Cultivating Belonging with Alisha Redelfs and Julianne Grose

In this episode of the Y Health podcast, Dr. Cougar Hall, alongside Dr. Alisha Redelfs and Dr. Julianne Grose, explores the intersection of public health and the creation of a sense of belonging within academic communities. The conversation delves into BYU’s Office of Belonging, established in 2021, and its unique gospel-centered approach to fostering inclusion and connection across campus. Through research, programs, and individual mentorship, the office is creating an environment where students, faculty, and staff can thrive—both academically and spiritually.

The discussion also highlights the vital role that public health plays in addressing loneliness and its impacts on mental and physical well-being. Dr. Redelfs and Dr. Grose share their insights on how building a supportive, inclusive community is central to students' overall success and well-being. With a focus on mentorship and personal connection, the episode reflects on the profound ways in which belonging shapes individual growth and collective health in the BYU community.

Recorded, Edited & Produced by Christy Gonzalez, Harper Xinyu Zhang, and Tanya Gale

Transcript

Cougar: [00:00:00] Welcome to Y Health, a podcast brought to you by the BYU Public Health Department. I'm Dr. Cougar Hall, a professor here at Brigham Young University. Whether you are a student, parent, or BYU fan, this podcast will help you navigate the world of public health. Our podcast strives to help individuals receive accurate information regarding public health. So whether it's global or local, we will discuss how it pertains to you. Just kick back and relax as we talk about Y Health. Dr. Alisha Redelfs, Dr. Julianne Grose , thank you for joining us on the Y Health podcast this morning. It's nice to see you both. 

Alisha: Thanks for letting us go.

Cougar: Repeat customer here. We've, we've lured you back into the office a second time. 

Julianne: I'm so happy to be here. Thanks. 

Cougar: Uh, just as a reminder to our listeners in season two, I think April [00:01:00] 2023, you were on and talking about be the match. One of my favorite episodes we've had. So thanks for coming back. And at that time you told us how busy you were on campus because you had some new assignments.

And so today you're here as the associate vice president over belonging. I don't know if I've worded that exactly right, but really excited to talk to you and Dr. Redelfs . You're my colleague. You're one door away here, pretty close away in the department of public health. And you are. Very much associated with these efforts on campus to increase belonging and also so excited to have both of you here. Can we start with you actually Alisha ?

Can you introduce yourself just for a moment? 

Alisha: Sure. So just as a brief background we'll get into this a little bit later and kind of explaining a little bit more about how we're connected to this, but I did my undergrad in biology and chemistry thinking I was going to medical school and then my life took some pretty unexpected shifts, eventually, and I found public health in my late 20s, came and did my Master's of Public Health here at [00:02:00] BYU, and then went on and did my Doctorate of Public Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, in their School of Public Health.

So I've been here at BYU since 2018, and I teach mostly in the health promotion track. 

Cougar: And Julianne , you're going to introduce yourself a little bit as you go. We've talked a little bit about where we want to go this morning. So maybe we just start with your position in the office of belonging. Could you give us an overview of what the office of belonging is all about?

Julianne: That sounds great. Yeah, the Office of Belonging was created to assist BYU in constructing a community of belonging composed of students, faculty, and staff whose hearts are knit together in love. So kind of just a small goal there. And we do this using gospel principles, which is a really unique way to try to unite a community.

We have many different efforts around this. We conduct focus groups, research, events, and campaigns on campus. Trainings in education, including courses. [00:03:00] service based clinics, study abroad opportunities. We do advising and consultation for students that come in the office. We have a discrimination and reconciliation reporting system for campus.

And we also coordinate campus events and approvals that have to do with belonging. So it's a lot. 

Cougar: Now I know why you're so busy. That is a long list of to dos for you every morning. In addition to everything else you've been doing on campus for so long. What's the genesis of this? I don't know if other campuses have an Office of Belonging.

I hear about diversity, equity, inclusion offices and different things across the country. It feels different at BYU. Maybe you can give us a little bit of where this came from. 

Julianne: Yeah, I'd love to. There are quite a few campuses that have an Office of Belonging, but I think ours is unique because of the gospel centered approach that we take.

It really began in 2021 with BYU releasing [00:04:00] key findings from their Committee on Race, Equity, and Belonging. It's COREB report, and you can find it online. These findings from a survey really found the need to create a sense of belonging for every student and employee on campus. And this report made 24 recommendations to try to do this, and the Office of Belonging was built to fulfill some of those recommendations.

