Greenville College: Strengths-Based Campus
by Helen Kaufmann; photos courtesy of Greenville College

President Jim Mannoia talks with students.

Greenville College is now in its fourth year of using the Gallup Strengths Finder as the focus of its academic program. Although the federal grant that supported the original experiment runs out this month, the college is sold on the program.

"We're committed to being a strengths-based campus," says Nancy Gaines, counselor and coordinator for the program. "Students are talking about their strengths and using them in ways they hadn't before. Faculty and staff are more intentional about looking at their own strengths and helping students to use theirs."

Incoming students first take an Internet-based inventory that identifies their five characteristic areas of strength. The complete list of 34 possible strengths includes such qualities as adaptability, inclusiveness, empathy and self-assurance that are grouped into four categories or "themes." These include relating themes, impacting themes, striving themes and thinking themes.

Next, students receive a basic text titled Strength Quest by Edward "Chip" Anderson, Azusa Pacific University professor, and Donald Clifton, head of the Gallup organization. Throughout their college careers, students take courses that incorporate strengths-building components and receive personal and career counseling based on individual strengths.

Although businesses and corporations had used the Strengths Finder for years, the curriculum Greenville initiated in 2000 represented the program's first comprehensive transfer to an academic setting. "We were the guinea pigs for Gallup," said Karen Longman, dean of the faculty and vice president for academic affairs, who headed the project to bring the tool to Greenville.

The Strengths Finder concept came to the attention of the college just as faculty and administrators were discussing a redesign of the school's general education requirements. The Gallup approach held promise as a tool to help students understand themselves and their goals, and the faculty unanimously approved it.

The restructured curriculum is based on a group of required interdisciplinary courses that incorporate strength-based principles. "One goal of the CORE courses," says Brad Shaw, English professor and director of general education, "is to get students to be self-reflective, to discover who they are — to discover their callings, their purposes in life — and how their strengths complement that."

The first "Strengths Finder" class is now in its senior year, where the emphasis will be on practical applications of the strengths-based approach. Students will reflect on the strengths identified earlier and consider how they intend to use their strengths in a calling or vocation.

When the Gallup program was first adopted in 2000, Gallup's CEO Clifton commented, "Your results [of the longitudinal study using a strengths-based curriculum] will be of national interest. However, the most significant outcomes will certainly be in the lives of your students."

Student comments seem to bear this out. One student notes, "I am grateful for this tool. I believe it has helped me understand better where my gifts and talents lie, and it has saved me from a lot of time and frustration in trial and error." Another adds, "I love the Strengths Finder! I think it is important for students to find out who they are inside."

Greenville College, Greenville, IL, is a member of the Association of Free Methodist Educational Institutions (AFMEI).