Abrar Hammoud, Associate Professor of Practice
In Dr. Hammoud’s Conflict Management course (OLS 477), students examined how constructive organizational climates are created through everyday choices, communication, and self-awareness. Through a partnership with Carl Krieger, Purdue’s Director of Well-Being Programs in the Office of the Provost for Student Life, a series of discussion-based class sessions was developed which focused on a central question: Who is responsible for creating healthy, respectful environments in organizations? Rather than framing this solely as a managerial responsibility, discussion began at the intrapersonal level by examining how emotions, identity, and personal values shape how individuals show up in moments of conflict.
These sessions integrated the Steps to Leaps pillars of Leadership, Well-Being, and Grit/Persistence. Students explored the emotional labor of leadership, reflected on the personal costs of avoidance or aggression in conflict, and discussed the courage required to remain respectful when tensions are high. Through guided dialogue and reflection, students were challenged to see conflict not as something to win or avoid, but as an opportunity to practice resilience, empathy, and principled leadership
By connecting conflict management skills to leadership, well-being, and persistence, this project reinforced the Perspective Project’s core objective: helping students understand how their personal choices, behaviors, and mindsets influence not only their own success, but the health of the communities and organizations they are part of.
Jessica Mercado, Continuing Lecturer, Department of English
Dr. Mercado worked alongside Patricia Swanson, the manager of the Knowledge Lab (in WALC), to strengthen the pillar of grit/persistence in her composition course. Working together, Mercado and Swanson sought to find productive ways to help students develop grit/persistence and well-being with creative projects meant to motivate brainstorming through low stakes writing. Swanson’s first trip to class involved helping students create a journal that they would use for their in-class writing and reflections throughout the semester. Students created the journals by hand, selecting their materials and hand stitching them during the day’s lesson. This experience enabled students to be creative and construct an analog space for their reflections and notes in the course. The second time Swanson visited the class, she helped students create ‘zines’, which are small magazines that students could use to help distill their nascent research project ideas. These activities also gave students an opportunity to learn more about the resources available to them at the Knowledge Lab.
Students engaged in a research-based project that had them identify an issue or topic of personal interest to engage in research. The students performed general and pointed research for their argumentative essay, which they then remediated in the form of a research poster. Their projects were synced with the Office of Undergraduate Research’s Research Expo, in which some students presented their research. The series of projects required time management and persistence, while allowing students to network by presenting at the research expo. Throughout the entire research process and beyond, Mercado provided reflective opportunities for students to track their progress and challenges, while also considering their experiences preparing, participating, contributing, and proceeding through the course.
Mary “Erin” Hoying, Clinical Assistant Professor
Nurses enter practice oftentimes with the clinical knowledge needed to provide safe, compassionate care but struggle with ethical dilemmas and compassion fatigue, which often leads to burnout and leaving the nursing practice. Students take pediatric nursing in their senior year, therefore incorporation of Well-being and Grit/Persistence pillars are ideal for incorporation into the course. Dr. Mary Hoying was seeing students who can pass exams and provide care, but continued to struggle with ethics and transitioning into practice. A partnership with Office of Dean of Students and the incorporation of Clifton Strengths was implemented in the class for a one day interactive session. In this session, students were presented with how every person has different strengths and these influence how we process difficult situations and our everyday interactions with others. The students talked through how their strengths can be a benefit or even a hindrance in nursing practice. In addition, the students used their strengths in their final course reflection and how these strengths impacted how they processed the semester and how they can be used in their nursing practice.
Kelley Bailey, Senior Lecturer, Department of Public Health
Dr. Bailey partnered with Emma Schnolis, MPH, the Assistant Director of Well-Being Programs. PUBH 205 provides a variety of HHS undergraduate majors with a broad-based foundation of basic public health topics. This semester we added a service-learning health communication project to provide early hands-on experiences with health promotion for our students and to benefit the Purdue community. This course also serves as a health and wellness course to support student development, which includes course-related self-assessments and reflections. Working with Emma we incorporated several Purdue Steps-to-Leaps modules that contributed to our wellness-related instruction, to our health communication PSA project, and to setting students up for personal and academic success while at Purdue and into their future professional lives. Emma served both as a guest speaker for several modules and as a community partner for our health promotion PSAs. Each module was given one full class period and included a student activity and reflection.
Here are some excerpts from students’ written reflections:
“Working on our group PSA about sleep hygiene ended up being more personal for me than I expected. I’ve always known sleep matters, but I never really stopped to think about how much my own habits were affecting my mood, energy, and academics. As our group researched, I kept noticing patterns that described me exactly—late-night studying, scrolling on my phone to “wind down,” and inconsistent sleep times. It was almost uncomfortable to realize how normalized these habits are among students, including myself.”
