Failure is normal, colleges stress to students

Associated Press

WALTHAM, Mass.

Bentley University has plenty of success stories among its faculty and alumni. But one recent evening, the school invited students to hear about the failures.

Speaking to a crowded auditorium, one professor recounted the time he sank a $21 million company. Another recalled failing her college statistics course. One graduate described his past struggles with drug addiction. Each story reinforced the same message: Even successful people sometimes fail.

“Failure is normal. It’s healthy. And I think people on this panel would argue it actually is transformative,” Peter Forkner, director of Bentley’s counseling center, told students. “If you’re not failing, it probably means that you’re not taking enough risks.”

Bentley, a private business school near Boston, joins a growing number of U.S. colleges trying to ease students’ anxieties around failure and teach them to cope with it. On many campuses, it’s meant to combat climbing rates of stress, depression and other problems that have been blamed on reduced resilience or grit among younger generations.

Across the country, campus mental-health officials report today’s students appear to have a harder time bouncing back from adversity. Counseling centers have seen surging demand, often from students overwhelmed by everyday stresses. Professors have raised concerns about students’ fragility when it comes to receiving bad grades.

“Anxiety is rising like crazy,” said Nance Roy, a psychologist who works with colleges through the Jed Foundation, a nonprofit mental-health group. “For many students, it’s the first time they’re navigating independently away from home, and if they also don’t have basic life skills, it’s sort of a perfect storm.”

Colleges have responded with an array of programs meant to boost resilience and help students catch up on life skills.