Transforming Students

Johansson and Felten have done something all too rare in the present era. They carefully listened to scores of students, teachers, and parents and faithfully reported what makes for a meaningful, developmentally powerful undergraduate experience. Institutional leaders, faculty, and staff would do well to heed the uncommon wisdom in these pages to intentionally create the conditions that result in the high levels of student accomplishment we all desire. -- George D. Kuh, Chancellor's Professor of Higher Education Emeritus, Indiana University Clear, well-grounded, inspiring and practical, this book will bestir your imagination, remind you why you became a professor (or administrator, trustee, donor), and deepen your sense of what is at stake in whether and how we understand the purposes, process, and transformative potential of the college years. -- Sharon Daloz Parks, Author, Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Emerging Adults in Their Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith While acknowledging the highly personal and individualized nature of transformation, Johansson and Felten provide guidelines for practices colleges and universities can adopt to foster transformational learning for all students. Transforming Students is a 'must read' for educators who take seriously higher education's responsibility to help students build an identity rooted in their own sense of purpose and meaning in the world. -- Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran, President, Kalamazoo College Transforming Students comes to us at a moment when many of us are envisioning transformative experiences for our students. The book goes to the heart of our enterprise and captures stories that encourage us to listen with an open mind and heart. This volume provides a valuable source of insight and a valuable source of hope for transformative work of our universities at a time when we need it most. This book is heartfelt and moving. -- Ed Taylor, Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs, University of Washington If only my Dean and senior tenured colleagues, who would ultimately vote on my own tenure and professorship, could have given me Charity Johansson's and Peter Felten's edifying and illuminating work much much earlier in my career! I could and would have understood much earlier and more clearly why colleges should more intentionally pursue the goal of student transformation over and above the obsessive goal of preparation for employment; what are the specific stages, steps and influencing factors that enable student transformation; and what are the institutional practices and policies that facilitate intentional student transformation. This seminal new work shows the way. In our current period of unprecedented questioning of the value of higher education, this work makes a case for the transformative value of what our colleges can and must provide, if only we have the will. -- John N. Gardner, Senior Fellow, National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition Transforming Students is an insightful and inspiring story of possibility. -- Chad Berry, Academic Vice President and Dean of the Faculty, Berea College

It is preparation for life.The recent trend of trying to measure higher education's return on investment misses a fundamental point, argue Charity Johansson and Peter Felten. The central purpose of a college or university is to transform the lives of students-not to merely change them or help them mature. This transformation is an ongoing process of intentionally aligning one's behavior with one's core sense of personal identity. It is the university's central role to lead students in this transformation, a process that shapes students into intentional, critical, and engaged individuals. Recognizing the remarkable influence of the college experience on peoples' lives, the authors offer a guide to how colleges and universities can effectively lead students through this life-changing process. Drawn from extensive interviews with students and graduates, faculty and staff, Transforming Students gathers diverse stories to show how students experience the transformation process, which rarely follows a neat or linear path. The interviews illustrate central themes from the literature on transformative learning and the undergraduate student experience. A sequel of sorts to George Keller's classic Transforming a College - which chronicled Elon University's metamorphosis from struggling college to a top regional university- Transforming Students addresses the school's core educational mission: to shape students into engaged adults who embrace learning as a lifelong endeavor. Given this effect, the college experience is much more than preparation for a career. It is preparation for life.