July 2026, Vol. 12, No. 2

Reimagining Mentorship in Higher Education: Addressing the Academic and Career Needs of First-Year Students

Augustine O. Nwaka

Mentoring is a critical component of student success in higher education, particularly for first-year undergraduate and doctoral students who are navigating new academic expectations, institutional cultures, and career pathways. Colleges and universities have long recognized that the transition into higher education can be academically and professionally challenging. However, mentoring systems in many institutions remain uneven in design and effectiveness. As noted by Odyssey contributors, Ebenezer Agorsor and Victor Apedo, existing mentorship frameworks often fail to adequately address the complex academic and professional development needs of contemporary doctoral students. Undergraduate students similarly face mentoring gaps despite the presence of advising offices and counseling services (Wilton, et al., 2021). Read more.

Reimagining Faculty Roles in Supporting International Students' Mental Health Amid Unstable Immigration Policies

Vanessa Ampofoa Boadu

The United States (U.S.) remains a leading destination for international education, attracting students from across the globe due to its rigorous academic programs, distinguished faculty, advanced research facilities, and global reputation as a developed nation (Acar, 2024; Nicholls, 2018). For many international students, gaining admission to a U.S. institution represents a transformative opportunity that promises access to world-class education, professional advancement associated with high utility of U.S.-earned degrees (Chao et al, 2017; Zhou, 2015). Read more.

When Knowing Too Much Gets in the Way: The Expert Blindspot

Victor Klenam Apedo, Freda Asante

Imagine sitting in a classroom or a meeting, and someone asks if there are any questions. You have one– a big one– but looking around, everyone else shakes their heads. So, you stay quiet. You tell yourself you will figure it out later. You do not want to be the person who slows everything down, or worse, the person who does not know something that apparently everyone else already knows. Or perhaps you are filling out a university Qualtrics survey from your department. Simple enough, until you discover a slew of abbreviations: AY, FTE, FERPA. You stare at the screen. You do not want to submit something incorrectly, so you walk down the hall to ask a colleague. They glance at you and say, “Oh, AY is just academic year,” like it is the most natural thing in the world. You smile and nod, quietly wondering how many other things everyone else seems to already know that nobody ever thought to tell you. Read more.

Graduate Professionalism Beyond Productivity: Why Bodies, Time, Technology, and Relationships Matter

Victor Klenam Apedo, Ebenezer Agorsor

Ask any graduate student what it means to be successful in their program, and they will likely give you a list including completing courses, passing comprehensive exams, defending proposals, attending conferences, and publishing research. These milestones are real and important. They signify intellectual growth, disciplinary membership, and professional readiness. However, they do not tell the full story of how graduate students persist, belong, and develop into scholars. There is a quieter story happening alongside the official one, told through sleep schedules, skipped meals, hours lost to social media scrolling, gym shoes that never leave the bag, the missed field day or family reunions, and friendships outside the university that slowly fade away. Graduate education has historically treated these as private matters, irrelevant to scholarly development. The costs of graduate education must be acknowledged; it is crucial for how we design, support, and think about graduate education. Read more.

Holding Complexity: Identity, Character, and the Practice of Belonging

Theresa Lucas

I have spent my entire adult life in higher education. I began working in student affairs at 19 while finishing my final year of college at Iowa State, and I held my first higher education internship at 20. Those years were critical for me as I learned what a career in higher education could be, but because I was so young, I simultaneously learned who I was. The journey of discovering and accepting my identities as a human has never been separated from my journey of discovering my identity as a professional. Identity is the throughline for how I see this field, our students, and my colleagues. Read more.

Fully Staffed is a Concept: Proactively Addressing Staffing of Higher Education Teams

Julie Olson Rand

In a meeting with my direct reports, one of them uttered the phrase, “Once we’re fully staffed…” and continued to list the projects she would soon have the bandwidth to tackle. My ears perked up. Fully staffed is a mirage (Franco, 2022)... or an albino squirrel. 

