The Dispatch
The Happiness Index
How universities are improving student happiness and the ways such data are being collected beyond traditional surveys.
By Nick Harland
“One of the many challenges surrounding student wellbeing is that it can never take on a one-size-fits-all approach."
“When people are fulfilled, they perform better, innovate more and build stronger, more sustainable businesses."
A decade or so ago, when Ira Bedzow was building his career in real estate, he could scarcely have imagined the path his career would have taken since then. Bedzow no longer works in the same industry, which is fairly normal, as the modern generation changes jobs more frequently than ever before. The most fascinating thing about Bedzow’s career change - he’s now working in a role that was barely conceivable even a decade ago.
Today, Bedzow is the Executive Director of the Purpose Project, part of the Student Flourishing initiative at Emory University in the US. The initiative helps students get the most out of their time at college by supporting them in four pillars: academic experience, community and wellbeing, purpose and meaning, and professional pathways. It’s an example of the new, modern approach to student wellbeing at universities: one that goes beyond surveys and towards a more complex, data-driven approach.
"The intention behind the Student Flourishing initiative was to reimagine university education [as a wider experience], as opposed to university education being simply giving students information in their classes,” Bedzow tells QS Insights Magazine. For instance, Emory’s community and wellbeing pillar isn’t just about providing mental and physical health services to students, he points out. “It’s also about social atomisation and alienation, and the effects they have on our health. Looking at it in terms of what health and wellness looks like as communities and not simply as individuals."
The initiative starts from day zero of a student’s time at Emory. When they first set foot on campus, they will have the opportunity to attend a pre-orientation meeting with more senior students. In these meetings, students discuss their personal motivations for coming to Emory and what they’re hoping to get out of their degree beyond a piece of paper. This approach differs from the norm - students don’t go to a purpose class or attend a wellbeing workshop. Instead, the four pillars are integrated within existing curriculumand become part of each university programme.
Bedzow is responsible for the pillar of purpose and meaning, where he works with students to strategise on achieving things in life that are “meaningful to them and consequential for their world”. While it might sound intense for 18-year old undergrads, Bedzow argues that it’s absolutely necessary for the current generation of students. "It gives them the confidence and the contentment to pursue things that speak to who they are and who they want to be, with the empowerment that they know how to get there. Or at the very least, we're helping to show them how they can get there.”
Yet one of the many challenges surrounding student wellbeing is that it can never take on a one-size-fits-all approach. What works for a first-year fine art student may not work for a 30-year old MBA student, who are at different points in their lives and careers. Universities are now starting to understand that. Life Design for the Modern MBA is a new course at Emory, which aims to help MBA students find a better work-life balance after they graduate.
”When you are graduating from your MBA program in the US, you are getting really close to having a family - if that's the choice you're making,” explains course leader Marina Cooley, who is also Assistant Professor in the Practice of Marketing. “So we have to prepare students a little more for what a good work-life balance looks like, and what different options are available to manage both family and career."
Work-life balance isn’t the only consideration of the Life Design course, however. It also factors in the responsibilities that these students will have in their post-MBA career. “Everything about the curriculum is geared towards people that will be middle managers, almost immediately on hire,” Cooley explains. “They will have direct reports straight away, and they will be managing the Gen Z workforce, who have much different expectations of work-life balance. It means you have to learn how to motivate people to work the hours that they're willing to work.”
It’s still early days as Student Flourishing was launched in 2021 and Life Design for the Modern MBA began in 2023, but the initial signs suggest these initiatives are working well. Cooley’s course is already oversubscribed, while Bedzow’s measures of success - student satisfaction, retention, contentment - are all on the rise. Emory was also recently ranked as the 7th happiest university in the country by The Princeton Review.
Wellbeing initiatives in higher education are not just limited to single university departments. The Happiness Business School is - as you can probably guess - an entire business school dedicated to happiness. Students at the Lisbon-based institution can learn how to implement an Organisational Happiness Plan, become an officially-certified Happiness Manager, or even study an entire MBA in Organisational Happiness. According to Executive Director Madalena Carey, the idea behind these courses is that they will have a knock-on effect on future generations of workers.
“When people are fulfilled, they perform better, innovate more and build stronger, more sustainable businesses,” she says. “When universities prioritise wellbeing, they don’t just create happier students: they create future leaders who demand the same from their workplaces.”
Although Carey, Cooley and Bedzow are approaching the topic from different angles, one issue binds them together: the difficulty in measuring happiness. Traditionally, schools might have just used surveys, where students are asked to rate their happiness out of 10. But such surveys only reflect their happiness at that given moment, and doesn’t really reflect its complex nature. “Happiness isn’t an end point - it’s a journey,” points out Carey.
Both Bedzow and Cooley admit that it may take several years to gather enough data to really measure the success of their programmes. And even then, there are so many metrics out there that it can be difficult to focus on the right ones. Many universities are therefore leaning on external companies to help them gather and analyse the right data.
Leo Hanna is the Executive Vice President UK of TechnologyOne, a firm which develops software solutions for large organisations such as universities. He says that many universities are still struggling to “connect the dots” when it comes to student wellbeing.
“When engagement data sits alone, early warning signs - like a drop in attendance or missed deadlines - can be overlooked,” he says. “But when schools take a proactive, data-driven approach, they can intervene early and take meaningful action.” He adds that this not only helps students feel supported, but can also improve retention rates and overall course satisfaction.
Being able to accurately measure happiness will be increasingly important for universities in the coming years. Students today are facing a unique cocktail of challenges - economic uncertainty, financial stress, digital overload - and growing drop-out rates across the globe suggest that universities aren’t dealing with them well enough.
Yet there’s more to it than that. This increased focus on happiness also reflects a generational shift in attitudes towards work and study. Whether or not universities can adapt to it will surely prove to be their biggest challenge. "Students today are so savvy about the kind of lives they want to live,” says Cooley. “And I think they're looking at a lot of people in my millennial generation and Gen X and they're like: whatever that is, I don't want that. I want to build something different."
