Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Project, in June 2022, undergraduate student Sarah Craig (SFS‘23) interviewed an upper-level administrator at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. In this interview, this administrator discusses campus culture, support services, and how Jesuit values influence Spring Hill.
Can you tell me what your engagement with students looks like?
At Spring Hill, we have about 1,100 undergraduate students. So I like to say we are personal-size instead of small—sometimes small can have negative connotations. But I think we offer a personal environment for students to operate in. And I think what that means for me is that I do have more of an opportunity to work day-to-day with our students and whether that be through student government, whether that be with our grades, or hearing student concerns firsthand. It gives me an opportunity to be able to walk alongside our students and have them feel comfortable enough to reach out if there is an issue or if they have a problem, or, you know, if they're looking for advice, then they're not scared about contacting me. But they know that I have that accessibility. I also try to operate with an open-door policy. So, you know, if my door is open, students know that they can walk in. And if I'm on my way out, you know, we'll reschedule something. But I try to keep my doors open—that means I'm available, whether that be for staff or students. I think students know that they can pop in and ask any questions they may have.
To get a little more specific, can you tell me how you work with marginalized students, whether they are certain individuals or organizations?
I would say that specifically for underrepresented students on campus, it’s really through that retention lens that I have the best insight as to what is happening with them and then trying to figure out how to best design interventions to help them. So, for example, when I first started at Spring Hill, we had a very large gap in our retention rate between our students of color and our white student population on campus. So we worked to be able to close that gap and we tried to work very quickly. And that, of course, starts on the admissions end and goes all the way through the end of their first year. Being able to take a look at the data, being able to try to understand some of the student experiences as to why there was a large gap, and then I think being able to target interventions and initiatives to be able to close that gap—I think that's an example of how I work on a more systematic level to be able to affect that change. And then I would say on an individual level, if there are students who are experiencing financial difficulty, if they're experiencing others—a lot of times it's the first-gen issues that pop up. I was a first-gen kid myself.
I think in those one-on-one conversations with them I try to listen for ways that we can help, whether that's through our student emergency fund, whether that is through some food insecurity initiatives that we have, and being able to connect them with those resources. So that is more on the one-on-one basis that I try to seek out those opportunities to be able to help our students. So that fund was established through a group of generous alums during COVID-19. It was really to be able to meet the educational needs of students that sometimes is harder to, some of the extras that sometimes students run into. So it may be an unexpected medical bill. Maybe, you know, a parent gets sick back home and students need to travel back; it could be that they could pay for everything, but they just don't have the money to pay for their practicum exam or for the MCAT or something of that nature.
And so it's really designed to help those students be able to afford some of those things that they didn’t account for and that they don’t have the margin to be able to cover and their family doesn’t have the margin to be able to cover. So it’s a relatively new fund. We are still trying to figure out the most efficient way to be able to get the need received and then be able to evaluate that to be able to get the funds to the student. Because it's one of those things that if we broadcast widely, everyone is going to want it, even when there may not be a need. And so we're trying to figure out the best way to be able to receive those and to be able to broadcast that. But it's a great fund for us to be able to reach our students who, you know, whose families may run into some struggles, and those who are barely making it here as it is. And they need every little bit of help we would have for students who go through their four years of Spring Hill. Those who want to be a doctor or want to go to med school and not be able to get them and not be able to afford the care, not able to take that nursing exam that they need to take, that’s really what it’s designed for.
It’s interesting hearing about the fund, you know, kind of in its infancy. I'm in a program at Georgetown where we have a necessity fund, but it's only for students in that program. So I think that we kind of ran into the issue of, “Oh, what do we do for students who need help but they are not in the program?” So there was the creation of a mutual aid fund, completely student run.
Yeah. And I think COVID-19 brought up a host of issues in that area of, you know, students not having the right technology at home, or even the right space at home—you know, the stories of students sitting with a sibling at a dining room table, and it’s not exactly the most conducive study space—or not being able to have the right equipment. [These] concerns really highlighted some of the inequities there that I think kind of launched this [fund].
