Our Approach

Two kinds of capital

A degree builds intellectual capital, and universities know how to do that. SFBU gives equal weight to social capital, because knowledge reaches opportunity through people. Those people include a mentor who makes an introduction, a classmate who becomes a collaborator and a professional who takes a student's question seriously. Information is now abundant and connection is scarce, so social capital is often the harder of the two to build. Over time both become financial capital, and they give a graduate some say over the life they lead. Relational Intelligence sets out the evidence and the assignment designs that follow from it.

Where career preparation sits

Career preparation sits inside this belief. An SFBU education prepares students for meaningful work and builds the judgment to shape the organizations they join. Subject knowledge is the means to that end. The measure of a course is what a student can do at the end that they could not do at the start. Course Design describes how SFBU builds courses from that question.

What this asks of faculty

A course at SFBU is where a student practices four things. They stay with a hard problem. They take seriously views unlike their own. They make work that matters to someone beyond the instructor. They say plainly what they have not yet worked out. Faculty design the situations in which that practice happens. They stay present while students work through them. SFBU treats this as the whole of a faculty member's job. Training in it is mandatory and continues through the year, since the field keeps changing and the skills change with it.

How students feel in a class is part of its academic quality. A student who feels unsafe or unseen spends mental effort on managing threat, and that effort is lost to learning. Trauma-Aware Teaching covers the conditions that keep demanding work within reach. PERS names the four dimensions every course is designed for, and Think, Do, Create is how faculty build them in.