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Before August had rolled around, before moving into her dorm, and before walking into her first class of her first fall semester as a college student, Ciara Bibbs ’27 had already spent a month living on campus. She had been introduced to resources to help her succeed, completed two courses, and made critical connections.

“I had a group of friends, faculty members who knew me, and six credits under my belt before the academic year even began,” says Bibbs, a political science major and African and African American studies minor. “It really gave me the confidence starting off my first semester that I could do this. It was definitely a huge advantage."

Bibbs was one of 11 students in Rollins’ inaugural RISE program, which is designed to better prepare first-generation and underrepresented students, primarily from Florida, for success in college and beyond. It’s part of a slate of new programs Rollins has launched to best support today’s college students and give them the tools they need to be successful.

Within Generation Z is a subset of students whose high school experience was significantly impacted by COVID-19. Known as Generation Pandemic—or Gen P, for short—they are more likely to cite a lack of mental preparedness as a reason for opting out of college altogether. They also have larger gaps in their educational foundation, including less proficiency in studying, test-taking, reading, and writing, which has led to the largest drop in the average assessment scores ever recorded. This is exacerbated by a decline in overall mental well-being and socio-emotional development, resulting in challenges making meaningful connections with people offline. In fact, nearly 60 percent of students report challenges with anxiety, depression, and stress, according to the latest Healthy Minds Study.

“All of these factors are causing us to think about who our students are and how we can best meet them where they are,” shares Layne Porta, director of Rollins’ Tutoring and Writing Center.

In many ways, Rollins is well-positioned to address students’ needs. In the College’s signature personalized learning environment, with small class sizes and a low student-faculty ratio, it is easier for faculty to get to know students individually, notice when they are struggling, and connect them immediately with the right resources.

“That’s the benefit of being at a smaller school where they prioritize relationships,” says Bibbs. “Your professors really do know who you are. It’s a blessing.”

The College has been responding to the shifting demands of today’s students by rolling out new programs and resources to address students’ current concerns about feeling less prepared academically, mentally, and socially while continuing to monitor and respond to future needs.

Bolstering Academic Success

Porta acknowledges that in general students don’t receive the credit they deserve for having navigated learning during the pandemic. That was a very real disruption that led to students starting college with less experience writing longer papers, using citation styles, and participating in group work.

To address those discrepancies, Rollins’ Tutoring and Writing Center implemented study halls, accountability groups, and academic-skills tutoring sessions, where students can get help with everything from how to read academic texts and format documents to best practices for studying and time management.

“We’re really trying to listen to our students, to the things they’re finding overwhelming or challenging, and implement whatever we can to make living and learning a little easier,” says Porta.

That can include knowing when and how to ask for help and how to understand what’s actually being asked of them. To better address these issues, Porta often leads workshops for students and faculty alike on various topics, including learning strategies.

“It gives me an opportunity to tell students that if you are meeting new challenges, it’s simply about putting in place a system that will work for you,” she says. “I really love any opportunities to tell students that not doing well on a quiz or a test doesn’t mean that you aren’t smart. It doesn’t mean you aren’t able to perform well in this class. It just means that your system hasn’t lined up with what you’re being asked to do.”

In addition to leading workshops for students as part of their foundational Rollins College Conference (RCC) classes, Porta has also facilitated workshops for faculty members during RCC Faculty Training Day, which takes place before the fall semester. In addition to that training, faculty have access to a range of workshops and lunch-and-learns throughout the year thanks to the Endeavor Foundation Center for Faculty Development, which supports faculty in their work as teachers and teacher-scholars by sharing best practices on teaching based on the latest research.

Rollins’ faculty often go above and beyond to meet students where they are, focusing on their needs and taking the time to be better teachers. In fact, Rollins professors don’t just teach the value of being lifelong learners. They embody that practice themselves, recently garnering Rollins the distinction of No. 1 in the South for its commitment to teaching undergraduates in the South by U.S. News & World Report.

“Our amazing faculty are dedicated to guiding our students throughout every step of their academic pursuits through individual mentoring, academic advising, and collaborative research,” says Ashley Kistler, dean of the College of Liberal Arts. “These close connections forged between students and faculty are one of the hallmarks of a Rollins education and persist long after graduation.”

A student’s relationship with faculty often begins with the RCC course, where for 30 years first-year Tars have been paired with a faculty member who doubles as their academic advisor, serving critical roles in clarifying goals and developing plans to realize them.

Bibbs’ RCC course was College Uncovered, and Amy Armenia, director of institutional analytics and former professor of sociology, was her professor. Bibbs calls her “Dr. A.,” and together, they have forged the kind of relationship where Bibbs goes to her for more than advice on which courses to take. She looks to her for support to keep going.

Bibbs admittedly has a lot on her plate. In addition to a full course load, she is president of the Black Student Union, a Bonner Leader who volunteers in the community, a part-time work-study student in the Student Center for Inclusion & Belonging, and a peer mentor. She also helps take care of the aging grandparents who helped raise her. Some days, Bibbs admits, it feels like too much. On one of the harder days earlier this summer, she reached out to Armenia.

