In Episode 2 of the Georgia Tech Center for Teaching and Learning podcast, Carol and Rebecca chat with Dr. Steve McLaughlin, Professor, Dean*, and Southern Company Chair of the College of Engineering and co-writer of the Inside Higher Ed Opinion message of “A Friend at the Front of the Room”, to discuss his commitment to Georgia Tech students' mental health and how it is affected by their class environments. They also explore how faculty can become more involved in the facilitation of student mental health by creating a welcoming, but still rigorous, academic environment in their classrooms and offices. Check out the episode!
Since this recording, Dr. McLaughlin is now Provost at Georgia Tech.
In Episode 2 of the Georgia Tech Center for Teaching and Learning podcast, Carol and Rebecca chat with Dr. Steve McLaughlin, Professor, Dean*, and Southern Company Chair of the College of Engineering and co-writer of the Inside Higher Ed Opinion message of “A Friend at the Front of the Room”, to discuss his commitment to Georgia Tech students' mental health and how it is affected by their class environments. They also explore how faculty can become more involved in the facilitation of student mental health by creating a welcoming, but still rigorous, academic environment in their classrooms and offices. Check out the episode!
Since this recording, Dr. McLaughlin is now Provost at Georgia Tech.
Show Notes
Referenced Materials and Resources
Transcript
Rebecca Pope-Ruark: On this episode of the Teaching and Learning Buzz podcast, we talk to Dr. Steve McLaughlin, Dean of the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech, about academic wellbeing.
Carol Subiño Sullvan: Welcome to this episode of the Teaching and Learning Buzz, a monthly podcast from the Center for Teaching and Learning at Georgia Tech. I'm Carol Subiño Sullivan and I host a podcast with my colleague Rebecca Pope-Ruark. Each episode will highlight teaching and learning topics important to the Georgia Tech community. We'll talk to campus and visiting experts as we explore challenging questions related to teaching and learning and will share practical strategies for helping our students learn and thrive at Georgia Tech and beyond.
Rebecca: Hi, Buzz listeners! Welcome to the second episode of the Teaching and Learning Buzz podcast. Our topic this month is how faculty can support students’ academic wellbeing. Later in the episode, we'll be talking to Dr. Steve McLaughlin, Dean and Southern Company chair of the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech. Steve recently coauthored a piece in Inside Higher Ed on this topic. Before we dive in, just a reminder that we post a transcript and show notes for each of our podcast episodes. You can find everything at ctl.gatech.edu/tlbuzz. This is also the place where we'll post episodes that you can download or play through your browser and you can find us on sound cloud as well.
Rebecca: So this episode builds on the first episode on grading, which we know definitely impacts student wellbeing. Now we're thinking about this topic more broadly. If you haven't listened to episode one yet, check it out. We put a link in the show-notes. Carol?
Carol: Well Rebecca, I know that you share the sentiment with me that we're just stricken when we get one of these e-mails that we've lost another one of Georgia Tech students to suicide. As a community Georgia Tech has been working to understand what we can do to improve things. In other words, what can we do to understand the challenges that students face with respect to their wellbeing? In 2018, about 2000 undergraduate students, as well as graduate students responded, to the healthy mind survey (which was administered by the Office of Health Initiatives) and that survey found that about seven in ten or 69 percent of our students reported experiencing one or more days when emotional or mental difficulties impacted their academic performance in the past four weeks.
Carol: The Student Government Association and the College of Engineering also did surveys about the graduate student experience and they found that only 42 percent of graduate students feel that they're flourishing, 54 percent graduate within six years, and 60 percent are likely to recommend Georgia Tech and their academic program to prospective students. In addition, they found that 86 percent of graduate students spend more than 30 percent of their stipend on housing which certainly adds to stress, especially considering the fees that grad students have to pay every semester. We’ll post a link to all of these surveys on the show notes.
