It is a joy to welcome Dr. Jessica Moon Asa to the podcast! Jessica is Director of the Honors & Scholars Programs at the University of Northern Iowa. In this role she provides leadership to the University Honors Program and several scholarship cohorts including Bright Scholars, Legacy Scholars, and Presidential Scholars.
She teaches a Capstone course called “The Life of the University,” a Presidential Scholars community engagement course - which is a year-long community engagement experience for sophomore presidential scholars, and she has also taught Masters courses in the Postsecondary Education: Student Affairs Masters program at the University of Northern Iowa.
In this episode Jessica shares a holistic approach to student development, including ways that she supports the well-being and intellectual risk taking of high-achieving students. She provides rich examples from her community-engagement focused teaching, as well as how they are providing first-year Honors students with erasers that remind them that “it is okay to make mistakes.” Drawing upon the scholarship of Dr. Laurie Schreiner on Thriving - Jessica offers a clear framework for how we can support students’ academic, psychological, and interpersonal well-being.
Resources on Dr. Laurie Schreiner's Scholarship on Thriving:
The Thriving Project
https://www.thrivingincollege.org/
The "Thriving Quotient": A New Vision for Student Success
https://www.wellesley.edu/sites/default/files/assets/departments/studentlife/files/thriving_overview.pdf
Gratitude:
A big thanks to the UNI John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (UNI JPEC) and especially Patrick Luensmann, Associate Director of JPEC for letting us use their brand new podcasting studio for Teaching in 10! Thank you!