Dear Colleagues,
As we prepare to welcome thousands of Red Hawks back to campus, we have a moment to pause and consider the promise at the heart of our mission: We are here to shape human lives, not just deliver credentials.
This makes this moment of preparation a fitting time to ask:
|
What do we hope happens to our students here?
|
Not simply what do we hope they learn, or what degree they will earn. But who will they become?
At Montclair State University, we see ourselves as a formative university. That distinction carries an important promise: Our responsibility extends beyond what students learn to the people they become. While career readiness and economic mobility remain essential outcomes, we believe students emerge most powerfully from an education that develops the whole person—intellectually, emotionally, socially, and ethically. These dimensions are important individually, but together they are central to our institutional focus on the public good and public service.
In last week's issue, I introduced the World Economic Forum's framing of the transition from the Information Age to the Brain Age.
I suggested that the Brain Age will require us to pay renewed attention to the health of the mind and to the human capacities that intelligent technologies cannot simply replicate. That raises a larger question: What does it mean for a university to intentionally cultivate those capacities?
I believe that we must become even more intentional about developing the capacities that are core to our mission and make us fully human: curiosity, judgment, imagination, resilience, purpose, empathy, ethical reasoning, meaningful relationships, and the ability to navigate uncertainty.
These are not additions to a Montclair education. They are central to it.
I am not advocating a new program or new curriculum, but a renewed intentionality about our broader formative impact and a more unified approach to how we educate and support our students.
|
|
|
|
From Separate Domains to a Formative Ecosystem
|
|
|
For much of higher education's history, we have organized our responsibilities into separate administrative domains—intellectual development, well-being, career preparation, civic engagement, and personal development. These distinctions may be administratively convenient, but they are educationally incomplete.
Students do not experience their lives in separate compartments, and neither should we. Intellectual growth, personal development, and preparation for a life of contribution are mutually reinforcing dimensions of the same formative experience.
A student who develops resilience is better positioned to engage deeply in learning. A student who discovers purpose is more likely to persist through difficulty. A student who learns to see the world from another's perspective becomes better prepared to participate in a diverse democracy. And a student who develops the capacity for deep attention and reflection is better equipped to exercise judgment in a world of constant information and intelligent technologies.
But formation is also about what students do with what they learn. At a public university, we have a particular responsibility to help students see their education not only as a pathway to individual achievement, but as a means of contributing to something larger than themselves—to their families, their communities, their professions, and the public good.
|
|
|
We Are Not Starting From Scratch
|
|
|
|
|
The exciting part is that we already have most of the building blocks. Across the university, faculty and staff have already developed programs, courses, pedagogies, and learning experiences that cultivate different dimensions of a holistic formative education. Our opportunity now is not to replace this work, but to connect it, learn from it, strengthen it, and imagine what becomes possible when these efforts are articulated as parts of a larger formative mission and made more visible to all.
I see at least four important pillars to this work:
|
- Values, Character, Civic Identity and Public Purpose: Education is not only about what students can do, but what they choose to do, for whom, and toward what ends. Through our unique SEEDS curriculum, we have embedded agency, social justice, self-care, and the development of an educated citizenry into the undergraduate experience. We aim to cultivate in our students a disposition toward service, the predisposition to see their education not only as a means of personal advancement, but as a resource for contributing to the lives of others and the public good
- Resilience and Well-Being: Twenty-four faculty and staff have been trained through the Penn Resilience program and are incorporating material around resilience and well-being in their classes. Together they are teaching our students to navigate adversity, cultivate healthy support networks, and better communicate about successes and challenges. The ultimate goal is to help them recover from temporary setbacks and lead healthier and more fulfilling lives.
- Purpose and Life Design: Students increasingly enter college knowing what they hope to accomplish while remaining uncertain about how to construct meaningful lives. Through Life Design, started this year, and similar pre-existing efforts, students learn to imagine, prototype, and revise multiple possible futures. See Dr. Danielle Insalaco-Egan's guest feature here about the pilot program.
