at barriers, obviously we know funding and education and higher education is always an issue, but what do you see as some of the largest barriers for institutions when they’re trying to build these large campus-wide efforts?

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: Yeah, absolutely. So I was thinking about this and I would put them in three or four buckets. One is really cultural, right?

Ed Butch: Mm.

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: Like you mentioned, wellbeing is not just something that student affairs does. It’s not sitting with the student’s affairs division and that it should be thought of as being part of the academic mission of the university. And so really getting faculty buy-in is I think the hardest and I think an important nut to crack if you want to think of it as a good barrier is I think cultural. The second bucket of barriers I would say is structural. If you want a campus-wide strategy, then there is no one owner. There isn’t one particular division you can go to ensure that the strategy is taken care of. So really thinking about there are so many siloed units in a campus and so how can that be integrated is one way.

So I’d say structural and operational barriers do exist. The third one I think is really measurement related. So we I think should have good desegregated data on students’ sense of belonging, on wellbeing, their mental health that comes at a desegregated level so that there are first action responders, including advisors, including faculty, including your resident advisor who can really help you think through that. So I’d say have good data and research infrastructure to combine measurement of these important metrics. And the last but definitely not the least is the funding issue, right?

Ed Butch: Yeah.

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: There’s definitely funding for stronger research practice partnerships between faculty who are on campus doing this work as well as student affairs who have more direct access to students I think should be another way in which we should think about improving student wellbeing. I think many universities keep reinventing the wheel. They’re doing the same thing, but they’re not necessarily talking to each other.

And so having research practice partnerships would be a really important way. In fact, I’m writing a chapter on this with another student of mine who’s worked with the wellbeing team and University of Oregon. And so really thinking about how those are the barriers that I would say needs to be resolved before it can become a campus-wide strategy. So how do we think about that from the cultural, operational, the measurement side, as well as the resource related side?

Ed Butch: Perfect. Thank you. So to wrap up here, I always like to look forward a little bit and see how do you see the concept of student wellbeing evolving over the next few years within higher ed and what’s going to really separate the institutions that have that support from those that are just in that reactionary state?

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: Absolutely. Yeah, it’s a great question. And like I said, we are already seeing belonging was a buzzword I would say five to seven years ago and now we’re seeing flourishing come up. And so it is already, I think, evolving to become different constructs that new presidents and provosts want to adopt in their strategic plan. So I see a lot more of the widening of student wellbeing as a construct, which everybody seems to be caring about. So I really think what would separate leaders from reactors is that there’s a more sustained continuous improvement model that they use. They talk to their students. They are able to look at quick data analysis and pulse checks, not just do the surveys, but do a quick analysis of it and try and see what are some important touch points in the student pathway and where we can intervene to remove some of the barriers that students face when they’re coming on campus.

So I’d say the thing that’s going to distinguish the reactors from the leaders is going to be those who adopt the campus-wide strategy, but also are able to look at their own data with a critical eye so that they can see where are they not making the difference that they should be making. I also think one big differentiator between the reactors and leaders is that it has to have an equity-centered lens from the very beginning, many universities measure belonging, but they’re not able to measure belonging at the level at which we would want them to understand the differences on campus. So first-generation college students have a different support structure for them to navigate college. And so how do we desegregate the data that’s collected so that different student subgroups can be handled and understood in a different way? So I’d say any campus-wide strategy that has an equity-centered lens is going to differentiate and make them a leader.

I also think engaging with the research and practice in a more continuous cycle is going to be important. And I think that some university is doing a really good job. So I would definitely hope that more universities measure these important constructs and keep trying to iterate and learn from it.

Ed Butch: Yeah, yeah, this has been a fascinating conversation, so thank you so much. And I really am going to encourage our listeners to check the show notes, visit some of those links and studies that you mentioned, because I think there’s a lot of great information out there for those that are really trying to do this on their campus again. So once again, thank you so much for your time today.

Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan: Thank you so much for reaching out, Edward, I really, really appreciate it, and thank you for engaging with our work.

Ed Butch: I invite all of our listeners to visit cityprogram.org to learn more about our courses and webinars on research, ethics, compliance, and higher education. I look forward to bringing you more expert guests to discuss what’s happening on campus. Special thanks to our line producer, Evelyn Fornell, production and distribution support provided by Raymond Longaray and Megan Stuart.