Now in its seventh year, “The Art and Science of Human Flourishing,” a semester-long course taken by 2,000 Penn State students to date, was linked to improved indicators of student mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in a recent study. The course is currently offered at 14 Penn State campuses and six other universities across the U.S.

In spring 2020, a team of researchers at Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Madison surveyed 296 students who had previously taken the course at one of three universities in 2018 or 2019 about their mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Based on the responses, researchers assigned the participants standardized scores for anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as for flourishing indicators. Compared to a statistically matched group of students who had not taken the course, the researchers found that students who had taken the course scored better, with statistically significant scores of increased flourishing, less anxiety and fewer depressive symptoms during the lockdown. In other words, the researchers said, students who took the course either 5 or 17 months prior to the pandemic seemed to fare better mentally and emotionally during lockdown than students who had not taken the course.

The team published their findings in JAMA Network Open. Co-author Robert Roeser, a Bennett Pierce Professor of Caring and Compassion at Penn State, is one of three experts who created the course. Roeser and Penn State Assistant Research Professor Blake Colaianne worked with colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Virginia to evaluate the course.

In the Q&A below, Roeser and Colaianne discussed their approach to teaching flourishing and their hopes to expand the reach of the course to many more students. 

Q: Why do you think students who took the course prior to the COVID-19 pandemic reported indicators of better mental health during lockdown?

Roeser: Students learn skill sets and mindsets that can have a beneficial effect on their well-being, and they can have a lasting effect, even during a global pandemic.

The skillsets that science has shown are important for flourishing include things like attentional focus, mindful awareness, empathy, and perspective taking. The mindsets that are important for flourishing include a compassionate attitude towards oneself and others, and a sense of shared humanity, for example, we all wish to be happy, and no one wishes to suffer.

Q: What do you mean by flourishing? Is it the same as happiness?

Roeser: Flourishing brings together what’s sometimes called a hedonic view of well-being — which is feeling good — with a eudaimonic view of well-being — which is about experiencing fulfillment and a sense of purpose through meaningful relationships, intrinsically motivating activities, one’s accomplishments and engagement in one’s world. Essentially, “flourishing” refers to feeling good about one’s life and experiencing a sense of fulfillment in multiple areas of life.

Q: What do students have the opportunity to learn when they take “The Art and Science of Human Flourishing”?

Roeser: The focus is learning about how we can consciously cultivate skills and mindsets that lead to a healthy mind and body. The course isn’t saccharine sweet. It’s not trying to sell you a bill of goods about how to be happy. It suggests that life is filled with both joys and sorrows, difficulties and triumphs, and it explores how we can embrace both of those and experience flourishing despite these inevitable ups and downs in life.

We live in a culture where happiness is often conditional on something else — other people’s praise, getting money, fame, the usual suspects. It is not that these things are unimportant, but rather this course says that there is also a kind of happiness that is unconditional, and it’s already your birthright. We want to teach individuals how to work with their embodied minds so they can perhaps realize a kind of happiness that isn’t dependent on external circumstances.

Colaianne: I love what Rob said. College students talk all the time about how competition plays a central role in their lives. They feel pressure to get the scholarship, get the internship and build an impressive resume. It’s a “compare and despair” culture. The course creates a space for students to wrestle with that, give it a name and know they are not alone. It provides an alternative avenue to flourishing.

Q: In the past seven years, the course has gone from being offered at three college campuses to now 20 campuses, as well as online. To what do you attribute this demand for the course?

Colaianne: I think there are three key ingredients. First, college students want to talk about life. They want to talk about who they are. They want wisdom. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. I think, developmentally, they’re yearning for this, and no one’s talking to them about it. There’s a natural motivation that they bring to the table to understand what it means to be fully human.

Second, the students learn several different mindfulness practices, and they are assigned to practice them and share with us reflections on how it went. They tell us how they use these practices in stressful situations, such as before an exam or after a romantic breakup. So, there seems to be a good fit between these practices and what’s happening in their real lives, which can make it motivating to come to class and learn more.

When they tell us about these experiences in their weekly journals and we give them feedback on their experiences, there’s this natural student-teacher relationship that’s built that is unique and important. We have an opportunity to converse with them about life and offer some of our own experiences along the road. We can provide validation and affirmation in a unique way and let them know we are also on the same journey of flourishing as they are.

Third, the classroom provides a sense of community. There seems to be a spontaneous desire to share. I have students who will do their meditations with their roommates. When parents hear about the course from their children, they ask if a version could be developed for parents, too.

Roeser: When you combine these three elements, there’s some magic that happens.

Q: How can other universities adopt this course?

Colaianne: Our goal is to get the course to as many students as we can. Professors at other universities have reached out to us and are now implementing the course. We have also offered it over Zoom, and we recently found that students who take the course via Zoom actually show similar benefits to those who take it in person. That study was accepted by the Journal of American College Health and will be published later this year.

Q: Are there other related courses that Penn State students can take?

Roeser: Recently, we have developed a certificate program in prevention and flourishing that will be offered soon. This program will provide students with additional courses that they can take after the flourishing course to deepen their knowledge and to do so in a way that supports career trajectories into education, prevention work, and social entrepreneurship. Penn State students are also welcome to take HDFS497, “The Art and Science of Care and Compassion.”

The expansion of our courses on flourishing is funded in part by Kevin and Karen Lynch and the Edna Bennett Pierce Chair in Caring and Compassion. The generosity of these benefactors has touched the lives of many students. We’d also like to thank the Department of Human Development and Family Studies and the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Center for their support.