“I think that this activity definitely impacted me by forcing me to realize how much I constantly compare myself and my achievements to others. This incessant need to gauge my own “progress” compared to others is actually very harmful when done incorrectly, so I am glad that this reflection made me realize as much…..So, for the future, I can focus on being more productive in my comparisons so that I can receive benefits from them rather than constantly putting myself down.”
“I’ve noticed that my stress sometimes causes me to disregard healthy eating choices and even the exercises I normally do. This makes me wonder about how the increased stress we see in modern times is contributing to the rising rates of obesity, cardiovascular disease, and other negative health outcomes associated with poor diet and low physical activity.”
“Overall, I have been pleasantly surprised by how the modules can connect and overlap with each other and by how much the students have been willing to engage with them.” - Dr. Bailey
Vanesa Cañete Jurado, Assistant Professor of Teaching, School of Languages and Cultures
This SCLA 102 section integrated the Steps to Leaps pillars through the theme “Human Connection, Belonging, and Community.” Designed to help students critically engage with texts and complex ideas, this section encouraged reflection on how well-being is shaped through interpersonal connection and relationships. Readings were intentionally selected from a wide range of cultural traditions and historical periods in order to offer students a broad perspective on how belonging, communication, and community emerge across time and place.
The Well-Being pillar was addressed through reflective assignments and guided discussions focused on self-awareness and growth. Students were encouraged to connect course concepts to contemporary challenges and consider how the successes and failures of communication shape relationships and community dynamics. The Networks pillar guided the exploration of how communities function and operate in different contexts. Activities such as mapping character relationships and analyzing forms of support, influence, and interdependence helped students gain insight into the dynamics of social networks in both personal and professional settings.
A key component of the course was the partnership with Dr. Marquetta Strait, Lead Student Affairs Administrator and University Innovation Alliance (UIA) Fellow. Dr. Strait’s contributions emphasized the real-world importance of persistence, community, and collective responsibility, reinforcing the course’s focus on engagement and connection. Her guidance and practical insights throughout the semester helped students strengthen their understanding of effective collaboration and develop strategies for personal and academic success.
As a communication-intensive course, SCLA 102 provided students with multiple opportunities to refine public speaking and presentation skills. A semester-long cumulative project brought these elements together through three components: an original visual representation of their learning, a personal reflection intended for future Purdue students, and a final presentation showcasing students’ creative process and evolving understanding of belonging and community.
Robin Tanamachi, Associate Professor, Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Prof. Tanamachi partnered with Dave Ivey of University Residential Life to integrate the pillars of well-being and grit/persistence into EAPS 22700. Atmospheric Science students tend to form persistent cohorts during the curriculum’s second year. These cohorts form an informal support network as students face increasingly challenging courses in the Atmospheric Science curriculum, as well as authentic experiences like internships, research, and field work.
While the Well-Being and Grit/Persistence pillars were emphasized in class at opportune moments, they were also explicitly integrated into the course at three points during the semester via a combination of in-class activities and reflective writing assignments.
During the first week of the semester, Mr. Ivey visited the EAPS 22700 classroom in person to converse with students about the physical and psychological fundamentals of well-being. He emphasized that sleep is an investment in oneself. Prof. Tanamachi gave a reflection assignment asking students what they had learned from their interaction with Mr. Ivey, and how they planned to support and maintain their well-being throughout the semester. Students were also asked how many classmates they knew well; most students reported knowing one or none of their classmates well.
Halfway through the semester, Prof. Tanamachi gave a second reflection assignment, asking students how their well-being was faring, and how they planned to relieve the stress of midterm exams. At this point in the semester, most students reported knowing one or two classmates well, and had established some kind of well-being routine such as exercise, walking, or healthy sleep habits.
The semester wrapped up with a third reflection assignment where students reflected on how their well-being had changed through the semester, and whether they felt more or less connected with their classmates relative to the beginning of the semester. Most students reported knowing around three to four of their classmates well, mainly through working together on the required group project. During the last week of the class, Mr. Ivey returned to the classroom to converse with students again about strategies for coping with the stress of finals week, including an emphasis on the importance of sleep.
Andrew Pierce, Senior Lecturer
Andrew incorporated the Steps to Leaps framework in his six EPICS course sections. The class focused on two pillars, the wellbeing pillar in weekly lab meetings and the leadership pillar in biweekly professional development lunches. Adding a focus on these two pillars enriched the experience of students in the course and students overwhelmingly supported continuing to integrate these pillars in the course.
