PRINCETON, N.J. – As he talked, listened and observed over the course of three days at a New Jersey conference center, Dr. Monte Randall kept thinking about the struggles of students at College of the Muscogee Nation in Oklahoma, where he is dean of academic affairs, and at the other 35 tribal schools in the American Indian Higher Education Consortium.
Their concerns are common: how to pay for school, socially and academically adjust in school, persist and graduate while dealing with cultural and social issues ranging from being a first-generation college student to a member of an ethnic minority or other marginalized groups.
But Randall sees more: increasing and troubling signs that historical and intergenerational trauma are sabotaging students’ development and well-being. And he sees social and emotional learning (SEL) – the topic of this gathering and an emerging movement in education around the world – as a viable solution.
“We have a lot of resources for our students, and I feel like these non-cognitive social skills and life skills can really make a difference for us,” says Randall. “Particularly for tribal colleges, they support some of the work we are doing in historical trauma, which we’re seeing more of recently in the last three to four years. We need to acknowledge historical trauma and figure out how to move past it, and social and emotional learning will be a big part of it.”
Randall was among about 50 educators, researchers, scholars and other stakeholders from a dozen countries – primarily the U.S., Canada and Mexico – invited to gather in early June on the sprawling and picturesque Educational Testing Service campus for “Springboard for Success: How Social and Emotional Learning Helps Students in Getting to, Through and Beyond College.”
SEL has taken root mainly in a few primary and secondary schools – most notably public school districts in Mexico and Canada – and has captured the attention of higher education thought leaders as a movement to help students be their best academically and holistically.
SEL generally refers to intentional development in students of so-called soft skills and competencies that enhance academic learning and play a critical role in a person’s success and happiness: teamwork and collaboration, problem-solving and conflict resolution, self-regulation and emotion-control, empathy and compassion, creative and global thinking, and goal-setting and perseverance.