And I mean, kind of going off of that, obviously when you have these sort of inequities, you know, your college experience can be taxing. So I was wondering if you could tell me about what mental health culture looks like on campus, if you would say “culture” is a word that feels accurate. What are students’ attitudes in understanding mental health on campus?
We have transitioned our model since I started four years ago, when we were primarily using all contracted counselors. So we had individuals who may be here a day, a week. I think we had somebody who is here two days a week, but it was piecemeal and we did not have anybody who was a full-time Spring Hill employee. So that was something we have slowly transitioned to the point where we now have two full-time mental health counselors who are part of our community, which I think is very important. So the number of hours we have offered really has increased. But we also have two people who are available for programming who are available for other issues as well that we can call upon and not have this weird relationship with. It is not formal yet.
I think students have responded very well to that type of model. And I would say that there is, you know, I would say that with our student population, there is not necessarily the stigma of mental health counseling being a negative thing. I think students talk very openly about it. You know, they talk very openly about seeking and needing the services, which I have appreciated quite a bit. Because I think there we have a more authentic sense of what we need when students are open about that and when there is a culture, they can talk about it.
One area that we are trying to reinforce on campus is that it’s not only about the one-on-one counseling, but it's also about being able to provide programming throughout the year as well, understanding our data. And again, this is where—similar as we talked about with retention—understanding our data of what issues are most prevalent, what time of year they're most prevalent with which groups of students, and being able to program against that. So if we can do some proactive programming, it helps ease the burden on our one-on-one counseling services that we have on campus, because there may be students who all they need is just, you know, to go to a couple of programs, be able to learn some strategies, to be able to help them before they get to a point that they really feel like they need some more intensive therapy. So I think that's really part of the goal that we have going forward is to increase our programming in that area as well.
The other thing is equipping our faculty and staff in a greater way as well to be able to identify issues. This is an area we have a little bit of room to grow. But in the past couple of years, we have been able to offer mental health first aid to faculty and staff on a voluntary basis. So we have had some who have taken advantage of their phrase go through mental health first aid training every fall.
So that is something that I think as we continue to move along, we want to be able to make sure that we are supporting our faculty and staff and giving them the tools that they need to one, identify what a student in crisis or student with trauma experiences looks like, and what some of those telltale signs are. And then be able to give them the knowledge, to be able to help direct that student from there and give them the right resources that they need.
I think over the years I have learned that if you host groups on campus, or if you have counseling groups on campus—I know a lot of folks feel that this is the right way to do things. Although I think there is a much greater openness these days to go to one-on-one counseling, I still think there is a hesitancy to be a part of a counseling group, regardless of what it’s about—whether it’s anxiety, whether sexual assault, whether it’s grief—I just think there’s a hesitancy to do that still.
And the thing I like about working closely, especially with Residence Life or with Academic Advising—and TRIO would be another one to be able to identify some of those issues based on our data—on what we know, to be able to have programs rather than have a counseling group. Because ultimately that's what the program is: it's a counseling group. And so that's your communicating strategies and hopefully you're facilitating discussion and so ultimately it ends up being a group without labeling it a group.
Yeah. And I actually did want to ask a follow-up. The programs—are they kind of like workshops, like mental health workshops in the sense that provide students with…?
Yeah, similar. So it could be one of our first-year residents. We know that around the third week, homesickness sets in. So it's being able to have the RA able to know that about their hall. It may not be the same with a senior hall or something else, but with the first-year hall knowing that and being able to have some sort of program, does that have to be led by a counselor that would foster connections, that would also foster strategies that you know—it’s about the time that you're probably missing the high school football games you went to last year or something else. And being able to help draw awareness of that and then give students the tools to be able to be able to manage that.
Building off of that—in terms of both the student side and the staff and faculty—how would you say the understanding and treatment of mental health on campus is influenced by the college's identity as a Jesuit institution?
I think it is. I think, ultimately, it’s at the core when you get down to it. Now, I will say from having been in a variety of institutions—I have not worked at a state institution before, but having been in a variety of private institutions—I would hope for any student affairs, professional attentiveness to mental health and counseling services would be paramount. If nothing else, because we were talking about our students. And if you're in this profession, you should have basic care and value the worth of the person. I know that does not always happen to every institution. And sometimes I know dollars and cents get in the way. So even if you have that belief that may get in the way, I think here at Spring Hill, it is very much the concept of cura personalis also coming into play that we want to be able to care for our students in a variety of ways.
