Rev. Debora Jackson, Dean
January 1, 2022 marked my first anniversary as Dean of The Business School at WPI. Honestly, I was ready to regale with all the many accomplishments of the first year. After all, we have been successful, having accomplished much that we set out to do. But this idea faded to insignificance as we faced another suicide of another precious WPI student. Our accomplishments are meaningless if we are not able to surround and save our students, for they are the most important aspect of all that we endeavor to do.
Our Mental Health Task Force has been earnestly working to amass the data from more than 1,100 surveys gathered from the WPI community. A web page providing a report and task force updates can be found here. Their work continues and the many recommendations that have emerged from the surveys are being considered and planned for prioritized implementation.
However, feeling the need to find ways to avail ourselves to students in The Business School, we have swung into action. For each Business School class that is being offered during C Term, our leaders have attended the classes to introduce ourselves. So many students sought Business School administrators at the end of the previous term or semester, having run into challenges. Too often, it was too late to intercede, and we wanted to change that narrative. The thought was that if students knew us and had a relationship with us, then we could be a resource to them at the first sign of difficulty. Our students appreciated meeting us, but so too did our faculty. Several contacted me and said that they had never had the Dean visit their classes.
In Professor Wally Towner’s Achieving Effective Operations class, what was to be a quick introduction turned into a two-hour listening session. I returned to the class days later to capture dozens of concerns and suggestions from the students, which will be shared across the university. Similarly, The Business School administration held a listening session with our students. During that session, our students gave suggestions for things like student engagement, improving asynchronous learning, and the scheduling of classes. Students also talked about the stress that comes from the pace of a seven-week term. While students did not suggest that they wanted the term session to change, more tools and support were needed to help students adjust to this new pace like executive function coaching and more effective academic advising.
In sum, we are not standing still in The Business School. Students have suggested that WPI has become a high stress environment and has lost its high touch markings. But in The Business School, we are still offering that high touch experience with program staff who initiate contact with students, professors who recognize student distress, and administrators who recognize that the most important work we do is being in relationship with our students. We want to be a model for our university, enabling all to thrive. So, maybe next year, I can share all our accomplishments, and ideally the top one will be how we have succeeded in supporting the mental health needs of our students.
Blessings,
Rev. Debora Jackson
Dean
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