Champlain College freshmen complete a 10-week course on health, wellness and academic readiness to facilitate a smooth transition to higher education.
For many students, balancing their studies with other responsibilities is their biggest stressor and they believe it’s contributing to the campus mental health crisis, a recent Student Voice survey found. Inside Higher Education and Generation Lab.
To help ease students’ anxiety and stress as they transition to college, Champlain College in Vermont developed a first-year program that helps students connect with peers, build effective habits, and connect with positive resources.
Launched for the first time in fall 2022, Champ 101 has proven successful in promoting healthy living and wellness among students, prompting campus leaders to integrate the program as part of the required wellness curriculum.
Things necessary: According to May data from TimelyCare and Active Minds, two-thirds of university students feel lonely, with a further three in 10 experiencing serious mental distress. While there is no single cause for the rise in mental health concerns, isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, as well as rising political tensions, are impacting how learners interact with each other.
Champlain College leaders recognized that new students were struggling to integrate into campus life and “saw this as an opportunity to redefine student supports to meet the changing needs of our students,” said Daniel Berube, vice president for student affairs and university emergency management coordinator.
How to use: Champ 101 is a required 10-week program for first-year students designed to help students adjust to their new life on campus and prepare them to succeed.
Each week, students participate in one or two workshops co-led by students and a staff or faculty facilitator, meeting regularly with the same small group (approximately 20 students) for the duration of the program.
“This dynamic helps new students build friendships early on within the group and creates trust between students and facilitators,” Berube explains. “It creates a sense of ‘it’s okay to not be okay’ among peers, which gives students an inherent sense of security and encourages openness.”
The workshops will cover a variety of academic, health and social topics, including developing identity during college, dealing with homesickness and how to prepare for meetings with advisors. As part of this initiative, students will be graded on attendance rather than completing assignments or homework.
The curriculum was developed by the Director of Student Success and Instruction and the Coordinator of First-Year Transition and Wellness Promotion Initiatives with input from campus stakeholders.
Peer facilitators are also essential to the success of the program, adding familiar peers who can empathize with students’ experiences away from home, and students’ peers are compensated for their work.
Our faculty and staff facilitators represent a variety of disciplines, academic divisions, and departments. Facilitators help shape the content through their feedback and insight to ensure the program is relevant and responsive to student needs.
Impact: The program was piloted in fall 2022 and became a required course for all freshmen last year.
The majority of students (92%) were regularly enrolled in the program last fall and achieved a satisfactory completion rate (99.8%). A post-mortem survey in 2023 revealed the following results:
- 86% of students said they felt the program increased their knowledge of campus resources.
- 67% said the program helped them set personal, social and academic goals.
- 60% have become more interested in their own health and wellbeing;
- 91% felt welcomed and accepted by their peer facilitators.
“Student resources are only useful if students who need support know they are available and how to access them, and Champ 101 has been very successful in raising that awareness,” Berube said.
The fall-to-spring retention rate for the 2023 cohort was 94 percent, and the retention rate for the fall 2022 cohort was 88 percent.
“While not directly related to Champ 101, this six percentage point increase from 2022 to 2023 accommodates the transition of Champ 101 to becoming a required part of the curriculum in fall 2023,” Berube said.
Overall picture: Champ 101 is now the first step for students to fulfill InSight, a broader graduation requirement with a focus on health and life skills. The program teaches students about career skills, personal finance and, most recently, wellness.
Each year, students are assigned a list of milestones to achieve outside of the classroom, either in-person or online, and are tracked in Canvas, the university’s LMS. While studying with InSight, students are paired with a peer coach who provides guidance, encouragement and advice, further connecting learners with the institution.
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