And, and it wasn't just the COREB report. I think everyone has been hearing some talks about it. conference talks and other talks from church leaders on belonging and particularly covenant belonging. It is the phrase covenant belonging that indicates our unique gospel based approach to belonging. It's based on our primary identity as president Nelson teaches us.

our identity as children of God, children of the covenant, and disciples of Christ. And in following our example, the Savior, in our daily actions, this is [00:05:00] how we can relationship by relationship create this community of belonging. 

Cougar: I love it. I feel like we've been doing this, we just haven't labeled it belonging for some time now.

In the majority of my time on campus, especially under President Worthen's leadership, There was such a focus on connecting faculty and students, and it wasn't just to mentor them as far as research or a career path, although those things are incredibly important, I believe. I think a lot of it was just allowing students to really know and feel like, hey, we need you, we want to be with you, we want to connect with you, connect with our science or with our research or our area of interest, but also connect with you.

And build relationships and build testimony. It just feels like this has been growing, growing, and growing, and now here it is. We're, we're kind of formalizing this under the [00:06:00] Office of Belonging and these belonging initiatives. I don't know if that's accurate. That's my perception, just a lowly faculty member here.

Julianne: That's my perception as well, right? Because I feel like I've been working on belonging the whole time I've been at the university, which is 16 years. And the Office of Belonging was formed by President Worthen. He announced it in the fall of 2021. Right. It's new, but really it's just to provide a centralized like overhead for belonging, an actual office people can walk into, ask questions, 

Alisha: a more systematic approach, maybe that can be sustainable.

Cougar: Yeah. And Alisha , maybe you and I can talk about how public health connects with this because, you know, we're talking about President Worthen announcing this in 2021. You don't have to have a great memory. Even I can recall spring and summer of 2020. We have COVID ongoing. We have George Floyd. We have a really [00:07:00] divisive political cycle, maybe the most divisive election, I think, in my lifetime.

And there was this need to like, can we come together? Whether it's for healing or connection, I think we all felt very much like we were adrift. Um, but this has really become something central to public health, and maybe it always was central to public health, and public health has just had more of a role to step up during this time.

But maybe, Alisha , do you want to talk about public health and how it connects with belonging? 

Alisha: Yeah, I can jump in and give a few thoughts and then pass it over to Julianne afterwards. So, um, I think the pandemic exacerbated some things that were already going on. And, and you mentioned a whole bunch of other events that also like there was just kind of turmoil for a lot of people.

Um, and in May of 2023, the U S surgeon general put out an alarm, essentially talking about the epidemic of loneliness that's been going on, and [00:08:00] there has I've worked on in the public health sector before that and and since then to try and understand like what is loneliness and and how do we address that and connection and belonging are some of the major ways that we address loneliness and try and address it.

kind of rooted out. So there, there are lots of different things that are going on in public health. Loneliness has impacts for mental health. It has physical health impacts. There's all kinds of things that it's connected to. And I think there are a lot of spiritual elements to this too. And I'm going to have Julianne speak to a couple of those.

Yeah, perfect. 

Julianne: Yeah. I love this that at BYU, you know, we're used to using the word bilingual, right? That we have, we need to be bilingual, really uniting the, what we know academically. and what we know spiritually. And trying to pull both into the classroom and into everything that we do. And really I feel like belonging is one of these things because it's not [00:09:00] like we're alone in recognizing the importance of belonging.

There's actually a lot of academic publications on it. We know our Belonging is important for academic interest, for academic success, for persistence in academics, and for even career aspirations. Like, there, there's publications on all of this. But I think this is no surprise given what we know from the gospel, right?

And what we know from our Savior's life. Um, our Savior was kind of the opposite of lonely, right? He was reaching out to all those who were lonely, reaching out to those who were outcasts of society. Consistently, if we read through the New Testament, it's pretty much all of his interactions, the woman at the well, Zacchaeus in the tree, right?

He's recognizing these people that society was not recognizing and pulling them into the fold. And so I think it's a basic [00:10:00] need of us to fill part of a community. It's a basic need of human beings. 

Cougar: It really is. And it's, it's one of these things I teach a mind, body health class based on the curriculum, based on the research, based on the things that we read together students and faculty.