And, you know, in there and when it comes to mental health, that also includes in the dining hall and what sorts of physical health activities we are offering because that physical activity increases the positive endorphins in your brain and helps your overall mental health. So it includes a variety of areas when we're talking cura personalis. So I think that is part of it. But I also think it gets down to just the dignity of the human person as well and being able to value our students and what they may be going through and being able to try to find a way to meet that need. And then, of course, listening to students as well. We may have it completely wrong, and we may be offering the wrong things, or we may not be doing enough of a certain thing.
So, one of the things that I think is a valuable conversation as we’re onboarding a new provost is—for years, we have had this academic calendar, where in the spring semester spring break is split, either tying that to Mardi Gras break or tying it to Easter break. And what happens is that, more often than not, one of those breaks is either happening at the extreme beginning of the calendar or the extreme end. And there's this long period in the middle where we know students struggle during spring semester anyhow. So that’s one of those things that I think we’ve done institutionally; we’ve done it that way for a while. And I think there are, you know, maybe some accreditation reasons we do it that way for a time and see.
But our students have lately been asking us to reevaluate that. And I think this is a great opportunity for us to take a fresh look at it. Say, you know, our students have been through some pretty traumatic experiences over the past couple of years as it relates to their education, whether it's in high school or in college. Do we need to rethink this at this point to be able to make it more student-centered, more student-focused? So I think those are examples of areas we need to grow in and be more attentive to our students. It’s important for us to be able to listen, especially as a Jesuit school. But also as a smaller institution. And I think it’s critical that we take into account and we take action because I think that's why students come to Spring Hill. They come to it because they feel that they're going to be part of a community that cares instead of in this big blob where you may not get the ear of anybody who can make that decision. And here at Spring Hill, I think we need to take that responsibility with significance.
And what kind of channels does that student feedback come through?
For the most part, I think the Student Government Association (SGA) is utilized pretty well at Spring Hill. So I think that that is one area. I think our SGA is active. If there’s a concern, whether it’s requesting a meeting or being able to email and get a response back, it's a good likelihood that you're going to be able to do one of those things. And so I think students understand that they have a menu there. So I think those two areas are important. And I think our staff, especially our student affairs staff, is trained to be able to hear those things and to be able to poke around in them, raise those up.
So you talked a little bit about cura personalis. I was just wondering, what does that mean to you?
Yeah, it's a great question. Obviously, we know it's care for the whole person and that's the generic answer and the one that we will give to parents when they come and not get too far in the weeds with them. I’m even continuing to develop my understanding of what it means on a day-to-day level. I think it means being responsive to our students and not only what they’re telling us, but I also think it’s what we’re seeing in our assessment that we do and in our data, and being able to look at both of those things and be able to respond, because there may be something that we see in the data that we're not hearing from our students. And there may be something that we're hearing from our students that we're not seeing in the data. And I think those things play off each other. But I think it's keeping an open ear and being able to be responsive to that. I think it entails being creative in caring for our students.
And I think that sometimes, students think they know what they need, but that's not always the case either. And I think that's where we need to use our listening skills and then our Q&A skills with students as well to be able to really get to the heart of what they want. But I think it's being able to look for those opportunities to fully understand the issue. So I mentioned dining services earlier. When I first got here, our health scores on our feedback form from students were just awful; they were so bad. And so they didn’t feel like they were getting healthy food, they felt that there was a selection there. So one of the things that we did a few years ago is we really rethought how we may provide a variety of options to students and still do it within an economical format given the size of institution we are. So we incorporated the Mongolian Grill downstairs. So we call it the “HillBachi Grill.” And so I think one of the benefits of that is that regardless of, you know, if you're a vegetarian, if you're vegan, or if there are other food allergies there, you can craft whatever dinner or lunch that you want and be able to find something that will fit your dietary needs or your desires.
