The History of Personal Empowerment – A Case Study at the University of Dubuque
The need for social and emotional learning (SEL) is quickly growing at all levels of education from preschool to post-secondary programs. Research has shown SEL programming to produce positive outcomes for post-secondary students including academic success and overall well-being (Brown & Schutte, 2006). The major goals of SEL are to develop the whole person, establish a thriving community and culture, and improve pressing societal challenges.
The University of Dubuque (UD) is a regionally accredited, private, American, and Christian university located in Dubuque, Iowa. In the mid-90's, the University was on the verge of closing and needed to make radical changes to remain viable. Institutional leadership chose a path of social and emotional learning to dramatically transform the campus in a time of crisis. In 1998, Reverend Dr. Jeffery Bullock was selected as the 11th President of the University and was charged with leading this historical transformation. He recognized that the demographics and needs of twenty-first-century learners were changing and he focused his attention on educating and forming the whole student. One of the first courses of action was changing the university’s mission, vision, and strategic plan. Through this strategic shift, a unique social and emotional learning initiative was created that focused on academics, vocation, community, and stewardship. This initiative opened the door to new opportunities including the creation of the Personal Empowerment Program which focused on the social and emotional needs of the campus community by establishing intentional forms of learning.
Twin Cities RISE! (Responsible, Independent, Skilled, Employed), based out of St. Paul, Minnesota, originally developed the Personal Empowerment Program to reduce poverty through job training and relational skill development. In 2002, Twin Cities RISE! (TCR) launched the Empowerment Institute to conduct emotional intelligence training, and license their signature social and emotional learning programming. UD was one of TCR’s early clients, starting their partnership in 2007. UD understood the importance of providing social and emotional learning to students, faculty, staff, and administrators and began with a TCR workshop that trained a small group of the institution’s faculty, staff, and administrators.
UD found success in this experience and continued to provide in-house training while utilizing TCR’s curricula. In January 2013, Dr. Liza Johnson, Associate Director of Career Services at UD, completed the TCR workshop with the intent of learning ways to address the employability skill gap for college students entering the workplace. An annual report from the World Economic Forum (2020) noted that social and emotional capabilities such as self-management, resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility are highly desired employability skills. Explicit emotional intelligence training is one such method to develop these career-based decision-making and employability skills (Di Fabio & Kenny, 2015). By developing actionable SEL strategies, students improve their chances of finding and maintaining employment, and navigating job-related challenges.
Named Director of Personal Empowerment in 2014, Dr. Liza Johnson expanded the Personal Empowerment Program to serve the entire UD campus, and the surrounding Dubuque community. Later that year, the curriculum committee approved ‘Personal Empowerment,’ a three-credit undergraduate course and shortly after, the first Personal Empowerment course ran with two Personal Empowerment instructors teaching the course.
Though the program was successful, expansion was limited due to financial constraints as it was a significant investment to continue the partnership with TCR regarding training and licensing fees. Permission was sought to develop new curriculum and training methods in order to ensure program expansion and longevity. Curriculum was developed in 2018 and published in 2020 by Six Seconds: The Emotional Intelligence Network. The curriculum entitled Know. Choose. Give.: A practical guide for personal and professional success using the six seconds emotional intelligence framework (aka KCG Program - Johnson, 2020) provided the opportunity to expand the Personal Empowerment Program without financial limitations. Furthermore, this created an opportunity for other institutions to adopt or adapt the KCG Program to start social and emotional learning programs at their own establishments.
As the program at UD evolved, additional faculty, staff, and administrators learned to effectively implement social and emotional learning into their courses and/or specific areas within the campus community. Furthermore, based on additional University-level strategic planning, Personal Empowerment was added to the General Education coursework circa 2019.
In 2017, the Dubuque Police Department examined the role of the Personal Empowerment Program in its staff training. They provided officers with social and emotional skills training, but expressed a need to implement more explicit training in this area. One major aim was to build stronger relationships within the police force by using a common SEL vocabulary with practical tools and strategies. Subsequently, an agreement was reached for Dr. Johnson and her staff to provide training for the department through several emotional intelligence and small group facilitation workshops. Since the initial training in 2017, the program has expanded within the police department and to other city departments.
In 2019, the Dubuque Community School District expressed interest in the University of Dubuque’s Personal Empowerment Program to better promote social and emotional learning for educators, administrators, and district employees. Later in 2019, the Personal Empowerment Program agreed to provide training to the district. The trainings led to further expansion of the program throughout the school district.
The Personal Empowerment Program has continuously evolved to meet the wants and needs of the UD campus and the broader Dubuque community with the hope that those who have received the training will use it to empower their own communities. As of 2022, the Personal Empowerment Program includes four distinct divisions:
- 1.
A sixteen-week professional development workshop offered to faculty, staff, and administrators
- 2.
A certification program to train faculty, staff, and administrators to facilitate and implement social and emotional learning
- 3.
A sixteen-week undergraduate course
- 4.
Social and emotional learning support and consultation services for interested community stakeholders
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the evidence-based, campus-wide social and emotional learning program in depth. Additionally, this chapter addresses a prominent gap in the literature in applying SEL in post-secondary educational contexts (Conley, 2015). The chapter will also provide a model for higher education institutions to review and consider for adoption and/or adaptation within their own programs of study.