It appears that social support and connection, so just the opposite side of the coin of isolation and loneliness, it appears that those are perhaps the most important things for our mental health. And the relationship between the mental and the physical health are really strong right there. So I think it's, I think it's fascinating because one of the papers we read in the class essentially says this is one area where you can't trust your brain.

Your brain is going to say, withdraw, pull away, isolate yourself, build a wall, others are dangerous, you don't need them, you don't need connection. And so, there's this article you read, it's like, [00:11:00] you can't trust your brain on that one, because you need connection. And even though maybe everything is telling you, withdraw, withdraw, withdraw, actually what you need in that moment is connection.

It's to connect, it's to be with others. So it's fascinating. And again, I'm, I'm drawn back to the leadership of President Worthen, who really was trying for a decade to connect us with, with experiential learning and, and pulling students and faculty together. Allowing us to have experiences. I think of some of the experiences I've had over the last decade with students.

Sometimes it's going to an academic conference. Sometimes it's working together in Latin America with a non profit and like. Shoulder to shoulder, whether on an airplane, on a train or hiking a mountain, like being together with students and those informal and formal opportunities to share testimony, to learn about their families, to learn about their hopes, their dreams, to answer questions about concerns and anxieties they might have.

I just, there's so much going on here. I think I'm loosely talking about [00:12:00] mentorship. I am not, I'm not the expert on this. I'm going to turn to you, Dr. Redelfs , because If there's a word that I would use to describe you as a friend and a colleague, it's been a mentor to our students. So, I don't know if that's something you want to elaborate on, is like, what is it that drives you?

What does good mentorship look like? Because there's a science behind what we're talking about. Can I hand the baton to you for a moment, talking about mentorship? 

Alisha: Sure. So, I think mentor is one of my favorite titles. It's one of the things that drew me here to BYU, because I love that aspect of being able to connect with students and help them, not give them answers and tell them a direction they should go, but help them find that for themselves.

So traditionally, like in the STEM field, there's been a ton of research on this. Um, mentorship is about mentee development, essentially. So one of the major definitions comes from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. [00:13:00] And um, just to put in a quote for how they define it, they see mentorship as a professional working alliance.

Um, in which individuals work together over to support professional, personal, professional growth, development, and success. And we do that through providing career and psychosocial support. So, a lot of elements to this, but it's this idea of there are at least two individuals, one who maybe has a little more experience, the other who has a little less experience, but they're working together to try and help develop the mentee, the one who's receiving this help, this assistance, this mentorship.

So, one of the things that's a little different, as Julianne mentioned, at BYU, we do things a little differently. We also have the focus on needing to mentor spiritually. And that's something that you can't do at every other university. It [00:14:00] takes on a ton of responsibility. A very different aspect here at BYU because potential it's in our mission statement.

That's our focus. So yes, we want to help our students develop professionally. We want to provide career support, the psychosocial support, helping them build confidence and learn. That they can do this, that there are things that they can go forward and succeed at that maybe they never envisioned for themselves.

But we also take on the spiritual aspect as well. So at BYU, it just looks different. Because we have, as was mentioned, this bilingual approach. 

Cougar: Can I ask a more personal question? What's that been like for you, Alisha , to be able to be in your office? And to be fielding questions about public health theory and communications and, and public health marketing.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ testimony and where they're at on their journey, their path to discipleship, their [00:15:00] covenant path. Because I think we're finding BYU students remarkable in every way. They show up and they have questions. And they're developing their faith, and they're deciding what type of person they want to be, and what this looks like for them as they transition from a young men's or a young women's program into maybe pre mission or even post mission life as young single adults or young married adults, trying to find where they fit in the gospel.

Don't name names, but what's that been like for you? Is that rewarding? Is it scary? Is it a blessing for you? 

Alisha: I'd say it's rewarding and scary and a blessing. Like all of those things at the same time. At this age of life, it's normal for students to be starting to ask questions. And sometimes that means that the questions that we end up talking about are questions that I don't have answers for, but I can.

ask them [00:16:00] questions back that maybe lead them to think about things in a new way, or to recognize that it's okay to have questions, and just normalize that so that it feels less scary. Like, that it doesn't have to be, I know everything, or I have to be out. Like, I don't think that's the way that it is in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We learn and grow. There's an ongoing restoration, and I think each of us have an ongoing Process in an ongoing journey of learning. In lots of different aspects, in what our career is going to look like, in the trajectory of our life, and in the spiritual. And as a mentor, I have done a lot of laughing in my office, and I've done some praying in my office, and I've done some crying in my office with students.