The other thing we did, and I think one of the things we’re most proud of, is we created a cura personalis station. And so it uses fresh ingredients. It uses local ingredients whenever we can and we try to educate our students on what certain foods mean for your body. So, you know, there may be a food that increases brain function or attentiveness or something of that nature. Or may increase, you know, Vitamin B which does X, Y, or Z. So it's not just about offering them a healthier option, but it's about going a step further and educating them on that as well. So hopefully creating some lifelong life on education as well. And that station has been incredibly well received. So you know, you may get grilled salmon on basmati rice with some unique garnish. So it’s a great opportunity for us to live that out in a very unconventional way by being able to put a spin on it, to let students know that, listen, we care about this and we know that the food you put in your body is important elsewhere.
So again, I think it’s those types of things that we demonstrate that we do care about our students. It's about providing the proper spaces on campus to be able to socialize but to also be able to recreate, to be able to study when they need to study, and being able to be attentive to where and when we have those spaces available and open. So I think it’s the things that demonstrate our ability to be able to show our care for the entire student. But again, it all gets back to being able and willing to listen to our students, and then to be able to respond to that in as creative of a way as we can.
Great. Kind of moving into a more specific kind of sector of accessibility, how would you characterize sort of attitudes and understanding of disability on campus?
I would have to say that there probably is not as much active conversation about disabilities and students with disabilities as there should be. And I’m not quite certain why that is. I oversaw disability services at my previous institution—that was part of my portfolio. We definitely had a more active culture there of students seeking resources.
So I would say when it comes to physical disabilities, we are on an older campus. Many buildings have not been renovated or have had to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. We have a lot of areas that I don't feel are entirely accessible or are difficult to be able to try to get to. So I think there's some concern there. Now, you will see that we don't have a lot of students with physical disabilities coming to the campus. But you also have to ask, too, is that because they see barriers on campus, so they choose not to come to Spring Hill, you know, so there’s a little bit of a cart and horse thing of how we respond to that.
I think when it comes to learning disabilities and needing resources for the classroom, Christine Collins is doing a great job of helping push that to the forefront in professionalizing that area. I think we are, as I'm sure a lot of the Jesuit institutions do, we get students, we get a good number since they were coming from private education. Many of those students had the resources to be able to obtain a private tutor or help outside of those institutions, where they had the knowledge to know who to ask for help within there or it came from institutions that had help or somebody you can ask for assistance.
And then we have our students, and I think particularly this is something that has stuck with me early on, when I told you we had a discrepancy between retention and our students of color and our white students. One of the conversations I had with a couple of students who both were African-American female students who both went to private school. And what they explained to me is that they knew how to navigate a primarily white setting already from their high school experience. So they knew what it would take to ask for resources or to know where the resources are. And what they had heard from their friends who may have went to public school or came from schools that did not have a lot of resources to help students with, whether it be tutoring or whether it be disability services, that they oftentimes do not know how to navigate a primarily white setting to understand where to ask those questions or who to go to. And there was sometimes a disconnect there. And so I think that we are working to close that gap.
I think we are getting much better about incorporating conversations about disability services and academic support in our orientations and in our open houses, our mission open houses. I think we are getting much better about proactively communicating to at least create awareness that will help students find those resources on campus.
I think we're still coming out of that fog and we're still, you know, still working on getting some of the old stuff out. And as a result, I don't think there's really much of an awareness about, you know, whether it's extra time on tests, whether it's note-taking, whether it's X, Y or Z. We just haven't had a lot of focus. So the other thing I will say that I think will help transform our conversation and our culture of serving students with needs on campus is TRIO instance support services. So we're just finishing our first year with it. And I think that I think over the next four years of that program is here, I think we will see greater I think we'll see a greater awareness of the issues that are out there and the resources that are available.
And you said this is the first year for TRIO?
So this is the end of the first full year of TRIO.
I was in a TRIO program in high school. We don’t have them at Georgetown.
Yeah, there's TRIO and I know there's TRIO SSS [Student Support Services], TRIO Upward Bound. Those are two primarily higher. Years ago we had that one. I think University of South Alabama still has an Upward Bound, but SSS is really an extension of that to where once you get here, it is primarily for first-generation students, students with disabilities, and students who are financially in need. So we define that here at Spring Hill by being Pell [Grant] eligible.