On an idyllic private liberal arts campus, in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I used to work, an albino squirrel hides within the recess of a white oak tree. By now, my former colleagues and I realize that there is a family of squirrels with the albinism gene– as it would be impossible for a single squirrel to live as long as an albino squirrel has been known to roam campus. At least one white squirrel has inhabited the campus grounds since before any of us can remember. Spotting her on campus always felt fortuitous. Read more.

Examining College Student Loneliness and What Student Affairs Educators Can Do About It

Michael J. Stebleton, Allison Maus, Maddigan DeBoth, and Vic Massaglia

Is college student loneliness now considered expected, or even “normal?” Recent statistics on college student loneliness rates continue to garner attention (Healthy Minds Network, 2025). Consider the following: A report by Trellis Strategies found that 57% of students said they felt lonely (45% sometimes and 12% always), and only 15% of participants reported never feeling lonely (Cornett, 2026). These findings led Inside Higher Ed author Joshua Bay (2026) to ask, “Is this the new normal?” He surmised that loneliness is slowly and quietly reshaping campus life. Read more.

Prince and His Legacy: Applying Lessons to Life-Career Development

Michael J. Stebleton, PhD

As I write this blog in April 2026, the signs of spring begin to emerge, such as the budding of leaves and significantly warmer temperatures. Despite these anticipated seasonal changes, life remains uncertain and deeply unsettled for multiple reasons. Here in the land of 10,000 lakes (Minnesota), we endured an especially brutal winter season, marked by the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in a federal immigration operation. Individuals and populations impacted by the surge continue to recover, including students from immigrant, international, and/or BIPOC identified groups. For many individuals in our communities, life will never be quite the same. Despite these ongoing injustices and challenges, I remain (mostly) optimistic and anticipate the cycles of the seasons, including how student affairs educators and career development professionals can support students by adding value to their life-career planning. Read more.

Lost in Translation: The Cognitive-Verbal Gap Higher Education Overlooks

Victor Klenam Apedo, Evelyn Asante

We have been in enough college classrooms– first as students, and now as emerging education professionals– to know this moment well. A professor asks a question, and a student’s face lights up with recognition. The professor can almost see the thought forming behind their student’s eyes. But when they open their mouth, what comes out is a fumbled, incomplete version of what began as a sophisticated idea. The professor moves on, the student slumps, and their peers offer only sideways glances. These reactions suggest that the professor and peers did not believe the student knew the answer. But what if they did? What if the problem was never the thought itself, but the bridge between the thought and expression? Higher education has spent decades perfecting the art of measuring what students say. It has almost no time to understand why so many of them struggle to say what they actually mean. Classrooms are full of unspoken insight and ideas trapped behind failed translations. Read more.

A Disrupted Cohort: Finding Your Closest Confidants When Your PhD Program Scatters

Richard Roman, Madeline Rowe

The cohort model is a hallmark of doctoral education. Incoming students are grouped together at the start of their academic journey, enrolled in the same foundational courses, and oriented alongside one another with the implicit assurance that these are the people who will carry them through the program over the next four or more years. For many students, particularly in professional master’s programs, the model delivers. But, at the doctoral level, programs differ widely. The gap between what the cohort model promises and what it actually delivers, especially regarding past coursework, deserves closer attention. Read more.

Why Are Identity-Based Student Organizations So Hard to Sustain on Today’s Campuses?

Haishan Yang, Kimberly S. Springer, and Zoe Chang

Cory is a senior and the president of an identity-based student organization. At his institution, he is adamant that things are “rough”, watching what used to be a lively community hub lose momentum. Event turnout is dismal, institutional communication is glacially slow, and, most tellingly, members are reluctant to step into leadership. “It's too much emotional labor,” he said, “and students no longer get a sense of belonging out of here.” His case is not unusual in 2026. Across American higher education, many of the student organizations that once helped students find community, purpose, and staying power are running on fumes. Read more.