From the JAYwalk
First-Year Students to Be Introduced to ‘Strengths’
This year, the Student Involvement Office will introduce another tool in the toolbox of supporting incoming students. StrengthsFinder for students, from Gallup, is designed to help them discover and develop their strengths to reach their full potential.
Nancy Bihl Rutkowski, director of student leadership and first-year foundations, is overseeing the campus introduction of the strengths-based philosophy developed by psychologist Don Clifton in the 1950s. “I’ve used Strengths in my leadership courses for years and benefited from it immensely in my own professional development. I’m excited to see our students get the chance to apply this to their own lives,” Rutkowski says.
All students will take the self-assessment to help identify their career, vocational, academic, and college success goals, and it can be used with advisors and in the first-year UC 160 courses.
“Younger people want to live out their mission in a meaningful way,” says Casandra Fritzsche, a higher education consultant with Gallup. “This is a unique way to celebrate students.”