So yeah, yeah, no, that's great. And I mean, I can't say I'm necessarily surprised that an understanding of disability and disability culture is still developing. I know that's something Georgetown is still working with. And the only reason I know we even kind of have a catalyst is because we have a disability studies minor program, which I have taken a couple of classes in. And of course, at a smaller school like Spring Hill, it's a little bit more difficult.
Well, I think the way you handle disability services in high school is much different from the way you handle it in college because the responsibility shifts. In K-12 it's on the school. In higher ed, it's on the student to be able to seek out those services and then to be able to take those and request them, because you may request that for one class and not another, and that is totally the student's decision. And so what ends up happening at the higher ed level, I think “culture” is a very good word. I think because at the higher ed level, Christine could, you know, be knocking it out of the park, could have all the right tools, could have, you know, the best onboarding program.
But you're still relying on the student and you're still relying on the faculty member to be able to accommodate the student. The only thing Christine could do is develop the plan and help grease the wheels for some things. But I think that's where higher ed is at a little bit of a disadvantage. Because there’s all these expectations coming from K-12 of what schools do, and then all of a sudden it’s like bam, it’s now the student’s responsibility. And that's just the way the law is written and the way expectations are. So it becomes more difficult—you almost have to re-educate people again.
Yeah, and I think the difficult thing, especially as you bring up the law, is that a lot of times colleges and universities will focus on the formalities. And I think, at least in my experience, there has been such a focus on accommodations. That sort of creates this rigid structure that only focuses on the formalities. And so, I don't know, I guess now that I'm going into my last year of college, I try very hard to distinguish between accommodations and accessibility.
I think that’s a great point and they very much are, because we can legally provide all the tools, but ultimately, if you are caring for the whole student, you’re helping them understand one of their gifts, how to use that. I’m trying to remember what school it was—I had done a site visit somewhere, and they had a lab that was built in their disability services area, particularly for students with physical disabilities, to help them understand how to best navigate a kitchen environment or something of that nature. It was very unique but also they were having a program talking about how to what this looks like in the workplace. So you're leaving college, all of a sudden you're going into the workplace where it changes again and is even more stripped down.
You go from K-12 where, you know, you're pretty much hand-held through everything, to higher ed, where we let go a little more, and then also offset in the workplace and it gets even a little more loose. And then you have the fear of, okay, if I disclose to HR is there going to be repercussions because I say I need X or Y or Z and all of a sudden you don't get extended reports anymore. And it becomes very scary navigating the world outside of college for, you know, students who have been used to getting some assistance. And what does that look like? So the school provided great programming to help students succeed even after they leave college or go into the workforce. So I do think there's a long way that we can go that gets beyond the law that we can be much more attentive to.
No kidding. So you already kind of talked a little bit about this, about where Spring Hill can grow. But focusing on sustaining students—because I think we talk a lot about, especially in terms of marginalized populations, what does it look like to bring them here? But I think sometimes I don't know if the conversation focuses enough on what it looks like once they get here. So, again, I know you've already kind of talked about this, but how can Spring Hill do a better job of sustaining students from the time they first arrive on campus to the time they leave? Either on a more robust level in terms of instructors or just on an individual level, you know, faculty-student interactions. Interpret that however you will.
I'm going to take a very big-picture approach to the initial answer on this. I think it is incredibly important for us to remember how important it is for us to be available to our students. Just personally, from a human standpoint and, again, it's ingrained in our community. It's part of who we are. If we are not, then I would, you know, question what benefit does a student get from coming to Spring Hill versus a larger institution where, you know, they'll have faculty who are not available to them or staff that are not available to them there. So I think it is incredibly important for us to be present and available whenever we can, whenever we are with students to be able to. Again, I just think that listening is so important and a student may not come out and say, my experience would be better if they rarely do that. But they may. But I think if we can teach our staff and our faculty to acutely listen to the comment behind the comment, then I think we can get better with understanding what our students need, what they struggle with, and especially those who don't look like us, who may come from different backgrounds than us. You know, I think it’s incredibly important for us to do that. So I think that’s a big-picture type of sense.