- Mind, Body, Technology and Self-Awareness: Emotional development requires students to understand themselves as whole human beings. Through faculty work, HEAL Fellowships, Human Flourishing courses, and related initiatives, we are exploring the connections among mind, body, learning, relationships, and community.
|
These efforts are valuable in their own right. But taken together, they suggest something much larger: the possibility of a university-wide approach to formative education that develops the whole person alongside intellectual and disciplinary depth.
|
|
|
|
Why This Matters at Montclair
|
|
|
This work is particularly meaningful because of who we are. Our character and public mission give formative education an additional dimension. We are not educating students simply for individual achievement. We are preparing them to contribute—to their families, their professions, their communities, and the broader society.
A public university should cultivate more than individual success. It should cultivate a sense of responsibility for the world beyond oneself: the disposition to ask not only What can I achieve? but What can I contribute? Who might benefit from what I know and can do? What responsibilities do I have to the communities of which I am a part?
In that sense, formative education is also about moving from ego to eco: from seeing oneself primarily as an individual pursuing one's own trajectory to understanding oneself as part of a larger human, social, and ecological system. This does not diminish individual ambition. It gives ambition a larger purpose.
|
|
|
This is especially important at Montclair. As a Hispanic-Serving Institution and a majority-minority public research university, with a Carnegie distinction for Community Engagement and Leadership for Public Service, we educate students who reflect the increasingly diverse future of our nation.
Our students bring extraordinary strengths, perspectives, and lived experiences to the University. Our public mission asks us to help them turn those strengths outward—to become not only successful professionals and fulfilled individuals, but engaged citizens and contributors to the communities around them.
That gives us a distinctly Montclair question to explore: What does it mean to educate the whole person in a diverse society—and to prepare students not only for the lives they want to lead, but for the contribution they want to make?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Illustration by Yukai Du; color adjusted for publication.
|
|
|
|
The next step is not to create another collection of programs.
It is to bring together the people and ideas already moving in this direction and ask what we can build together.
Over the coming year, I will work with colleagues across the university to bring these efforts into conversation with one another and to invite others into that conversation. We will map what is already happening, identify opportunities to connect and strengthen our work, and create opportunities for faculty and staff to develop and test new approaches.
Some of you may want to experiment with assignments or courses that help students develop resilience, purpose, ethical reasoning, imagination, or other dimensions of the whole person. Others may want to explore research questions, develop new pedagogies, or connect this work to advising, co-curricular learning, residential life, community engagement, or the ways we design the University itself.
I do not have a finished blueprint for what this should become. And I don't think we should create one in isolation.
My role is to help create the conditions for this work—to bring people together, connect ideas, support experimentation, and help us move from promising individual efforts toward a coherent university-wide approach to formative education.
Your role is to bring your expertise, your questions, your imagination, and your willingness to experiment.
Together, we can determine what this vision should mean in practice.
|
|
|
|
Questions for the Year Ahead
|
|
|
As you begin this academic year, I invite you to carry these questions with you:
|
- Where, in your courses or your work with students, do they develop resilience, discover purpose, learn to sit with ambiguity, listen deeply, imagine possibilities they had not previously considered, or develop a sense of responsibility for something larger than themselves?
- What might happen if we became more intentional about these dimensions of education while preserving the intellectual rigor and disciplinary depth that define our academic work?
- And perhaps most importantly: What do you want your students to become because they studied with you—and what do you hope they will do with who they become?
|
These are not questions I expect us to answer all at once.
They are questions I hope we will explore together.
So, as we prepare to welcome students back to campus, I invite us to begin.
Let us think ambitiously about what we want our students to know.
But let us think just as ambitiously about who we want them to become—and what we hope they will do with who they become.