And without getting too emotional, I would [00:17:00] say that those experiences with students have been invaluable. In my mind, the reason why I'm here. 

Cougar: Yeah. I appreciate your emotion, actually. Because it makes it real. Because we, we can talk, you know, 30, 000 foot view of the longing and we've got almost 35, 000 students on campus and we can just gloss over and move on.

But it's, it's really about the individual connection. Working with an individual student and letting them know we're here for them. We hear them. We see them. When their heart's broken, our heart's broken. And I love that you talk about this is really what it means. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I think of Messiah 18.

It says, we commit to mourn with those who mourn. And rejoice with those when they rejoice too. But it's that full gamut and we can't only be comfortable with the rejoicing and not like, oh, I don't know what to do with the mourning. I just need to look the other way. We can't do that anymore. If we've done that in the past, we can't do that anymore.

We have to really sit with them, lean into that. Discomfort [00:18:00] into that fear and be okay with that. I have three children at BYU and I hope that they're learning from experts in their field and I hope they learn the best science, the most up to date current theories and models so that they can leave because ultimately I want them to leave and have a great job and be prepared to contribute to society.

But the reason I want them at BYU is because I also want them to learn from people like you. Alisha , who will also share testimony, and be able to listen to them, and in a non judgmental way, see them for who they are, and where they're at on their path, because they're all in different places. And so, I think that's what I pray for, is there someone else, is there another member of the village out there, because I'm doing my best, my wife's doing her best, is there someone else out there, another trusting, caring adult, who knows my child's name, Cares about their physical, mental, spiritual well being, and their career [00:19:00] preparation, and is engaging with them.

And I'll be honest, I loved BYU when I came here in the early 90s, but I didn't have a connection. Until my last semester did I feel connected with one particular faculty member. We need that as soon as they arrive on campus. So Julianne, maybe I turn to you, because I'm talking too much. People don't want to listen to me.

I'm just the host. But this idea of belonging, this idea of the one, it can be overwhelming. The students that I think about who might not feel like they fit in, who might feel othered or feel different, and there's a bunch. Sometimes it's the student who shows up on campus and is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.

Sometimes it's the returning student who was here three or four decades ago, and has come back to finish their degree and they feel like they don't fit in in my class. Sometimes it is an LGTBQ plus student [00:20:00] who feels like, I just don't know if they want me here, if I'm loved, if I fit in here. Sometimes it's the student who didn't serve a mission, or their mission wasn't 18 or 24 months, and they feel defective.

I had an athlete recently, a star athlete, everyone would know the name, Suffered a career ending injury. The sport, athletics, provided belonging. Now the sport's gone. I'm lost. I don't know why I'm here and I don't know where I fit in. Like, we could go on. So this has to be overwhelming. Can you speak to that?

Like, what is it that drives you and your colleagues in the Office of Belonging thinking about the one? 

Julianne: Yeah, we really just want everyone to catch belonging fever, essentially, right? Because belonging is about every single relationship on campus. And that's a lot. That's a lot of relationships, which means everyone [00:21:00] has to be involved in the work of belonging.

It's not just one thing. And in fact, we've done a lot of surveys to try to understand contributes to belonging here at BYU. What students are feeling, what adds to belonging, what detracts from belonging, and as you would expect, it's a lot of different things, right? In fact, if you ask someone about belonging, They can even interpret belonging in different ways.

They might think you're asking whether they feel spiritually like they belong at BYU or academically or socially or emotionally, right? They might respond in many different ways about different aspects of their life. So it's a really complex thing. But the interesting thing is there's one single greatest factor of all the many And that is faculty, which I was surprised to see out of our data, despite being a faculty here for 16 years.

It was [00:22:00] shocking to me that that was the single greatest factor contributing or detracting from belonging at BYU. So there were comments like, you know, my professor really sees me, takes time to talk to me about the concerns in my life. It was shocking to me. the things I'm struggling with, or other comments like, I don't think two professors on campus know my name.

So it goes both ways, but I don't want to just focus on professors because, like I said, this is just one of many, many things that leads to belonging. And I think, as Alisha said, it can be really frightening for anyone, not just professors, to try to engage in these deeper, meaningful conversations. But we need to remember that most of the time people just want to be heard and seen.

And we, we don't have to have all the answers. We just need to be there and, and listen. 

