The Learn to Flourish Hub is where undergraduate students become co-designers and co-researchers.
Students brainstorm ideas, prototype new approaches, and test them with other students and community members in interactive co-design sessions. They return with feedback and refine their ideas. Then, their innovations become part of our research.
The best part is... students tell us that being part of the Hub strengthens their own flourishing. Through building for others, we build up ourselves.
Our team brings together researchers, educators, graduate students, and undergraduate students.
Meet the team that shapes future Human Flourishing experiences.
What does flourishing look like when young adults help define it?
We're developing a new scientific measure of human flourishing grounded in our four capacities: Presence, Agency, Community, and Purpose. Starting with items written by students who have taken our human flourishing course, we'll refine and test the measure to create a valid, reliable tool that reflects how young adults understand and experience flourishing.
For many students, regular mindfulness meditation can feel unapproachable or unrealistic.
We're developing and evaluating new mindfulness practices grounded in Self-Determination Theory to support students' autonomy, competence, and belonging. Co-created with students, these practices aim to make mindfulness more engaging and easier to sustain.
Engineering teams work best when students understand not only how to solve problems together, but how to understand one another.
We're developing a flourishing-based module that can be embedded directly into engineering courses to help students recognize different patterns of responding to stress and how they show up in teamwork. Through reflection and team-based practices, the module aims to build empathy, connection, and stronger collaboration among engineering students.
On October 22nd @ Webster's Bookstore Cafe in downtown State College we're bringing together Penn State students and community members to explore what it means to cultivate purpose. Through conversation and co-design, participants will help us revise tools and practices for strengthening purpose in youth that we can embed into our studies.
Student-athletes face distinctive challenges as they balance performance and well-being.
Next fall, we'll offer a section of our undergraduate human flourishing course designed specifically for Penn State student-athletes. We're working to adapt the curriculum and design a study that will evaluate its impact on well-being, identity, and team connection.