With warm regards,
Fatma
|
|
|
|
More Than One Right Path: Introducing Life Design
|
By Danielle Insalaco-Egan, Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education
|
What happens when the university helps students develop a blueprint for a fulfilling life that includes both education, personal and career growth? This year the Office of Undergraduate Education is spearheading the Life Design initiative, which will help students intentionally connect their academic experiences with their personal goals, career aspirations, and lifelong growth. Drawing on the Life Design framework pioneered by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans at Stanford University’s d.school, the project is focused on embedding reflective, evidence-based practices throughout the student experience, from exploration and decision-making to experiential learning and career preparation. This summer, an implementation team undertook a complete redesign of sections of the first-year seminar at Bloomfield College (FYS 100) as well as for students in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Discovery Program (GNED 199). Life Design principles also will be integrated into other experiences this academic year.
The pilot’s outcomes align with the four pillars of Life Design: Be Curious, Get Connected, Try Stuff Out, and Tell Your Story. Together, these concepts are intended to make navigating college, and the many choices that come with it, more intentional and manageable. Students will learn to imagine and design “multiple futures,” recognizing that there is rarely a single right path through college or into a career. They will practice investigating possibilities, building connections with people and resources, planning out how to test their interests through experiences, and reflecting on what they learn along the way. Just as importantly, students will develop the ability to articulate how their experiences, skills, and evolving interests fit together into a story they can carry forward into future academic, professional, and personal decisions.
These first-year seminar sections are also furthering the campus effort to “AI-prime” our students by introducing a custom-built GPT, Wayfinder. Wayfinder gives students a structured environment in which to practice using generative AI as a tool for reflection and decision-making rather than simply as a source of answers. Through guided conversations, students can use Wayfinder to explore Life Design’s four pillars and prepare for conversations and experiences beyond the classroom. The GPT was developed by Adam Mayer, Director of Career Services and Academic Programming in the Office for Experiential Education and Career Connections (and creator of Major Mentor AI and Red Hawk Career Coach).
Colleagues who will serve as instructors for the first-year seminar were trained in May in Life Design principles in a highly interactive, two-day professional development led by Nathan Langfitt of the University of Texas at Austin, a leading proponent of the Life Design movement. We also conducted a refresher training for instructors this month once the curriculum was ready. We appreciate their commitment to ensuring a successful first effort! I would also like to recognize the implementation team for their incredible work: Courtney Cunningham, Brandon Fralix, Joy Granados-Roldán, Emily Isaacs, Temeshia Lemons, Marina Manning, Adam Mayer, Jessica Murphy, Donna Robertson, Sarah Smyth, Danica Stitz, and Chantelle Wright.
As implementation continues, the project will assess the impact of the Life Design framework on student outcomes. Further, we will identify opportunities to scale these practices across academic and co-curricular experiences, creating a more connected and intentional student success ecosystem. If you already incorporate Life Design principles into your work with students, I would love to hear about your experience.
Warm regards,
|
Danielle Insalaco-Egan
Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education
|
|
|
|
- Start the Semester Strong: Refresh Your Course Materials
|
Whether your syllabus and assignments need a complete overhaul or a few thoughtful updates, the Office for Faculty Excellence offers a "no judgment, just help" review and redesign service for faculty of all ranks and disciplines. You can also use the Pre-Term Teaching Checklist to make sure your courses are ready for the semester ahead.
|
|
|
|
- Stay Ahead of New Funding Opportunities
|
Stay ahead of upcoming funding opportunities with weekly updates from the Office of Sponsored Programs. Each email highlights opportunities from federal and state agencies, private foundations, professional organizations and other sponsors. To join the Funding Opportunities email list, send a request to osp@montclair.edu.
|
|
|
|
A reminder to join President Koppell on Thursday, August 27, at 11 a.m. in the Alexander Kasser Theater. The Town Hall will be followed by a student clap-in, campus carnival and lunch beginning at 12:30 p.m. in Lot 23.
|
|
|
|
- 'We've Got Your Back' Supply Drive
|
|
|
|
|
