This hermeneutic and post-intentional phenomenological study explored how trauma experiences affected sense of belonging for undergraduate students. Results suggest five salient textures of belonging after trauma, including silence, validation, isolation, compassion, and betrayal. Implications for student affairs practice are presented to frame…

Enrollment in postsecondary institutions of higher education increased 33% between 2000 and 2014 and is projected to grow another 13% between 2014 and 2025 (Hussar & Bailey, 2017). This new wave of college students is presenting with increased mental health concerns. If left untreated, the consequences of mental health disorders, including…

On a given campus, approximately 30% of college students can be classified as bereaved and experiencing grief effects (Varga & Varga, 2019). The Holistic Impact of Bereavement framework (Balk, 2011) illustrates the specific grief effects college students may experience, including those related to the physical, cognitive, behavioral,…

Mattering is the subjective perception that others are aware of us, care about us, and depend on us at the interpersonal (e.g., friends) and societal levels (e.g., workplace, school). Interpersonal and university mattering explain important variances in college students' well-being and academic performance; therefore, shorter, more tailored…

Scholars have defined higher-order thinking (HOT) skills as a cognitive ability to interpret, analyze, arrange, and extend newly obtained and learned information (Lewis & Smith, 1993; Newmann, 1991a). Higher-order thinking skills draw much public attention, because they have been deemed to be an essential determinant of contemporary…

"Cyberbullying"--the intentional, repeated online harassment of a person with less perceived social power--is a pervasive issue facing today's college students. As a result of cyberbullying, victimized students can suffer social, psychological, and academic consequences. This article reports the psychometric validation of a cyberbullying…

Hope is a defining characteristic of well-being, and research points to the positive contribution of hope to life adjustment (Snyder, Lehman, Kluck, & Monssan, 2006). Harris developed an initial version of an individual-differences measure of hope, the Trait Hope Scale (THS). Snyder, Harris, and colleagues (1991) further developed the THS by…

In his foundational work on college student success, Tinto (1993) argued for the importance of students' social and academic integration into the college environment. These two categories have reached paradigmatic status, with little critique in the literature of whether these two categories continue to adequately capture the student experience.…

We introduce and evaluate the College Assets Measurement Profile for Undergraduate Students (CAMPUS), an assessment instrument for resilience factors in college-enrolled emerging adults. Developmental assets, its focus, are constructs proposed to protect against psychopathology, floundering, and riskiness, while also bolstering the likelihood of…

Since Chinese Ministry of Education has implemented the Higher Education Enrollment Policy in 1999, the quality of undergraduate education has been widely criticized. Meanwhile, the Chinese job market has been constantly changing, due to global competition, technological advances, and job insecurity. This can result in college students and the…

Several instruments exist to measure college adjustment: the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ; Baker & Siryk, 1989), the College Adjustment Rating Scale (Zitzow, 1984), and the College Adjustment Scales (Anton & Reed, 1991). Of these, the SACQ is the most widely used and takes a multifaceted approach to measuring college…

According to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), "psychological flexibility" refers to an individual's ability to maintain mindful awareness of his or her thoughts and emotions in the present moment while behaving according to his or her personal values. Psychological inflexibility could set the foundation for emotional distress and…

In this research brief, a team of four researchers report their observations on the changing role of university housing complexes and their evolution into learning communities designed to foster students' learning, development, and overall well-being. The observation also revealed that the role of the resident assistant (RA) had evolved in a…

The standards for Master's Level Student Affairs Professional Preparation Programs, first published in 1986, were among the first standards published by the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS; Ebbers & Kruempel, 1992). With the latest revision in 2012, the CAS standards for preparation of student affairs…

The Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale has been applied widely. However, there is no complete report on the reliability and validity of its Chinese version (ATSPPHS-C). A total of 353 Taiwanese undergraduates completed the ATSPPHS-C, Help-Seeking Willingness Scale, Symptom Check List-90R, and Marlowe-Crowne Social…