Q&A: Emily Perlow, on Addressing Issues Important to Students

What do you think it’s like to be a student on campus these days?

On any day of the week, you’ll find students studying with friends in the Rubin Campus Center (RCC), lounging in the newly opened hammock park behind the RCC (thanks to the generosity of the Class of 2022), prototyping in the Innovation Studio makerspace, attending choir practice, meeting an employer in the Heebner Career Development Center, or raising awareness about their clubs at a table near the fountain. One of the things I often tell prospective students and parents is that this is a place where students—no matter their interest, identity, faith, or hobby—can find “their people.” And while many things have changed over the years, WPI is still the place where smart, multi-talented people gather to make the world a better place.

What issues are important to today’s students, and how is WPI addressing those issues?

Today’s student body is the most diverse in our history. As the university becomes more diverse, it becomes equally important that opportunities are created for commonality building, connection, and a sense of belonging. WPI students bring with them a spectrum of cultures, genders, nationalities, and religious faiths. They are also more socially active around the issues of mental health, human rights, and climate change. In particular, mental health is top of mind with this generation.

The students help make WPI better by encouraging the institution to consider new and different strategies to meet their needs. To make sure all solutions included student voices, this year we started hosting Herd Huddles—events that focus on a topic or two that are important to students—and we discuss ways to enhance student experiences. We’ve discussed a range of topics, including the experiences of women students, the campus shuttle, the dining program, and mental health supports. This year, thanks to student voices, we’re launching a composting program. We’ve also worked to ensure there is a gender-inclusive restroom in every academic building on campus.

How do co-curricular activities mirror the project-based learning that students experience in the classroom?

WPI teaches graduates to solve the world’s problems together in groups. We prepare graduates to understand that the best solutions involve many voices, balance many competing needs, and identify the best possible solution given all the constraints and opportunities.

We take the same approach in the co-curricular. Whether students are talking with their roommates, planning an event for their student organization, or serving on a campus committee, it’s important they learn that their voice matters and, simultaneously, they must also take into account other voices when crafting the best strategy forward. This means practicing good communication, taking time to listen to others’ needs, and weighing the pros and cons of all possible options.

This is also an opportunity to teach students design-thinking strategies such as prototyping. Just as a student might do in a class project, sometimes the first effort to machine a part or develop code or run the experiment doesn’t produce the desired results. What matters is what you do in that moment to modify the prototype and try again after taking in all the information.

How can parents help students become more resilient?

The concept of prototyping plays a big role for students in their personal journeys, too. There’s so much pressure in high school to get the best grades, participate in a lot of activities, and never make a mistake. When students come to WPI, we tell them there are no failing grades and we encourage them to take risks, try things that are hard to do, and be open to pivoting when things aren’t going as planned.

The ability to unlearn everything from high school and be open to prototyping requires psychological flexibility and resilience. For instance, if they’d seen only a one-way path to success in high school, if things don’t go well at WPI at first (say, they fail that first calculus or physics test), it can cause them a lot of stress for fear of failing or falling behind.

The best thing parents can do is to start to build this psychological flexibility and resilience among middle school and high school-age children. Rather than pushing for perfection or making success feel like a zero-sum game, consider ways to help students reflect on what they might do differently. I’d also encourage parents to challenge their children to take some calculated risks—rather than taking the class where they know they’ll get an A, encourage them to take the most challenging class. Learning to connect with their peers in healthy ways is really important, too. Parents can help by talking about what healthy friendships and dating relationships look like and helping their kids practice meeting new people and striking up conversations. They can build independence by asking their kids to take on such tasks as booking barber appointments, taking the car in for an oil change, or cooking a meal for the family once in a while.

What recent initiatives have been successful in supporting student mental health?

Every few years, WPI conducts a survey of our students that asks about satisfaction with campus resources as well as with student habits. In 2019, the data told us that at times some students were staying up all night to do academic work, skipping meals, and feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Since then, WPI has opened a Center for Well-Being, which offers many programs and initiatives to support student wellness, changed the physical education requirement to include numerous wellness offerings, and increased efforts to encourage help-seeking and use of campus resources.

Post-pandemic, the campus has rebounded with numerous activities and events happening every day. We’ve also created new spaces for connection such as a gaming lounge, the Lavender Lounge to support our LGBTQIAP+ community, the Center for Black Excellence, and a new Muslim prayer room. As a result of these efforts, we’ve seen great gains. When we conducted the survey again in 2023, we found more students were sleeping regularly, more were taking time to eat healthy meals, and fewer were reporting high levels of stress and anxiety. On a measure of well-being, they reported they’re flourishing on average more than typical college students. We still have more work to do, but I am proud of the ways we’re helping students be “more well.”