EPICS is a multidisciplinary, vertically-integrated design course in which student teams partner with non-profit organizations to design, build, and deliver useful technology for the community. The EPICS courses have a 30-year long track record of developing students’ technical and professional skills. The program attracts students from across the university, with more than 1,100 students per semester enrolled between the West Lafayette and Indianapolis locations representing more than 30 distinct majors.
For the wellbeing pillar, students were guided through an introduction to wellbeing, highlighting how wellbeing can help them meet their personal and professional goals. Students then completed a well-being self-assessment in the second week of class. In the third week, students completed a wellbeing action plan to help them establish goals for their weakest well-being dimensions and designate a well-being accountability partner to help them find support and encouragement for meeting their goals. A written reflection was then required every third week for the remaining of the semester with a prompt that focused on students examining how well they were executing their action plans and to help make course corrections. This led to very rich discussions in one-on-one meetings at the midterm to help students improve their individual wellbeing.
For the leadership pillar, campus resource partner Jesus Romero from the Roger C. Stewart Leadership and Professional Development Department provided resources for the LEAD competency model to help give framework for discussions during the lunch meetings. At each lunch meeting sheets with guided discussion questions for each of the LEAD competency areas on the tables and students held small group discussion to address how each leadership area was important to their team and how they could support one another as leaders in growing their skillset in each competency group. Jesus joined the class for one lunch meeting to meet the students and network with them to help them learn more about leadership resources on campus.
Reed Kurtz, Introduction to Environmental Policy
For many students at Purdue, Introduction to Environmental Policy is not only their first step on the way to a concentration in Political Science or Environmental Policy, but their first exposure to these subjects in an academic setting. Dr. Reed Kurtz found a natural fit in integrating the Steps to Leaps pillars of Wellness and Networks into his class, both as a way to introduce students to university resources and connections that could serve their personal and academic interests during their time at Purdue, but also to get students to reflect on the ways that their behavioral choices and environmental conditions can influence their well-being and networks that they are a part of, and vice versa.
Dr. Kurtz partnered with Steven Sajkich from University Residences who visited the class multiple times throughout the semester to discuss information and opportunities available to students to enable their success. Together they collaborated on a wellness survey early in the semester to measure students’ perceptions of their wellbeing and availability of support and resources, the results of which were used to inform students about relevant resources on campus, such as the Academic Success Center and the ACE Food Pantry. Dr. Kurtz also invited representatives from other parts of campus, including Purdue Libraries and Purdue Writing Lab (OWL) to connect students with the resources that these networks have to offer.
Together, Dr. Kurtz and Steven used the results of the wellness survey to develop and implement interventions on issues that students highlighted as priorities, including time management skills and strategies (through a time tracking activity and introduction to the “Eisenhower Matrix” for decision-making), as well as guidance and resources for healthy sleep. Together, these activities helped underline the connections between the social, biological, cognitive, and environmental factors that enable (or inhibit) healthy and sustainable development, at not just the personal/academic level of the individual student, manifest in the Steps to Leaps interventions, but also at the societal/political level as explored through the regular course material.
Mark Wilson, Clinical Associate Professor
In addition to Well-being, Dr. Mark Wilson also incorporated the Leadership pillar into his course. The class discussed a variety of topics related to organizational leadership in the course. The Leadership pillar allowed for further exploration the topics. Dr. Wilson created reflections, extending from existing homework assignments, in which students shared their experiences with others in the class to gain different perspectives on the topics. He also scheduled a guest speaker with vast experience in healthcare leadership. The lecture was very well received and interactive with the students.
“I found the Perspective Project to be highly beneficial and led to improvements in student learning.” – Dr. Wilson
A list of instructors and their Perspective Project courses are below.
Jessica Mercado, Continuing Lecturer, Department of English
ENGL 108 – First-Year Composition
Mary “Erin” Hoying, Clinical Assistant Professor
NUR 414 - Pediatric Nursing
Kelley Bailey, Senior Lecturer, Department of Public Health
PUBH 205 - Basic Public Health Studies
Vanesa Cañete Jurado, Assistant Professor of Teaching, School of Languages and Cultures
SCLA 102 – Transformative Texts: Critical Thinking & Communication II: Modern World
Robin Tanamachi, Associate Professor, Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
EAPS 22700 - Introduction to Atmospheric Observations and Measurements
Andrew Pierce, Senior Lecturer
EPICS 10100-49000
Reed Kurtz, Introduction to Environmental Policy
POL 223 - Introduction to Environmental Policy
Mark Wilson, Clinical Associate Professor
HSCI 22500 – Healthcare Leadership and Safety