Cougar: Maybe. Thank you, [00:23:00] Julianne . Maybe this is a good time to ask you, what is it? Have you had experiences or are there things that you feel have prepared you for this role? But I want to get back to my question about like, what does this look like moving forward?

Cause I know we have. Some specific councils that are really addressing this work on a more personal level, but can I ask you about your experience and maybe both of you how you've felt like you've been prepared because certainly the Lord prepares us for these Opportunities and to meet the needs of his children 

Julianne: Yeah.

So I actually taught here in the college of life sciences for 15 years before this opportunity was presented to me. And it surprised me. I was not expecting this move, but I felt the spirit really strongly. And at first I had the same question as you, like, why me? Like what has prepared me for this work?

But I found that really being here for that amount of time and the number of students I interacted with. [00:24:00] The conversations, as Alisha said, that I had in my office with students who, in particular, students who were struggling over that time. That's really what has prepared me along with my own life experience.

So I'm a first gen student come from low income background. I thought I was doing really good to get a bachelor's degree and My senior year, I had a professor that saw me. We keep talking about being seen, right? A professor that saw me in the classroom and told me to come talk to him and invite me to work.

He was very disappointed when he found out I was a senior. It was like fall of my senior year, but he still invited me to come work in his research lab. Cause that's just not very long to be trained and really contribute to anything. But he still invited me to come and be part of his, research lab. He believed in me.

He tricked me into applying to graduate school. I didn't even know what graduate school was, right? I [00:25:00] didn't know anything about graduate school. I'd never thought for two seconds about going to graduate school. But it shows the difference that one person can make in your life. Like one person who sees you, who believes you, and who opens your eyes to possibilities of what you might be able to do.

Cougar: I love it. So amazing. And I have to tell you, you are a pioneer. In this college, we have some remarkable female faculty and scientists. Okay. Did I say that? Yeah. You're a pioneer. 

Julianne: It's sweet. 

Cougar: We have, we're much closer to a gender balance amongst faculty and other departments in the college. Alisha And I were talking about this.

We're still not 50 50. We're kidding. What are you guys? Closer and closer. We think we're like 12, eight, just 12 male, eight female. I don't know if the number's right, but that's about where we're at. Yeah, 

Alisha: about there. 

Cougar: So we're, it's getting better. But, 80 percent of our students are female. So, like, we're going to get to [00:26:00] mentorship in just a second here.

Alisha: No, you're good. 

Cougar: Well, Julianne, thank you for that. And from my perspective, you really are a pioneer. And we have remarkable faculty in this college, the College of Life Science. But I look at my female faculty, colleagues. And maybe we'll transition to mentorship here in just a second, but there are so few still comparatively that there's this role for you in particular to provide mentorship.

I'm really thankful that that was a male faculty member who saw you and invited you in and made graduate school a reality for you because otherwise you're not here. 

Julianne: Yeah. 

Cougar: You're not here. 

Julianne: At the time. I don't think I had ever had a science female. professor ever, right? So it's a good thing that Amel was the one who reached out to me.

Cougar: So to some extent that, that is one of the drivers of this mentoring approach is, you know, how do we create the next generation [00:27:00] of BYU faculty who have faith and who are experts in their field and who are committed to bathing everything they teach in the light of the restored gospel and building testimony.

In our department, Alisha , we have a growing number of female faculty. If I go back my 16 years, we had two at the time and now I think we're We're nearing double digits. And the only reason we've been able to do that is because we've put our great undergraduate students into the graduate school pipeline.

We've encouraged them. We've said, hey, you might not see yourself as someone who can be a great social scientist or great in public health. You have that potential. I don't know if you've thought of that, but this is a doable option, a route for you. I'm so thankful. for those individuals with the foresight to really connect with our undergraduates and say, Hey, there's a lot of ways to go.

You might consider this. 

Julianne: And that, that's exactly what John Roth, my mentor did for me, you know, just [00:28:00] an amazing individual. And I'm so grateful. Like I said, it takes a lot of people doing this work. And Alisha came to me with the mentoring committee idea about the same time we were getting our data from.

The faculty were the number one single factors contributing to belonging. So to me, it just was, you know, all things coming together to show us a direction. 

Cougar: For sure. And we work in councils and committees in our church service. So do you want to speak about how we're using the council system here to further our mentoring initiatives, to take what president Worthen has given us and move forward, especially as it relates to belonging.

Maybe I'm going to turn some time over to you because 

Alisha: you're 

Cougar: ready to roll. 