Rebecca: And then another study conducted, which was called “Within Scope but Out of Sight: A Study of Wellness Culture at a High Achieving STEM Institution”, Drs Christie Stewart and Cara Appel-Silbaugh a asked students at Georgia Tech to describe and define the culture of wellness for student success at Georgia Tech. Students told them that between studying, sleeping, and socializing, you can only pick two of the three and succeed. This quote by a student with the pseudonym Elina explains the toll that this culture takes on student well-being.
Rebecca: Elina says, “I think the challenge is that we do all take too much pride in how hard school is, and that we've made it through Georgia Tech at the end that we have a degree that's well-respected. But at the same time, it's like, at what cost are we doing that to ourselves because we do have to push ourselves so hard academically?” So broadening that out, what challenges do this generation of students experience? Are faculty responsible for students’ well-being in their courses and labs? What can faculty instep do to build a culture and community of well-being in the classroom specifically? We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with our interview with Dr. Steve McLaughlin.
Break
Carol: Welcome back listeners! Today, we're joined by Dr. Steve McLaughlin, Dean and Southern Company chair of the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech. Thanks for being here, Steve.
Dr. Steve McLaughlin: Thanks for having me!
Carol: So could you start out by telling us a little bit about yourself and your experience at Georgia Tech?
Steve: Sure! So I’ve been here at Georgia Tech for almost 25 years now and I'm currently the Dean of the College of Engineering. I absolutely, absolutely love Georgia Tech. I always say stuff about the experience we hear about from our alums and students and all of things that Georgia Tech, you know does for their careers, and has done for faculty too and it's happened for me, I’ve just absolutely loved every second of it. I’m an electrical engineer and I’ve had a chance to do a whole bunch of stuff; spent three years at Georgia Tech Lorraine, done a bunch of start-up companies, and now I'm lucky enough to be the Dean at the College of Engineering. I’ve just loved every single second of every single day.
Rebecca: We brought you here to chat about a piece that you recently published with two other deans of engineering colleges in the Inside Higher Ed. Could you describe that article to us and why you thought discussing the role of faculty in student mental health is really important to get the message out?
Steve: Sure. So that was a piece that was really precipitated by the experience that almost everyone higher education is how students’ stress and mental health and wellness and you know how there seem to be more and more crises occurring, and it’s just a regular part of conversation student experience and so I had a chance to hang out with a bunch of the engineering deans and the two, Bobby Braun from the University of Colorado Boulder and Alec Gallimore from University of Michigan, are also close friends and so we're all extremely passionate about students.
Steve: I'm on both of their advisors’ boards and they're experiencing some of the same challenges that we are and we've been talking lots about it. And because our purview is the college of engineering and a lot of that is the faculty, we decided to try to say some things directly to the faculty on what they might be able to do to be part of the conversation around academic wellbeing, student wellness, and the kinds of things we might be able to do in the classroom to help or to be part of the conversation.
Carol: That's really interesting to hear that perspective, that these sorts of issues are not just happening here at Tech but really it's something that we're seen across college campuses. But wanting to focus a little bit on Tech, could you talk a little bit about the ways that you see issues of student stress and mental health challenges manifesting themselves on our campus?
Steve: Well I think there's a bunch of different pieces. There's, first. kind of our culture. You know, the Georgia Tech culture, there's a lot of history and there's tons and tons of pieces to it. Maybe the way that I that I often talk about it is there some kind of cultural icons. Some of these cultural icons are “I got out.” And what that represents and how students communicate it and how it expresses their experience. We hear things about drought proofing. Drought proofing is Georgia Tech tradition, you know. Students, once upon a time, wherever had their hands and feet tied together and thrown in the pool and you can't graduate unless you can survive that for you know half an hour.
