Hiatt et al. / USU Empower Teaching Open Access Book Series / Sep 1, 2023
Utah State University Blanding uses open enrollment, meaning that any student with a high school diploma or GED is admitted. That leaves student support groups that serve first-generation, income-eligible students (95% of whom are Navajo or Diné) like TRIO Student Support Services (SSS) with a critical and expedient task: to help the high number of underprepared students make up lost ground before either their financial aid or motivation runs out. It is a tall order—and not because these students are not capable, because they are. What is key is providing these students with useful tools in a familiar and timely manner before their financial resources and desire evaporate. For these reasons, when applying for the latest TRIO SSS award, a federal educational opportunity outreach program designed to motivate and support college students from disadvantaged backgrounds, the USU Blanding TRIO SSS team chose to create new project services. They wanted to allow students to integrate their natural personality characteristics—or CliftonStrengths (CS)—together with Habits of Mind. This approach, we reasoned, would create a discovery framework upon which our students could achieve wellbeing in higher education.
