Bluffton University

Mental health and emotional well-being were explored by the Bluffton community during the 2023-24 academic year. 

According to the World Health Organization, mental health conditions are increasing across the world. Those concerning increases are mirrored in the U.S. college student population, with a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study finding that 42% of students in 2021 felt persistently sad or hopeless.

As we explore mental health and emotional well-being during the 2023-24 year, we address a broad range of questions such as: What are the underlying causes of mental health challenges, and how might they be addressed? How can students struggling with mental health conditions best be served? How can a wide-ranging consideration of emotional well-being aid students as they make decisions and navigate challenging life experiences? What resources and tools do students and the broader population need as they navigate these challenges? How can people learn the basic skills needed to navigate new situations so that they lessen stress and anxiety? What approaches can help people feel agency as they make decisions among competing choices?

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For the 2022-23 year, our campus community explored how we can evaluate evidence and competing claims to work toward a shared understanding.

We have all been in a conversation with a friend about a past event we’ve shared together when we’re shocked to learn that they remember the situation much differently that we do. These differences in perception affect many parts of our lives, as we make decisions based on what we think and believe. People in our country seem increasingly to see news events or scientific findings through disparate lenses. Is it possible to find a consensus to move forward together?

For the 2022-23 year, our campus community explored how we can evaluate evidence and competing claims to work toward a shared understanding. Some questions we considered: How do we evaluate various sources of news or information? What standards of evidence can we agree on to help us find our way? Can we find ways to step outside of the echo chamber of views that mirror our own to understand an alternative perspective? When are positions so far from the evidence that we can reject them out of hand?

First-year student Summer reading 

“The Other Wes Moore" chronicles the lives of two men with the same name. Both Wes Moores are black men who grew up in the inner-city communities. Both were raised by single mothers within the same era. So how did one end up a decorated military veteran and academic scholar, and the other a convicted murder with a life sentence?”
Book summary >

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For the 2019-20 academic year, the Bluffton campus community explored how we live with wholeness and joy.

According to the 2018 State of American Well-Being study, Ohio ranks 38th among the states on this well-being index. The five elements measured in the study are as follows:

• Purpose: liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals;
• Social: having supportive relationships and love in your life;
• Financial: managing your economic life to reduce stress and increase security; 
• Community: liking where you live, feeling safe and having pride in your community;
• Physical: having good health and energy to get things done daily.

As these categories suggest, our sense of well-being grows from a complex web of interrelated factors. For the 2019-20 academic year, the Bluffton campus community explored how we live with wholeness and joy.

Some questions that shaped our campus conversation: how do we understand Ohio’s low ranking on this index? What external conditions may contribute to or detract from a sense of well-being? How does a community’s health enrich and intersect with an an individual’s wholeness and joy? How can the various academic disciplines help individuals and communities find wholeness or well-being? How have the various places that we have called “home” differently supported our own well-being? How can any of us use the strengths we and our communities possess to find a greater sense of well-being and joy?

First-year Student Summer Reading

The summer reading text for first year students was The Geography of Bliss (One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World) by Eric Weiner. The author describes his travels around the world to learn why people in various countries are highly ranked on the happiness scale. 
Author's description >

Deserving Happiness: A Wisdom Conversation

Dr. Jackie Wyse-Rhodes was the 2019-20 civic engagement lecturer. She presented at the Presidential Scholarship Competition and planned to speak for Civic Engagement Day before it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In planning her presentation, Dr. Wyse-Rhodes wrote, “The question of how to live a good and meaningful life in the face of human mortality, political instability, and theological doubt is an old question, and a global one. For a community like Bluffton University, who is invested in ecumenical conversations while rooted in an Anabaptist perspective, early Jewish wisdom literature speaks to questions of purpose––how our daily decisions can be motivated by seeking divine presence; to questions of community––how our relationship with money can serve as a diagnostic tool to better understand our persistent anxieties; and to questions of what it means to live as embodied creatures. I argue that biblical wisdom traditions offer a particularly apt model for Bluffton University as we seek to create space for inclusive and incisive dialogue about meaningful living.” 

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For the 2018-19 academic year, our campus community learned about and put into practice ways to listen to each other.

In our divided nation, almost any event seems to spark widely divergent and caustic responses, depending on one’s loyalties. Even among members of the campus community, potentially controversial topics are often avoided to step away from possible conflicts. Yet we recognize that both as followers of Christ and as citizens of a democracy, we are called to listen and learn from each other. But making ourselves vulnerable through really listening to the other is hard. Rather than remaining only in the safe confines of our group, how can we open ourselves to genuine dialogue? When should we offer informed advocacy for a view, presented with honesty and care? How can we listen carefully enough to hear the pain and fears that sometimes are at the core of the person whose position we find objectionable? How might we be sure to listen carefully to minority or unpopular views? How can we apply such vulnerable listening and speaking in our disciplines, our workplaces, our communities? Throughout the 2018-19 year, we will learn about and put into practice ways to listen to each other.

First-year Student Summer Reading

The summer reading text for first year students was Jonas Beiler’s book, “Think No Evil: Inside the Story of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting…and Beyond.” The book is a wonderful account of the Nickel Mines Tragedy with an analysis of how Anabaptist theology, and its focus on forgiveness, is affected by its historical development, and how it is lived out in Amish Anabaptist communities today.  >>> publisher's description

Civic Engagement Lecturer

Marathana Prothro served as the 2018-19 civic engagement lecturer. She presented "Using Ancient Wisdom to Stop Destructive Communication in its Tracks: Reining in Gottman’s Horsemen." 