Steve: We hear that from alums as, for some of them, a defining moment their experience, mostly positive. And that kind of represents grit to some of the things that we want our students to come out with and then things-- another cultural icon here is like “Look to your left, look to your right”. You know kind of an “Ok boomer” thing, but it used to be that you know two-thirds of the students that enter didn't make it out of here and you know those are some of the pieces of those cultural icons still persist and I think they continue to create a culture that's not always helpful and healthy for our students because our campus has changed a lot and some of those cultural icons don't serve us like they used to. So it kind of starts there and then it just persists as our admissions standards go up and the kinds of students that come here and you know social media, and how parents and students and families interact; all those things kind of come together to, you know, creating (for some students) an environment that's very very stressful, more so than we want, and in some of those have resulted in students not being as prepared or frankly even as resilient to some of the challenges they will face and so it's kind of getting to be almost a perfect storm. It really touches all aspects of campus, and you know what we're talking about is the classroom and professors. And that's only one piece but really an increasingly important one.
Carol: I think the things that you mention about culture and history. You mentioned that the positive side of that is grit but really, it's so important that the conversations happening about what's the flipside of that? Not only the stress but students feeling like they shouldn't or can't reach out for help when they are struggling because then they won't be holding that Georgia Tech standard up if they show any kind of weakness and it's so challenging. And what it makes me ask is, “Who does that exclude?” Who is likely to be able to continue despite the challenges and who are we setting up really for failure with that kind of a culture?
Steve: Yeah, I mean, there are so there are so many pieces to that again. I focus on the faculty piece from the standpoint of we know that students are very well prepared when they leave Georgia Tech. We hear that over and over and over again and so as faculty, as we think about what we might do in the classroom or what we might do in the research lab to kind of keep that tradition alive, many faculty think if we create a more welcoming environment, a kinder gentler Georgia Tech that somehow that compromises that rigor or whatever, and they’re just so wrong to kind of think in those terms.
Steve: But I think that perhaps persists in that the way to produce, dare I say, have a high quality product of students that we produce is to be tough and to be uncompromising at times because that's the world that they're going to go in to get that that mindset is still very prevalent and we're trying to come break out of that mindset, and show that we can produce the highest quality academic experience for students and yet make this the most welcoming place we could possibly make it. And that's the challenge! I mean, it’s something I think about every single day, that duality but it's not, and I think too much of our community thinks about it as a trade-off between those, but there doesn’t have to be a trade-off.
Carol: There doesn't have to be a trade-off and I would even go further. We're creating students who then will go out into the world and create more welcoming culture and so it isn't preparing them for the world as it is, it’s creating the world as we want it to be.
Steve: And just some data around that: in some key disciplines-- so industrial engineering biomedical engineering, aerospace engineering--we're graduating like 12,15 percent of the engineers in America in those domains so you're exactly right, like how we prepare our students and how we equip them and how we sensitize them to some of these issues really can move the needle right. Whether it's the road culture in Silicon Valley, I always say like well you know like 90 percent of the engineers that contribute to that come through institutions like ours and guess what? Like 10 percent of them come through Georgia Tech! And so you're right, that how we address this problem is not just the local problem of making the student experience better; it actually can move the needle nationally you know in industries. So we have that responsibility in our calling.
Rebecca: I'm curious too: when we're thinking about faculty, of course, we want to have rigorous we want to look for challenging ways to push our students, but when you hear from faculty or you hear from students, what are some of the practices that maybe are leaning more toward stressful and less toward optimal challenges that maybe faculty are using in the classroom, in the ways that they teach or the ways that they assess their students? And where do those challenges come from?
Steve: I mean I think the place for the things that we hear about the most, particularly from students, is just fairness and transparency so the classroom needs it. Fairness and transparency but if I kind of put it aside a little bit this kind of this tradeoff between rigor and being more welcoming, I think you know what we're talking about. I have never once-- I have been in front of a lot of students in the last two years talking about this--I still have not had a single student or a single group of students that said, “We want it to be less rigorous, we want Georgia Tech to be easier.” There's not a singles student. I would say that if they wanted it to be easier, they should go to Duke!