I think that from an everyday programmatic perspective, I think we’ve had a little bit of a culture shift in faculty and staff. We’ve had a lot of new hires in the past three to four years, and I think that there is absolutely some training and some awareness that needs to be built with faculty and staff. And I think being able to better prepare them for the students that are coming into their classroom. And so I think, you know, part of that starts with hearing from admissions what our student profile is. I think we're getting a little better now. When I first got here, we were operating as if we had the same students as what we did in the year 2000. And so we are operating as if this is 18 years ago. And so much has changed in the world, our students have changed so much, and we are operating as if we can still do the same things that we did back then. And I think when that happens and when, you know, a part of that is okay, the college needed to be a little more progressive and assertive and how they're adapting. But the other part of it, too, is the admissions needs to help educate our campus community on who is coming to campus and where the trends are going.
Let's say, for example, that we're seeing a 10% increase in Pell [Grant]-eligible students this coming year. That is something that should be of concern to us, because it may indicate that we have more students this year who are going to try to figure out how to come back for their second year from a financial standpoint. And we need to be very much in tune with that. Or it could be that, you know, we've seen a drop or an increase in SAT scores or other academic predictors that we need to either be aware of the support services that we're offering through tutoring or how students are aware of those services and be able to respond to them, be able to respond to the classes that way.
No two classes are built the same. And I think we need to be very much aware of the shifts that we are seeing in our student population and informing the campus community about those. Because if I don't know about it, I can't do anything. For example, two years ago we got interrupted by COVID-19—I feel like that’s a disclaimer at every conversation. We started a program with a Bahamian high school—or the Bahamian Ministry of Education. It’s a program where they pay X amount of dollars for students from the Bahamas to come to the United States and study at specific institutions. So we are the southernmost institution, which, the students in the Bahamas don’t want to go to cold weather. That means something. So, when I was at [Palm Beach Atlantic University], we had a ton of Caribbean students there.
We started out with one student, COVID-19 hit, so they suspended the program for a year. And then I think we had four, either four or six this past year. But we are on the verge of welcoming 20 Bahamian students to campus so that as a group, we as a campus need to take notice of that, because if we don't acknowledge, especially with campus size, if we don't acknowledge and understand what that may mean from a programmatic perspective, what that means from housing, what that means from dining services, what that means for our international student services office, what that means for student activities. We need to understand the totality of that. Or else you are going to have 20 international students who are going to feel like they don't fit in and that example can be used for disabilities, that can be used again for Pell [Grant] eligibility, it can be used for students of color. But we need to pay attention to who our students are, and I think that is something we need to get better at at Spring Hill.
One of the things that we are onboarding this coming year that I'm very excited about is a software called Ferris 360. It is a retention management software and they take what they call a relational intelligence approach to retention. And it is a platform that in theory should help us identify students who are struggling quicker and be able to do that in a more efficient way. It is going to help us do some more predictive modeling to identify those students who are going to be most at-risk coming into Spring Hill. So looking at historical data. So historical data makes, you know, five different variables that we found are the most important. When we run our new students through the model, it will assign a value to this. And now the trick is that very few people know what that number is. Because I don't want to, because they do it on a scale of 1 to 10, almost saying after a year or two, I'm not going to spend any time with you. So you get tons of issues. You're not going to stay here. You know, we want to avoid that. So we need to keep that limited in terms of who has that knowledge and who can actually do something about it and in a proactive way.
But I think it will help us understand what those are and, quite frankly, a lot of the students are students who are going to be your marginalized students that have some sort of factor in their background that will cause them to potentially not be as successful. So we are looking forward to that software because we think it's really going to help focus our retention efforts. When you have a smaller staff or we have a limited staff, you have to use every bit of efficiency that you have. And if we can, if we can help hone in on a group of students that we think is going to be pretty impactful to our overall success for our student population here at Spring Hill, then we need to pursue that.
One thing I did just want to follow up on—you mentioned data quality. Is there some sort of campus climate survey that students take? Or is there something more generally that you're referring to that data comes from?
