Given the increased awareness of the value of social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools and the workplace, college campuses are implementing these skills into curricular and co-curricular programming. Historically, SEL skills have not received overt attention in school curricula. When SEL is explicitly implemented on college campuses, its benefits include increased student retention and engagement, and personal and professional success. To date, there is no framework on how to include SEL in higher education. SEL has widely been used in other educational settings but has not been applied to a higher education population. This chapter will discuss a campus-wide approach for including evidence-based SEL practices. One such strategy is creating and utilizing common language formed through explicit SEL programming.

This study examined the prevalence of student-to-student and staff-to-student sexual harassment in K-12 schools and school district compliance with Title IX using a retrospective survey of young adults. Participants ( n = 511) were asked to describe their knowledge of policies and procedures regarding Title IX, the prevalence of sexual harassment, and the school’s observed response to harassment using a 34-item, anonymous online survey. Descriptive statistics revealed that 13.4% of participants perceived that sexual harassment at their K-12 school district was at a “moderate” or “high” level, 50.1% reported that they either knew someone who experienced sexual harassment by a school employee or experienced it themselves, and 17.4% ( n = 89) of individuals personally experienced one or more incident of staff-to-student sexual harassment. Nearly all (94%) students were unable to identify their Title IX compliance officer and 70% were unaware of how to file grievances. School districts without policies and materials that address sexual harassment had statistically significantly higher rates of harassment than school districts with policies ( p = .01) and materials ( p < .01).