Steve: They come to Georgia Tech knowing they're going to be challenged and they don't want it to be easier, they want it to be fair and transparent. So in the classroom, it just starts from setting expectations, being very clear about how it is they're going to be measured, what they're going to be measured against, and sticking with it. Changing the schedule, changing the expectations, I think, for my generation happened more often. It was something that maybe we were used to. I think that students today, for a whole bunch of reasons, I mean it's not fair and transparent to begin with and that ambiguity around some of those things I think that's not the environment that the students are used to, but I mean it's just fairness and transparency so I think those are the ones that cause the most stress. I think that one's fairly obvious. I think others are just having realistic demands on students' time so, you know, kind of just setting some goals because there are certain courses that do ultimately have students spending way more time that then it is reasonable so having a conversation about what's reasonable, again that's fairness and transparency as well.
Carol: And I wanted to connect to a resource that the Center for Teaching and Learning recently created, the learning environment tool kit, which we’ll link to in the show notes, and in it we highlight four actions that specifically seem to have an impact on students’ academic wellbeing. So one is flexibility; perhaps there's multiple ways to engage with the course, like different options for completing a major project. That gives students a sense of control and helps them feel better about the course. Second, social connections so fostering connections not only with the faculty member but what are those opportunities for students to get to know each other?
Carol: You know, I am always amazed when I have learned everybody's name and I’m feeling good about myself and then I realize these people who sat next to each other for several weeks now they don't know each other's name so making students feel like they know the communities that they're in. Third, involvement and engagement so helping students be able to see how the work they're doing in class is making a real difference in the real world, how they're working towards actually being contributors to the society, to things that they care about personally and professionally. And finally--I think you were speaking to this just now, Steve-- that optimal level of challenge, so having the reasonable expectations and also pointing students towards the support that's available if they do find themselves struggling.
Steve: Yeah, I mean, those are all absolutely fantastic and I keep thinking about how we-- whoever “we” is-- we collectively can equip faculty with those because what I hear all the time (because I've been talking about it at faculty meetings) is that our strategic plan really addresses, our new strategic plan really addresses, much of this. But faculty will still say you know I don't know what to do you know “I don’t know what to do. I want to change the environment.” We feel like we communicate, whether that's through CTL, whether that’s through Dean Stein’s office and the resources that they've been sending, the kinds of things we say. But the faculty still don't feel equipped or don't feel like they have access to resources. It's just a constant reminder about how we get these things in front of faculty because so many, again, I use kind of an extreme example: sometimes I hear from students you know “Only 10 percent of the professors care” and I say, “I know 90 percent of the professors care”. You know, there's still just that gap, that communication gap in the classroom because I know 90 percent of our faculty care, that want access to these resources and these ideas and brainstorm and kind of getting all of that to them and equipping them. And raising awareness, for me, is the biggest challenge.
Carol: And helping students see that as well, you know, telling them “they really do care.” How can we help students see that and that, in turn, will help them that they feel valued.
Rebecca: And I think a lot of our faculty come in with varying levels of pedagogical training, right? And probably not degrees in psychology, so it's easy for a faculty member to say, “I'm not sure how to do this, I don't want to do it incorrectly. I'm not sure how to engage with my students on a more one on one level or more empathetic levels.” So what are some of the ways that you think we can support faculty? Because we can send them e-mails and we can, you know, give them information and have meetings with them. What are some of the ways they think we can maybe change our practices and bring more education to faculty to support these issues?
Steve: Because I've been thinking about this so much, I think about it –well I don’t want to say from a selfish standpoint—but I think about it as what can I, Steve, do? And, for me, I'm still at the point of just raising awareness because I still feel we're raising awareness for what? Raising awareness for how you teach matters, how you communicate to students matters how important the understanding o the power gap between faculty and students and raising awareness for the things that I think we just-- we forget about what we take for granted. And, you know, I hate to say it, but I feel like we're still there because, of course, there are a large number of faculty (500 faculty) in the College of Engineering and there's a lot of folks that are already engaged at a very high level on things like that, but there still is a very large number of them just going in the classroom, absolutely want to do the right thing, absolutely want to connect to students, but are still—I'm still in a raise awareness phase. I think by continue to raise awareness, you know, when you send e-mails with these kinds of resources, when we send emails or Dean Stein send e-mails, that they've have they've got time and space in their brain to want to do that. Those are the kinds of things that I'm trying to spend lots of time getting in front of faculty about, so you know, I'm like at Step 0 around that.