So we have a lot of demographic data and data of that nature. We have several software programs that will also do some reporting for us as well. So for example, counseling, what I was mentioning is that they use Titanium Software, which is a counseling-centered software for higher ed institutions. And that enables us to take a look at the aggregate of issues of what is happening within counseling services. So without looking at individual students, it just helps the process. We're getting to the point where we're going to get a little more granular with it and pull in the student academic profile, so that way we have more data available to us or we can look at more angles. We just restarted use of NSSE, which is the National Survey of Student Engagement. That is a nationally recognized survey done out of the University of Indiana. So we have just restarted that. And then we do some internal retention assessment and things of that nature.
Sounds like the new retention software will kind of become a part of that.
It’s going to, yeah. It's going to put our retention analysis on steroids. I mean, it's going to be really good.
Anything else that you would like to share or that this conversation brought up for you that you think is important to mention?
I guess I would say the other thing about Spring Hill is from a social climate, which I think ultimately is incredibly important to student success for some marginalized groups. So we have...I think it’s one of the leading factors of students going to be successful in the classroom or just stay at Spring Hill. I think we tend to find that students who do poorly in the classroom also are not involved in a lot of ways and I think things of that nature. But I think with our campus we have, gosh, I think about 35% of our students are student-athletes. Which is a very large percentage for a campus our size. About 35% of our students are affiliated with a Greek organization. So there is some overlap between those two groups. But you are looking at at least half of our student population is affiliated with groups where they have an easy built in sense of belonging. So they belong.
We don't know socially if they are going to be connected in some form or fashion, if they have somebody to care for them, whether it's, you know, their peers within the Greek organizations or a coach, they have somebody who's closely connected. But it also means that for that other half, it makes the campus even smaller and it makes you stand out even more if you haven't felt that place to fit in yet. So I think that is something that is important for us. And one of the things that we are attempting to do, we just hired an assistant director for student involvement to help expand our programming. But we are trying to find more on-ramps for student engagement early in the process. And how I’ve communicated with our staff, if you think of student leadership as a highway, right now, we have very few on-ramps for freshmen to get involved on campus. For many of them, their first opportunity is Greek life come January, our spring semester, because we have a delayed recruitment. And that is not economically feasible for a good portion of our students.
So it is important for us to be able to provide programming early on that will get students involved. So we are trying to expand our leadership development programming that will hopefully help students find their footing much quicker. We're changing up our first-year experience course that I think is going to be a better model for us to be able to connect students to the institution, the resources, not only social but also academic and other things as well. So I think the more we can create additional on-ramps, I think the social component that some of our marginalized students feel at times, I think they will find more options that they have than what they have previously.
No, that's a really good point. I'd say I always feel that Greek life is something that always slips my mind because we don't have it [at Georgetown]. And so student organizations kind of function the way Greek life does. So that's definitely something I'm going to ask students about.
Yeah. And we definitely have a strong club and organization culture. I think the problem is that—I know a lot of schools are this way, but—I’m sensing that especially here at Spring Hill is that we have so few of our students involved in multiple ways. Let’s put it this way. We have a core group of students that are involved in a lot of activities. They are overinvolved. And what happens is that we also have students who, you know, they're essentially managing a lot of the key groups on campus. And we need to find ways to be able to expand that. And so one of the metrics that I am challenging our student involvement office to be able to create—they don't know this yet, but it's coming. It's one of the KPIs—and that we want them to track is our percentage of what I'm calling unique student leaders.
So how many of our students are holding just at least one key? We need to identify what those leadership positions are, but how many of our students are just holding just one of those? And some people, and I was one of those students in college that was involved in everything. So I think at first I'm like, “Well, why in the world would we not want them to be involved in everything?” But I think the more I have done this, the more I have understood one. I think in terms of student mental health, it creates an additional burden on them. That if they're trying to satisfy three different groups in a major way that is a load of responsibility that oftentimes overwhelms them from an emotional and mental health standpoint. But I also think it allows them to focus on one thing, and doing at least one thing well in college and being able to build your portfolio. So I want them to start looking at how many of our similar leadership positions are held by unique student leaders.
