Book Review: Thriving in Transitions (2nd Edition)

Jennifer Keup, Executive Director of the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, reviews the second edition of Thriving in Transitions: A Research-Based Approach to College Student Success by Laurie A. Schreiner, Denise D. Nelson, Michelle C. Louis, with citations, and discusses the book’s central concept of thriving. 

We have all heard the story of how, in “the old days” of higher education, campus faculty and staff used to tell students to “look to your left, look to your right,…one of the three of you won’t be here next year.” Sadly, this commitment to exclusivity was a hallmark of the early history of higher education in the United States and a perspective that lurked in the corners of practice, even as higher education took great strides to widen access and emphasize success for all students. Therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that “the roots of student success theories [remain] anchored in models of student persistence and graduation,” (Kinzie in Schreiner, Louis, and Nelson, 2020, p. 4). Thus, it appears that higher education may have perfected the game of Survivor long before reality television emerged on the entertainment scene.

Certainly, no one can argue that persistence and graduation are critical benchmarks for student success. However, a completion-only focus can overlook other meaningful aspects and goals of college education such as cognitive and affective development; introduction and advancement of lifelong learning skills; cultivation of employability competencies; exploration and edification of identity; and meaningful growth with respect to interpersonal relationships and social connection. As such, “the contemporary challenge of student success demands more theorizing, advanced definitions, enriched models, and practical approaches and interventions to help more students succeed,” (Kinzie in Schreiner, Louis, and Nelson, 2020, p. 2). The recently-released (2020) second edition of Thriving in Transitions: A Research-Based Approach to College Student Success edited by Laurie A. Schreiner, Michelle C. Louis, and Denise D. Nelson and published by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition is a response to this challenge.

Thriving in Transitions takes a different approach to understanding the tenets of college student success. It is rooted in the theoretical tradition of positive psychology and bolstered by analyses of quantitative data collected for over a decade via the Thriving Project at Azusa Pacific University. The construct of student thriving is inclusive of academic components such as engaged learning and academic determinism; interpersonal elements, including social connectedness and diverse citizenship; and positive psychological perspective. Drawing upon these various theoretical components, “thriving redefines student success as being fully engaged intellectually, socially, and emotionally; experiencing a sense of psychological well-being that leads not only to persistence and graduation, but also to being able to contribute meaningfully to society,” (Schreiner in Schreiner, Louis, and Nelson, 2020, p. 20). Furthermore, all of the elements of thriving represent learned skills rather than innate traits, thereby fully supporting a student success model dedicated to equity in which all students are capable of thriving.

Jillian Kinzie, Associate Director Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), begins the book with an introduction that interrogates long-standing assumptions around student success. This review of the theoretical models that historically provide the foundation for our institutional approach to supporting students culminates in a plea for a more inclusive approach dedicated to providing a rich, holistic, optimized undergraduate experience for all students. In chapters 1-3, the editors of the book—Laurie Schreiner (Professor and Chair of the Department of Higher Education at Azusa Pacific University), Michelle Louis (Consultant in education and leadership development), and Denise Nelson (Director of the Library at Point Loma Nazarene University)—partner with Deb Vetter and Matthew Vetter to introduce the theory of thriving and explain its component parts. These chapters outline transitions in higher education and its role as fertile ground for a thriving-based approach to student success and offer an empirically rich treatment of thriving in the first year as a “window of opportunity [that] should draw institutions’ focused efforts because it is the point at which supportive initiatives may have the most powerful long-term effects,” (Nelson, Vetter, & Vetter in Schreiner, Louis, & Nelson, 2020, p. 53). 

Additionally, these chapters provide rich theoretical content balanced with discussions of institutional interventions such as advising, first-year seminars, service-learning, learning communities, and career development initiatives, which makes thriving a relevant and useful construct for both scholars and practitioners. They also explore thriving as it relates to teaching and learning practices; interactions with faculty, staff, and peers; strengths development models of student success; involvement, psychological sense of community, and belonging; and students’ spirituality. All of the authors of these chapters draw upon the fact that a thriving-based approach to student success draws connections across various areas of research in higher education and helps integrate campus support structures for students.

Much of the remainder of the book is dedicated to an exploration and exposition of thriving as it relates to various student sub-populations of common interest to campus higher education scholars and campus leaders. All of these chapters continue to draw upon the notion of transitions in higher education as critical junctures in the educational pipeline, and unique opportunities for postsecondary student learning and development where the concept of thriving can be especially useful. Three separate chapters address specific transition points beyond the first-year experience.

First, Laurie Schreiner, editor of the volume, partners with two other authors to present the value of thriving as a means of helping students and institutions address, and even avoid, the “sophomore slump.” Another of the book editors, Denise Nelson, co-authors a chapter on how thriving can help maximize the transfer transition to a new campus. Yet another of the editors on the book, Michelle Louis, partners on a chapter that discusses how thriving fits into the senior year of college such that it represents both a meaningful culmination of the undergraduate experience and an effective transition into the world of work, graduate school, and other personal, academic, and professional post-graduate plans. Two other chapters reframe transition from year to year and instead focus on the potential for thriving to aid with “the daily transitions from one culture to another” that are generally experienced by students from historically marginalized populations, such as students of color at predominantly white institutions (chapter 4) and at-risk populations (chapter 5).

The second volume of Thriving in Transitions: A Research-Based Approach to College Student Success does an excellent job of drawing upon empirical data, advancing theory, and informing practice by fully exploring the important convergence of thriving and transitions for students, faculty, staff, and institutions overall. The authors effectively use the theory to move away from deficit-based models and capitalize on non-cognitive measures to advance a strengths-based approach to student success. As such, thriving represents a more equitable way of conceptualizing student success, provides a new lens for higher education scholarship, and represents an effective model for institutional support of student learning, development, and transitions.