Rebecca: I think that probably is step one.
Carol: You have been a faculty member for a long time yourself. I'm wondering if you might share an experience you've had where you have found a way to work with students who are struggling?
Steve: Yeah, I mean, I've had the really fantastic fortune of working with a lot of PhD students. I’ve graduated 25 or so PhD students and it's still one of the most fun things to do. Really, dare I say, every single one of those students, at some point, has really faced an extremely difficult time. It's almost always, literally to the person, it's almost always, “I've already been here for quite some time, two or three years, I'm not making any progress whatsoever. I'm extremely stressed, I have no idea whether I’m creating value, I have no idea how it is I'm going to get out of here.” And that level of stress and anxiety isn't just kind of you know, “Well, I’ll get through the day”, it almost always ends up in really a crisis of students breaking down. And it’s very common and I think individual students think it's not common, it's just them in because of the environment we have and the expectations we have that we need to remember. But really, my experience is that every single student goes through that, some kind of an experience like that of self-doubt, of anxiety, of not feeling worthy.
Steve: And I know I've had those same kinds of experiences, both as a student and as I worked my way through my career. We just recognize that this is really common. For a PhD advisor, when a student does come, you know, with that we’re quick to work with a student through very difficult times and so many of our graduate students are married and have kids and have really rich and full lives so maybe their study is not always the most important thing in their life and I think those are the kind of things we just have to remember. And again, there's nothing in there that changes the kinds of rigor or high expectations or experiences of our students as just being aware.
Rebecca: We talked about, before we started recording, about just being human with our students, recognizing that we've also had these experiences, as you said, as a student and that we can connect with them and share that we're all human and we all struggle with these different kinds of things to maybe take some of that “I'm alone” pressure off our students, and how just a 90 second conversation or, you know, having that empathy come across or connecting with them on a human level can have such a major impact on someone's life in those times of crisis.
Steve: Yeah, I think about that a lot and I think, in terms of raising awareness to faculty, one of the things that I try to say all the time is five minutes matters. It's not even five minutes, it’s ten seconds, it’s fifteen seconds, it’s whatever. I remember when I was a PhD student, we went through a very, very, very difficult personal time and I remember taking a test the day after something happened and didn't do very well and I went in to talk to the professor and was really very upset and more or less said, “I don't need or want you to do anything, I just want you to know I'm going to do better,” but I was very emotional. I remember the professor just kind of saying, “Wow, I'm really sorry that happened.” I’m not sure he said anything more than that. So you know flip 25 years later, I'm going to University of Michigan I just got a wonderful award from the University of Michigan, and I had a chance to see that professor and that's the thing I mentioned to him, that it was literally like 15 seconds and I said, because he's retiring, and, you know, I'm now in this in the place that I'm in and I just said “Thank you.”
Steve: That ten seconds, and I know he did that for many students, and so I hear those stories all the time from students that two minutes, that ten seconds. We tend to think that the influence and impact that we have on students is measured in a semester at a time or PhD at a time or a project at a time and it's really, most of the stories I hear, are five seconds at a time, ten minutes at a time. And so we both need to be really careful in those interactions with students and if we’re more human in those moments, it has enormous impact on students' lives.
Carol: We hear those stories as well at the Center of Teaching and Learning. We have the privilege of getting to process over a 1000 Thank-A-Teacher notes that Georgia Tech students send to their faculty and there are some stories that really give me goosebumps, stories where a student says, you know, “I was really struggling, you took just a minute or two. You may have saved my life.” We actually have gotten those words from students and it just, you know, stops you in your tracks because you realize what an impact that we have on these students.
Steve: Yeah and I’m a parent, I have a 21-year-old. And I think you know like “Ok boomer” like you know “When I was a student...” I think how our culture and our families have changed and how society has changed since then is that so many of our faculty are not used to seeking or wanting or even needing something from that relationship, the student-faculty relationship and so we come from that from that perspective. But I think things have just very much changed and I think we need to remember that there are some students, not all students, but there are some students that actually do need something from that relationship that we're not that we're not used to. It's just we're raising awareness that students today are different than we are, and they come from a different place y and their needs are different than ours were and so, like I said, that five seconds or whatever, it literally can save someone’s life or just crack open a door or whatever it does.
