If you missed the “strat chat” with John Blackshear, the vice president for student life, in November and didn’t read the recap we put together, stop reading this and read the recap. (It’ll only take seven minutes.) Now that you’re caught up, we’re going to get right into a few questions that time didn’t allow John to answer during the Zoom session.

The late-teens and early- to mid-20s can be a difficult time for many people. Can you talk about the psychological needs that students have here at Rochester and how different areas of the campus can assist with this?

John: What we know about the emerging adult (a phase starting around 18 years old for most; 16 for some) is that they are undergoing incredibly rapid growth, which includes significant physical, intellectual, emotional, and neurological changes. For most, this is a wonderous time of identity (personal and academic) and spiritual development. However, for some, this is also a time when they experience significant psychological distress and/or clinically the effects of diagnosable mental illness for the first time.

All of this is happening for or developing in our students for nearly the entirety of their time with us. That means it’s important for us to have resources designed to help them navigate their growth and distress, develop greater independence (executive functioning), and maintain their personal well-being while they work to achieve their intellectual and academic goals (through the curriculum and advising).

The University of Rochester has, for decades, invested in surrounding students with a robust support system, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. The objectives laid out in the exceptional education goal of Boundless Possibility aim to refine and build on those existing supports. And I want to emphasize we are not only examining and enhancing support for undergraduates; we are deeply investing in the lives of our graduate and professional students as well.

How do you envision partnerships between student life and the student support departments that made up (formerly) “the College” evolving? Additionally, regarding the structural changes on the academic side, what is different and what is staying the same? Lastly, how can staff in positions that are more faculty-facing get involved in and contribute to the work you do?

John: As someone who been a dean of academic affairs in arts and sciences and a dean of students and faculty-in-residence, I find it quite unreasonable to imagine the students’ lives as scholars being separate from their academic experiences. Much of the learning at this University will occur away from the classroom.

There is a historical and arbitrary dichotomy of social and academic “lives” on campus, and it’s a concept I have strongly resisted acknowledging. Having said that, all entities devoted to the success of students must work synergistically and collaboratively to provide our scholars with our very best. The exceptional institutions of higher learning take advantage of the range of expertise on campus and then train together and train each other toward the goal of providing a world-class education to students. My goal is to make Rochester the standard bearer of this model.

What approaches will be used to obtain student feedback in order to assess their current student life at the University from their perspective?

John: I find that universities often fall into the understandable but inefficient habit of taking feedback from a select group of self-identified or elected leaders on campus on behalf of all other students. My approach is to seek those data, but also to speak to students at the margins of engagement (as well as many of those in-between). I also teach on campus, which is another great way to find out what is important to students and why. Surveys, focus groups, and inviting a wide range of students into special projects also make for good methods of collecting data and gathering perspectives.