The Compassion Project

Cohort: 2021
Fellow: Natalie Czimskey

In a Gallup poll of UT alumni (2014), only 15-17% of UT alumni strongly believed that faculty cared about them as a person. The Gallup report (2014) relayed information on various measures of alumni well-being. Gallup found that college experience was more likely to correlate to alumni well-being than the type of university attended. Having a professor who they believed cared about them as a person was the number one driving factor in alumni well-being. This means there is long-term impact to the short-term care of our students. I want to evaluate how students feel cared for by faculty and educate faculty on these behaviors in attempt to create a more compassionate educational setting, ultimately driving student (and later, alumni) well-being. Evidence from psychology studies indicates that compassion is trainable (e.g., Weng et al., 2013), while evidence from allied health fields shows that patients’ relationship with their provider is often the most therapeutic aspect of the health care encounter (Tresolini & Pew-Fetzer Task Force, 1994). I believe this is true in education as well; the student relationship (perception of care/compassion) from the instructor may be more important than the instructional method. Utilizing input from students, we can directly train compassion and utilize a compassionate relationship with students to drive student perception of care and compassion, and thus, student well-being.