Rebecca: And just about it as they are different, doesn't mean they're better, that doesn't mean they're worth; it's just a different environment and we need to adapt to those environments rather than necessarily just reproducing what was done to us as students.
Steve: You know I get to interact with lots of the alums and most of them are senior leaders, successful senior leaders, at large corporations, a lot of them and in some of them, I think I've worked on many of them, to kind of like you know “the one thing that should be constant is the Georgia Tech experience. It should be tough and it should be rigorous.” I finally have been able to craft something that I think that they'll hear and ask, “wait so if you come a large successful company, if your customers change or the resources you have change or the financial, any of the environments, change, what would you do as a leader for the company?” Of course, you're going to change or you're going to go out business! And like we’re exactly the same; we have to change or there's pieces of what it is we do absolutely have to change because the environment we're living in is changing whereas lots of our alums have such a fond memory and like to hold on to the experience that they had, as kind of like “well let's let that just still be the one constant“ and it is very true that our alums play a huge role in some of the persistence of some of the cultural icons that are not serving us as well as they used to, but you know we need to change. There are pieces of things we need to change just like everyone else has to do
Carol: What kinds of resources have you seen that are available at Georgia Tech to help faculty be able to respond to students and support their wellbeing?
Steve: I mean, obviously, the things that you do have always, for a long time, have been an incredible resource to faculty. I think that most faculty see you, rightly or wrongly, you know from a pedagogical standpoint, you know, “how can I be better in the classroom?” But even like the things that you're talking about, obviously, you have the ability to do more than just that and I think that you’re an extremely positive resource. I think that I'm kind of moving ahead to, because I really want to make people aware of some of the things that we are doing, we're working with a counseling center right now to create a satellite counseling program and so we have two new counseling center counselors have been place in College of Engineering and a third, which is about to start, in so the counseling center (it's really, think of it as a counseling center resource) but one is based in Mechanical Engineering, not to serve just the mechanical engineering community, but kind of that part of campus and the biomedical engineering to serve that part of campus.
Steve: And we will soon be doing it in electrical engineering and computer science to serve their community. And so again as a resource, it will certainly be a resource to students, you know walk-in hours and all this kind of things but more importantly, the thing that I'm most excited about is how they will be working with our advisors and working with our faculty really to better educate and make those resources available and to have better communication with the faculty but also for the counseling center to better understand what we do and what our students experience because there's not just one kind of student and not just one kind of stress and I think better understanding both the rhythm of the semester and those you know those kinds of stresses, but you know just to better understand what engineering is all about.
Carol: I'm glad to hear about that initiative because even though we've been focusing mainly on the faculty role, obviously, it's not only faculty who are able to do everything that needs to be done to support academic wellbeing so these kinds of collaboration with the counseling center are fundamental.
Rebecca: Really bringing them to the space so that faculty then know, “Ok, I can send you to this room” as opposed to maybe not necessarily knowing where the counseling center is or what services they might offer there and different part of campus.
Carol: Or even, you know, what advice that we offer to faculty who has a student in crisis is “Well, walk them to the counseling center if it’s really dire.” Well, what if you are at one of the edges of campus? That is easier said than done, so bringing them in closer proximity to faculty can be a big help.
Steve: And you know I mean and I think the students and the faculty know that in some situations, because the student is in such crisis, some things happen after that that the student doesn't necessarily want or the faculty doesn't necessarily want, and I think faculty and staff can be put in these really awkward positions. And really so that communication when someone in the counseling center happens to be based in your unit, at least you have some of these relationships so that we can better talk through and better give some advice to students. One of the things that we're working on and again, we're talking with counseling center, does it make sense to, as we hire more and more counselors, to do more of this. The experiment is starting in the College of Engineering just because that's where there are so many students and in computing.