“Dr. A knows familywise what’s been going on these last couple of years,” says Bibbs. “I went to her and warned her: ‘I might try to come to you and say that I want to leave. Don’t let me.’ She said, ‘I got you,’ and asked me to tell her what’s going on. So I sat and told her everything. We’ve built that understanding where I know she’s always there for me.”

Normalizing (and Nurturing) Mental Health

The type of emotional support described by Bibbs is often critical for allowing students to navigate difficult events and stressful situations, and ultimately, succeed. There are also times when students need more structured support from professionals trained to provide just that.

The most recent National College Health Association’s assessment report—which surveyed nearly 80,000 undergraduate students across 154 institutions—found that procrastination, stress, and anxiety are the top impediments identified by students as impacting their academic performance. Connie Briscoe, executive director of campus health and wellness at Rollins, is seeing that play out firsthand in the Wellness Center.

“Nearly 70 percent of our students say their mental health is impacting their academics pretty dramatically,” she says. “We’ve seen an increase in generalized and social anxieties.”

When the pandemic hit, Rollins immediately responded to offer additional resources to students who needed help coping. The Wellness Center hired an additional nurse practitioner to address both physical-health services and mental-health concerns. Rollins doubled the number of part-time counselors and made a conscious effort to ensure new hires better represented the different ethnic and racial backgrounds, languages, genders, ages, and LGBTQIA+ identities of the students they were serving. They brought on a sports psychologist for student-athletes. And they added a slew of additional free resources, such as the 24/7 Rollins Mental Health Helplines.

“Utilization of Wellness Center services has continued to skyrocket,” says Briscoe. “It’s not just 2020 and 2021. We’re still seeing the lingering impact of the pandemic. In the last year alone, for example, we’ve seen more than a 100 percent increase in the number of students utilizing our crisis appointments over the previous year.”

For that reason, the Wellness Integration Team, which is a group of staff and faculty led by Briscoe that formed to meet every week during COVID-19, never disbanded. Instead, they opted to continue meeting and shifted their focus from responding to COVID to rethinking how to better embed mental health and holistic well-being throughout the campus community.

One of the results is partnering with the Endeavor Foundation Center for Faculty Development to provide support and education to faculty, so they know how best to support struggling students both in and outside the classroom. They’ve also begun partnering with parents to teach them about resiliency. And for the past two years, they’ve offered comprehensive training for all peer leaders.

“We know that this is a generation who learns best from each other, their peers, and who often turn to them even more often than they do to us,” says Briscoe.

Fostering a Sense of Belonging

From helping each other navigate all the demands of college to becoming lifelong friends, students play a big role in contributing to each other’s sense of belonging, which Rollins’ own research has found is the top reason students stay—or leave.

“In the surveys we’ve done since I’ve started at Rollins, we found that having a sense of connection on campus is the second-most popular reason why students stay at Rollins,” says Michelle Perez, the College's executive director of retention and student success. “Not having that connection, however, has become the No. 1 reason students cite for leaving.”

In addition to RCC courses, Rollins has focused on offering a slew of programming from community engagement projects and pizza parties to themed residence halls designed to make it easier for students to bond with each other.

“In terms of engagement, Rollins really makes sure that we offer intentional programming for the first six weeks,” says Marjorie Trueblood, dean of the Student Center for Inclusion & Belonging. “In higher ed, that’s known as the red zone, where there’s a huge risk of students leaving.”

But it’s not always enough for the generation that has been dubbed the “Loneliest Generation,” with 73 percent of Gen Z reporting feeling lonely—more than any other age group, including people aged 65 and over. Not all students feel comfortable attending events where they don’t know anyone, so Rollins asked the question: How can we make it easier for students to forge meaningful connections with other students?

One answer: Provide opportunities centered on shared experiences and identities prior to the first semester. For example, the new Neuro Navigators program provides neurodiverse students with the chance to learn more about themselves and others with similar experiences and learning styles. EMBARK connects students of underrepresented backgrounds with opportunities to explore their identities, make friends, find mentors, and participate in everything from discussions to service trips. And the RISE program builds on that by allowing students the chance to gain confidence in earning academic credits at the collegiate level.

For Bibbs, RISE allowed her to find an extended family on campus. This past summer, she served as a peer mentor for the newest class of RISE students, who she calls her Care Bears. They, in turn, have dubbed her “Mama C.”

When we spoke via Zoom on the day Hurricane Helene passed through Florida, she was wearing a bracelet with that nickname, making a batch of homemade chili, and responding to texts in the RISE group chat about when everyone could start coming to her apartment, where she lives with three other students who went through EMBARK and RISE.

“These programs gave me the opportunity to meet people who are like me,” she says. “They gave me the opportunity to find friends, mingle, and be cool. Yes, I have my home base away from campus, but these students became my home base too.”

Every spring, the Student Center for Inclusion & Belonging holds an Ubuntu retreat, focused on allowing underrepresented students to explore their identities and learn skills to be more resilient. It’s called Ubuntu after the Bantu word that has become a philosophy. It means, “I am because we are.” For Trueblood, it points to our interconnectedness and how true success requires a collective effort to be curious about each other, so we can help each other get across the goal line.

In the same way, addressing the needs of today’s college students requires everyone in the Rollins community to be curious about how students’ needs are changing, working together to better meet students where they are and to provide the loving care and structured support they need to thrive.

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