The Power of Hope: How Stony Brook Is Helping Students Turn Academic Setbacks Into Comebacks

For a college student struggling academically, a low GPA can feel like much more than a number. It can make a student question the future they imagined for themselves: Can I still pursue the major I came here for? Can I recover from this? Do I still belong at Stony Brook?

But what happens when, instead of focusing only on what went wrong, a university helps students believe there is still a way forward?

At Stony Brook University, that question is at the heart of an innovative approach to student success that treats hope not simply as a feeling, but as something that can be measured, strengthened and potentially used to help students overcome academic setbacks.

Developed through Stony Brook's award-winning Sophomore Academic Resilience Program (SARP), the Academic Hope Framework examines the role that confidence, motivation and the ability to envision a path toward a goal can play in academic recovery.

For Michelle Setnikar, a director of Undergraduate Retention Initiatives and Success Engagement (U-RISE), some of the most powerful evidence came directly from the students themselves.

"We did a robust assessment as well as a pre- and post-survey," Setnikar said. "Students write reflections in academic seminars, and the survey results, the feeling that they could see a way forward after the program, was enlightening. It helped them feel as if they could still pursue the major they hoped for or that they could stay at SBU."

The framework is grounded in psychologist C.R. Snyder's Hope Theory, which identifies three components of hope: goals, or what someone wants to achieve; pathways, their ability to identify ways of reaching those goals; and agency, their belief that they can take the steps necessary to get there. For a student facing academic difficulty, those concepts can become very real, very quickly.

A student may still have the goal of becoming an engineer, a scientist or graduating from Stony Brook. But after a difficult first year, they may no longer see a pathway to that goal - or believe they are capable of following one. That is where SARP comes in.

The immersive summer program was created for first-year students whose GPAs fall below 2.0 and who may be at risk for academic suspension. Rather than treating academic probation as a punishment, SARP combines academic skill development, coursework, community building and individualized support to help students understand what happened, determine what needs to change and begin building a path forward.

"Traditional models of academic recovery often focus on what students have done wrong," Setnikar said. "Our work asks a different question: What happens when institutions intentionally cultivate hope?"

To begin answering it, the U-RISE team administered the validated Academic Hope Scale to SARP participants before and after the program.

The results showed statistically significant increases in overall academic hope, including an increase in pathways - an especially meaningful finding for students who may have entered the program uncertain whether their original academic goals were still within reach.

The academic results were just as encouraging. The inaugural SARP cohort earned an average summer GPA of 3.67, and 100 percent of participants continued into the following fall semester. Those numbers suggest that helping students recover academically may require more than tutoring, advising or better study habits. Students also need to be able to imagine themselves succeeding.

The success of SARP has also prompted another question: Can the power of hope be harnessed beyond one program?

That matters because SARP represents a significant commitment from Stony Brook. Expenses such as housing and meals are covered for participating students, and the university wants to understand not only whether the investment works, but which elements of the program are producing meaningful, lasting change.

"In trying to think about the sustainability of the program, we have had 100 percent retention rate into their second year and we are working to make sure that this is replicable," Setnikar said. "It's a significant investment to the university, so we wanted to make sure there would be a good return."

For Setnikar, the Academic Hope Framework offers an opportunity to anchor that work in evidence-based practice - and potentially bring what Stony Brook is learning through SARP into other parts of the student experience.

"This feels like an anchor for the program and we have to go beyond just assessment and include evidence-based practice in our work," she said.

Hope Theory could, for example, give advisors another data point for understanding a student's needs. In the classroom, it could help educators think about what students need to remain motivated and engaged. Its principles could also be incorporated into tutoring, learning communities, orientation and other retention initiatives.

"The hope theory can offer a lot of benefits in other ways, including steps, skills and self-belief," Setnikar said. "Advisors can use it to measure impact or a data point to understand the student and their needs better; in the classroom it can be used as an objective and what students need to feel motivated."

- Emily Cappiello