“My lecture centers on the Four Agreements as described by Don Miguel Ruiz, Jr., and correlates them with what researcher John Gottman describes as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Gottman is a researcher whose emphasis is on the kinds of communication that bring destruction to relationships—criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Each of the Four Agreements directly correlates with a seemingly simple (yet beautifully rich) ‘antidote’ to each of Gottman’s ‘Horsemen.’ Though the Agreements — let your word be impeccable, don’t make assumptions, don’t take anything personally, always do your best — draw from ancient wisdom in an oral culture, they are particularly relevant in a post-modern secondary orality and will give students tangible options for moving away from division and toward understanding, without necessarily compromising.”

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For the 2017-18 anniversary, we explored Bluffton's legacy of honor on campus and among graduates in the context of larger conversations about integrity and truth.

Bluffton's honor code celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2018. For 100 years, Bluffton students were taught to uphold the community of respect throughout their campus interactions.

What habits are formed in the community of Bluffton University that may not be present in other, competing narratives of honor? How do ideas of honor, truth and integrity vary in different contexts and cultures? Can upholding a firm sense of honor ever lead to less than honorable actions? How might integrity and respect be embodied in various disciplines or work contexts? What habits supporting honor and integrity are embedded in our athletic teams and might be applied in other areas? In our careers and professions, how might we treat clients, patients, competitors, suppliers or audiences for "internal" reasons of character and not just compliance to "external" standards?

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For the 2016-17 academic year, the Bluffton campus community explored the role of creativity and the arts in civic engagement.

Author Robert Fulghum has observed that when children are in kindergarten, they all say that they can draw, sing, dance and act. Studies have shown that people’s willingness to engage in the arts and to be creative can decrease dramatically as we get older. Yet we all know that to address our world’s pressing challenges, we need to think creatively, to imagine new possibilities, to see in surprising ways.

During this year we explored the role of creativity and the arts in civic engagement. Certainly a particular focus on fine arts and aesthetics was important in our conversation. For example, in what ways should a discussion about beauty enter into our civic discourse? Who controls the power to define what is “art” or what is aesthetically pleasing? How have particular social change movements been influenced by the arts — and art affected by the controversies of its era?

In addition, we explored how creativity and the imagination infuse all disciplines. For instance, how does an appreciation of beauty shape our interactions with other humans and the natural world? How might creativity be nurtured and applied to seemingly intractable problems, such as our fear of people different from us or global responses to climate change or ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine? More broadly, how can we, whatever our academic discipline, unleash our creative gifts for the purposes of God’s universal kingdom?

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For the 2015-16 academic year, our campus community explored a wide range of gender questions throughout the year.

Few elements of our identity may seem more basic than the “It’s a girl!” or “It’s a boy!” announcement at a birth. Yet we all recognize that gender roles are not fixed across time or consistent across cultures. How do—and should—we determine the roles that women and men play?

In our conversations, classes and presentations, we anticipate exploring a wide range of gender questions throughout the year.  For instance, in the United States and around the world, how do girls and boys differently experience education?  How do boys and girls decide what career to pursue? Is Title IX still important? How do media and advertising portrayals of women and men shape our gender assumptions? Does the gender pay gap persist and, if so, how should we respond? How do women and men understand their roles as parents? What attitudes about masculinity and femininity persist that contribute to the reality of sexual violence? Does a gender binary like man/woman still make the most sense in a contemporary worldview? How can Christian understandings of gender roles inform contemporary conversations regarding gender in the church and the world? 

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For the 2014-15 academic year, our campus community explored just what exactly makes education so important.

Many people view attending elementary through high school as a rite of passage, or "just part of growing up," and that often includes college education as well. But for many others a sound education is not only not a normal part of life, it's not even a possibility. Children around the world are barred from attending school due to poverty, conflict and other reasons. For those of us who have had the opportunity to graduate from high school or higher education, education should not be taken for granted.

Topics throughout the year not only challenged the purpose of education, but sought to reinforce the belief that education is vital to human development. Some speakers, such as "What the Best College Students Do" author Ken Bain and Susan Schultz Huxman, president of Canada's Conrad Grebel University College, explained why a liberal arts education makes a positive difference in our world. Other presentations, like Linda Gojak's lecture on Common Core, addressed the ever-changing world of academia.

Our civic engagement speaker this academic year was Kate Spike, Bluffton's professor of Teaching English to Students of Other Languages. For her, education and lifelong learning don't need to be confined to the classroom. Whether we learn in a classroom, a foreign country or in our own backyard, we'll always be learning as long as we leave our comfort zones and engage with others, she said. 

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For the 2013-14 academic year, our campus community focused on celebrating the particular contributions and experiences of people from varied races and ethnicities.

At the same time, we explored the ongoing struggle in the United States, including our region and our campus, toward equally welcoming people from all racial and ethnic backgrounds. For instance, what do we mean when we use the word "community?" Who is typically included and who is excluded? How do we create a genuinely welcoming community?

Throughout the year, we sought to respond to the challenges before us and identify new opportunities to celebrate our racial and ethnic diversity in ways that help us build more welcoming communities in our region and beyond.

Special guest speakers included Lorene Cary, author of "Black Ice", required reading for first year students; United States Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, whose mother attended Bluffton 50 years ago; the reigning Miss America Nina Davuluri and many others.

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