Strength Training the Social & Human Capital Muscle

Aaron WithamDirector of Sustainability

Green Mountain College

• Rural Vermont

• ≈ 850 students

• Sustainability accomplishments: Climate neutral since 2011

Environmental Liberal Arts curriculum

STARS Gold rating #8 in Sierra Magazine’s Cool Schools List Princeton Review’s Green Honor Roll

• New college-wide strategic plan to achieve authentic sustainability by the year 2020

What is human capital?

Health

Wellness

Productivity

DevelopmentHuman CapitalHuman Capital

What is social capital?

Trust

Diversity

Inclusion

AssociationsSocial CapitalSocial Capital

Why are these important for Sustainability?

• Everyday problem solving

• Sharing resources & skills

• Crisis management

Strategic Plan: Sustainability 2020

• Eight-year plan• Collaboration between the Board, faculty, staff, and students

Establish a baseline

• Metrics task force

• Met every two weeks for eight months

• Focused effort to reach out to diverse campus constituents (faculty meetings, staff assembly, one-on-one meetings with students, and lunches open to everybody)

• Community wide conversation event (including the town)

• 30 page technical paper

• Alumni impact: social, economic, and environmental

Social Capital

Trust

Diversity

Inclusion

AssociationsSocial CapitalSocial Capital

Inventorying social capital

• One method is social network analysis

Discerning Trust, Associations, Diversity & Inclusion

How do we approximate social network analysis without 100%

response rate?• Robert Putnam- Bowling Alone (2000) Membership in organizations (PTAs, Red Cross, etc.) Surveys of time budgets Participation in politics Results of GSS

• Pamela Paxton (1999) Multiple metrics Adaptation of General Social Survey questions (GSS) (1972-2012)

• Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard (2000) (n=30,000)

Sense of belonging to people in your neighborhood, city, place of worship, school, ethnic group Level of trust of people in your neighborhood, workplace, stores, news media, local community,

police, people of different ethnic backgrounds How likely would people comply with directions in an emergency (i.e. water conservation) How much impact do you think people have in your community

Trust & Associations Questions• Would you say that most of the time people on campus try to be

helpful or that they are mostly just looking out for themselves? • For each area of college life I am going to name, indicate how satisfied

you are by your relationships in that area. • How often do you spend a social evening with someone who works,

lives, or goes to school at Green Mountain College? • How often do you volunteer to help with a campus project, event, or

activity? • How often do you attend campus events or activities?

(Questions Adapted from Paxton, 1999 and the GSS Cumulative Codebook, 2011. )

Diversity & Inclusion Questions

Developed by a psychology class:

•Green Mountain College demonstrates a strong commitment to incorporating diversity awareness into the curriculum. •Diverse perspectives are encouraged at GMC.  •There is a strong sense of respect for diversity at GMC. •My experiences at GMC have helped me develop an appreciation for multicultural perspectives.•GMC demonstrates a commitment to social justice.• My experiences at GMC have allowed me to feel comfortable expressing my creativity.  •I feel comfortable participating in my cultural/religious traditions at GMC.•I have felt that my perspectives have been included in the decision making processes at GMC when I wanted them to be.

• Generally speaking, how much do you think the perspectives of each of the following groups are taken into account when decisions are made at GMC?  

Board of Trustees Administration Faculty Staff Students Members of the general Poultney Community

• Please indicate how much respect you see for the following types of diversity within the GMC community. Race            Gender               Sexual identity         Religious beliefs      Socioeconomic status     Ethnicity             Physical or developmental ability             Political Views     

• To what extent is the GMC community inclusive of the perspective of each kind of diversity?

• Are you aware of any particular group that struggles to be included at GMC? If so, please explain

Alumni Impact Questions

• In your paid work and volunteer time, how many hours per week, total, do you spend deliberately enhancing the social fabric of a community?

• To what extent do you feel your life’s activities (work, co-curricular, etc.) are meaningful?

• To what extent do you feel connected with your community?

• How much has the environmental mission of GMC, as reflected in the Environmental Liberal Arts program, affected your life or your current pursuits?

