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  • Thriving in Transitions: A Research-Based Approach to College Student Success ed. by Laurie Schreiner, Michelle Louis, Denise Nelson
  • Amy Barnes
Thriving in Transitions: A Research-Based Approach to College Student Success. Laurie Schreiner, Michelle Louis, and Denise Nelson (Editors). Columbia, South Carolina: National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, 2012, 216pages, $35.00 (softcover)

An increasing number of students are coming to our campuses with mental health concerns today (Kadison & DiGeronimo, 2004). Until recently, the majority of research has focused on diagnosing the problems that students are facing and generating solutions that are often reactive and address only what is wrong with students. Instead, why not learn from highly successful, engaged students about why they are resilient to the stress of college and [End Page 220] incorporate those findings into a proactive approach to mental health and well-being? In this engaging book edited by Laurie Schreiner, Michelle Louis, and Denise Nelson, the authors of each chapter present findings on the perspectives of successful students and provide student affairs administrators with tangible recommendations for how to encourage more students to “thrive” on our campuses.

Thriving students are those who are “vitally engaged in the college endeavor—intellectually, socially, and emotionally” (p. 4). This concept, rooted in positive psychology and a strengths-based approach to student development, is a state of psychological well-being in which students are likely to achieve success in life as well as in areas important to college persistence, academic engagement, and positive interpersonal relationships. The Thriving Quotient, a 35-item instrument created as a result of research that explored successful students’ perceptions of experiences, and used in the studies highlighted in this book, measures aspects of students’ academic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal engagement and well-being.

Thriving in Transition: A Research-Based Approach to College Student Success is a compilation of research in which the Thriving Quotient is used to measure positive student functioning with data coming from a large-scale research effort called The Thriving Project. In the spring of 2009, undergraduates at 27 public and private colleges and universities around the nation completed the Thriving Quotient. The resulting data was analyzed for specific populations during times of transition and the findings and recommendations are presented in this book in order to assist higher education faculty and professionals in designing interventions that support student thriving.

The book’s emphasis on transition periods is particularly useful to practitioners because of the additional stress that students often experience during these times of change. As the editors note, “If students can successfully cope through times of transition by approaching these changes, equipped with the ability to see challenges as opportunities for growth and learning, they will be more likely to thrive in other aspects of their lives” (p. 9). In this volume with an introduction by Jillian Kinzie, the editors have organized the chapters to progress through an introduction to strengths development and then onto a series of nine chapters highlighting specific transition periods students encounter in college. The book concludes with a summary of recommendations for practitioners.

The first chapter, written by Schreiner, provides the framework for the book in describing the nature of transitions and introducing thriving as an expanded view of student success. The second chapter, written by Louis and Schreiner, introduces the reader to a strengths-based perspective that advocates leveraging the positive qualities of individuals in order to enhance success. According to the strengths-based perspective, helping students realize their positive potential and natural strengths results in behavioral changes which empower individuals to flourish rather than just survive. By developing students’ strengths, you are “energizing them to become engaged in the learning experience, to invest the effort necessary to success, and to connect with others in positive ways” (p. 21).

The subsequent chapters, written by the editors along with additional authors Deb Vetter, Kristin Parades-Collins, Rishi Sriram, Sharyn Slavin Miller, Tamera L. Pullins, Troy L Seppelt, Eric McIntosh, and Eileen Hulme, highlight the specific research that utilized the Thriving Quotient as it relates to students who are experiencing transitions in college. Some of these transitions are part of the timeline of the college experience (first...

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