Steve: And so we're thinking about talking about that, but it's, as you pointed out, it's not just the students’ stress and mental health; that's certainly a big piece but there are so many other aspects that can contribute to an improved the experience for students. Another thing I’ve begun hearing over and over again is, “Well, you know, it’s not only our students who are stressed, our staff and faculty are stressed," and I've been hearing lots of, you know, the whole workday transition, all those kinds of things. It's like yeah, you expect that this is a difficult time but I'm beginning to hear lots of stories around, I mean, you know this is a really difficult time for many people beyond just the “It's a transition and we have a lot of complaints,” so we have to be mindful of those things too and again that kind of having to satellite there, even though satellite counselors are not a direct resource for faculty and students, but again, we’re kind of where we started with the communication between folks is probably the most important thing.
Rebecca: I also think it's important for faculty to recognize when their peers are stressed as well and be able to have those conversations. We worry about students not wanting to look weak, but faculty feel the same way. You know, there's a lot of vulnerability in that and that's part of the connection with students, if you can share a piece of your story but also looking at your colleagues and feeling like you can have that that community to support each other in those ways as well.
Carol: And then you start to create a bigger culture of that right supportive and doesn't normalize carrying that stress on your shoulders.
Rebecca: Well, we really appreciate your time. We're going to wrap that up but if you were to say what's the most important piece of information you would like to get out to Georgia Tech faculty today about academic wellbeing to mental health, what was that one piece of advice or that one fact be?
Steve: It's pretty easy for me: five minutes matters.
Carol: Thank you so much! We really appreciate it.
Steve: Thanks for having me and I’m looking forward to working together.
Carol: Well, I really enjoyed having that conversation with Steve and so appreciate that he took the time to talk with us. Something I really appreciated is how clear it is that there is such a growing awareness on our campus and support from upper administration and faculty for that commitment to taking action in order to make things better for students and to support their sense of well-being as they complete their studies. And I think that the initiatives that the College of Engineering is piloting are great examples and are really helping to lead the way to see what works, what is going to be that thing that makes a difference.
Rebecca: I definitely agree with that, Carol. The College of Engineering is doing some really exciting stuff. They’re showing that they really care about their students and engineering majors make up a really large portion of the Georgia Tech student body. And while they're doing all those big initiatives over there, I really appreciated what Steve said about how it doesn't take much to help the students, sometimes just having a conversation in your office or just a quick “how are you doing, you know, you seem a little off today” or “I notice you seem sad, is there anything I can do to help you out?” That matters to a student. I've done it as a professor with my students, I have received it from my own faculty members, and it’s just really powerful and it only takes a minute.
Carol: And we hear from students all the time that one of the most powerful things that faculty can do is simply show that they care; they care that students are learning, they care that students are well, both in the classroom and out. And actually one of the things CTL is doing is building a library of strategies to share with each other, to share with the campus, about ways that faculty can support their students, small ways and big ways. We're actually seeking submissions, so we've built our resource called the learning environment toolkit and we'll link to that in the show notes, and soon we'll have a portal where you can actually submit your own ideas so that we can keep growing it and creating something that all of us can benefit from. So we just want to thank Steve for coming in and sharing his ideas and his perspective on things that we can do. We’ll leave it there for now but the conversation will continue offline definitely.
Rebecca: So we want to give you a little bit of a teaser about what's coming up in our March episode. We talked to Dr. Susan Blum, professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame and author of the book I Love Learning, I Hate School: An Anthropology of College. She also has a collection coming out soon on un-grading, which we talk about in the podcast. Susan was our guest speaker at CTL’s GT teaching retreat in January and she sat down with us to talk about student wellbeing and grading. We hope you'll join us.
Carol: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Teaching and Learning Buzz, the podcast of The Center for Teaching and Learning at Georgia Tech. Show notes and a transcript are available at ctl.gatech.edu/tlbuzz.
Rebecca: Check back regularly for new episodes, bonus clips, and more resources. If you have a topic or question that you would like us to explore, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach us at ctlhelp@gatech.edu.