Implementation

• Social/human capital survey given in required 1st, 2nd, 3rd/4th year classes (voices, dimensions, & delicate balance)

• Emailed to faculty and staff

• Alumni impact questions added to annual alumni survey given to 1, 3, and 10 years out

Results

• Quantitative environmental analysis class helped analyze the data

Strengths

• High identification with the goal of authentic sustainability and GMC’s strategies for working toward it

• High trust for faculty and staff

• High respect for and awareness of most types of diversity

Weaknesses

•Trust with Town

•Trust between students

•Trust between students and administration

•Associations with the Town

•Respect for religious or conservative viewpoints

Trust, Associations, Diversity & Inclusion

Alumni Impact

• Hours spent deliberately enhancing your community

Extent you feel connected to your community

Your life is meaningful and fulfilling

GMC’s environmental mission has affected your life

Alumni Impact Correlations

Boosting social & human capital

• More community conversations

• Thanks & Giving

• Green Up Day

• Poultney 2020

New Ideas

• Student-led community conversations

• Campus-wide public art effort

• Monthly VP letters to campus

• Administrator open door hours

• Forthcoming diversity committee actions

• Integrating strategic plan into the Images curriculum

References• Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology 94, S95–S120.• Diener, E. (2009). Assessing well-being: The collected works of Ed Diener. Dordrecht: Springer.• Duckworth, A.L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M.D., & Kelly, D.R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 9, 1087-1101.• Duckworth, A.L, & Quinn, P.D. (2009). Development and validation of the Short Grit Scale (Grit-S). Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 166-174. Retrieved

from http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/Duckworth%20and%20Quinn.pdf • Forgeard, M. J. C., Jayawickreme, E., Kern, M. L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Doing the right thing: Measuring wellbeing for public policy. International Journal

of Wellbeing, 1(1), 79-10.• GMC - Green Mountain College (2012). Sustainability 2020. Poultney, VT: Green Mountain College.• Hollenbeck, J. R., Williams, C. L., & Klein, H. J. (1989). An empirical examination of the antecedents of commitment to difficult goals. Journal of Applied

Psychology, 74, 18–23.• Hough, L. M. (1992). The “Big Five” personality variables—construct confusion: description versus prediction. Human Performance, 5(1-2), 139-155.• Knoke, D. & Yang, S. (2008). Social network analysis. 2nd edition. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.• Le Blanc, P. V., Rich, J. T., & Mulvey, P. W. (2000). Improving the return on human capital: new metrics. Compensation Benefits Review, 32(1), 13-20. • Light, H. K., Hertsgaard, D., & Martin, R. E. (1985). Education and income: significant factors in life satisfaction of farm men and women. Research in Rural

Education, 3(1), 7-12. • Lufi, D., & Cohen, A. (1987). A scale for measuring persistence in children. Journal of Personality Assessment, 51(2), 178–185.• Mueller, C. M. & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Praise for intelligence can undermine children’s motivation and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,

75(1), 33-52. • NORC at the University of Chicago (2012). General Social Survey. Retrieved from http://www3.norc.org/GSS+Website/• Nussbaum, M. C. (2011). Creating capabilities: The human development approach. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press.• Paxton, P. (1999). Is social capital declining in the United States? A multiple indicator assessment. American Journal of Sociology, 105(1), 88-127. • Putnam, R. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6, 65–78.• Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: Collapse and revival of the American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster. • Roberson, Quinette M. (2006). Disentangling the Meanings of Diversity and Inclusion in Organiozations. Group and Organization Management, 31 (2), 212-236.• Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America. (2002). Social capital community benchmark survey short form. John F. Kennedy School of Government at

Harvard University. Retrieved from http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/data/datasets/social_capital_community_survey.html• Sandstrom, A. & Carlsson, L. (2008). The performance of policy networks: the relation between network structure and network performance. The Policy Studies

Journal, 36(4), 497-514.• Scott, J. (2009). Social Network Analysis: A Handbook (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

Extra Slides

Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey

• “In 2000, some three-dozen community foundations partnered with the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America Project at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University on the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS). The Saguaro Seminar, with the help of a top-notch Scientific Advisory Committee, put together a 25-minute phone survey on levels of social capital.1 The survey was administered to approximately 30,000 Americans in the summer of 2000, with 27,000 respondents surveyed across 40 communities and 3,000 nationally representative respondents.2 Each community foundation sponsored one or more of the local community surveys. The SCCBS represented by far the largest and most scientific investigation of social capital to-date.

• The results of the survey can be found at: www.ksg.harvard.edu/saguaro/communitysurvey. This site contains the survey instrument, a discussion of the national results, a comparison of the 40 communities surveyed, and whatever community-specific results that the sponsoring local foundations wished to post. At our insistence, we made the entire dataset available for free to researchers through the Roper Center (at the Univ. of Connecticut at Storrs). The web site for accessing these data is: http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/scc_bench.html.”

8-point grit scaleStatements:•New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones.•Setbacks don’t discourage me.•I have been obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short time but later lost interest.•I am a hard worker.•I often set a goal but later choose to pursue a different one.•I have difficulty maintaining my focus on projects that take more than a few months to complete. •I finish whatever I begin. •I am diligent.

Answers:•Very much like me •Mostly like me •Somewhat like me •Not much like me •Not like me at all

Grit

Technical Definition of Authentic Sustainability