Alisha: So I'll kind of tell you a little bit about what this council is first, and then maybe we can talk about the history behind it that Julianne hinted at. So, currently, we [00:29:00] have recently created a Mentorship for Belonging Council at BYU.

We're ad hoc, which means that right now we're a temporary council. We're working toward Official approval through the BYU President's Council, so that it becomes a permanent fixture at the university. But, what we have come to, and how we've organized our priorities and our experiences, we believe that mentorship is a powerful tool.

It can help us inspire learning, like President Worthen has asked us to do. It can help us assist students to experience belonging. And it helps encourage students to reach their divine potential, when it's done well. Right? So we mentioned how BYU is pretty unique in a lot of different ways compared to other universities.

One of the unique things about this mentoring model at BYU, and I previously mentioned it a little bit, is we also add in the spiritual side of things. So we're not just talking about skill development, or career guidance, or [00:30:00] emotional support, or role modeling. Like those are all important things, broadly speaking, for mentorship, but we also are modeling disciple scholarship.

So, as faculty, we are expected to be scholars within our, our chosen disciplines and fields, but we also are expected to be disciples of Christ. And so this term, a disciple scholar, um, as a mentor, we have the opportunity to, to To show that to students, to model that for our students so that hopefully students begin to understand that these different aspects of our lives don't have to be separate, that there is a way to move forward as a disciple scholar, whether you'd stay in academia or you go somewhere else.

That you can integrate your faith in the rest of your life. It doesn't have to be something that you keep separate. And that as we do this through these one on one kinds of [00:31:00] relationships as mentors to students, the goal is that we help these students reach their divine potential. And in the end, that we're building Zion, which that's a pretty big, big goal, but that is one of the major goals of BYU.

It's in the mission statement for the Office of Belonging, I believe, even, is that we're trying to establish Zion. So we believe in this committee, this council, that this kind of mentorship, like this really meaningful, positive kind of mentorship, should be accessible to all student populations and should be responsive to the students needs.

Uh, the tricky thing is that, As faculty, we are typically not formally trained in how to be a mentor. I don't know very many people on campus that I have talked to who received any kind of training, other than, well, I saw what my mentors did. And there isn't a central place on [00:32:00] campus that provides resources for mentors.

There hasn't been. So, there was also not a centrally coordinated effort at BYU. measure mentorship, to train on mentorship. So what our council is attempting to do is take those initial steps towards filling these gaps, um, to prepare the way so that in the future, we can develop an institute as a university structures and programs and practices that support the kind of mentorship that should be ideally happening at BYU within our unique model.

So we feel like this aligns really closely with a lot of the different initiatives that the university is currently moving toward. I mentioned establishing Zion as one of the foundational things. Mentorship can help build up individuals and help them understand their potential. The Inspiring Learning Initiative from President Worthen, this goes hand in hand [00:33:00] with experiential learning and inspiring learning.

President Reese is talking about becoming BYU, like not just BYU as it has always been, but the BYU of prophecy and becoming those kinds of mentors that really can change lives is one way that we can become that BYU of prophecy. There's a new University 101 foundations course that's being put in that one of the major things that is Part of the goals of that course is that students get introduced in small numbers, like 24 ish students, to a disciple scholar in their first semester at BYU, where they get to know that professor.

And they can build connections and start to understand, Oh, it's okay for me to go into somebody's office and ask them a question. It's okay for me to ask about opportunities to get involved in [00:34:00] research or as a teaching assistant, all of those kinds of things. So there are a lot of opportunities. Things going on at BYU that fit and align with belonging and mentorship.

There hasn't been, like, this coordinating body in the past. And that's what we're trying to create. 

Cougar: Yeah, if we want to improve in this area, we do need some training. We do need to actually focus some resources, some time, some effort into improving this area. Clearly, it's important. And I think it's important enough that, you know, We improve at it.

Does that make sense? Yeah. This is a worthy effort. I really like this idea. There's a bit of a shift, truthfully. My primary responsibility in this department is to train teachers. So, most of my students are going to teach at the junior high or the high school level. They're going to be health educators.

And one of the things I really try to instill in them is, They work for the students and they should feel some obligation, a significant [00:35:00] obligation, to those students and to their parents, to the community. Um, so, be responsive. Be responsive to students. Be responsive to their parents. And I think, now that's in a public school system, but I feel like at BYU, if a student knocks on your door and you're like, Ah, I don't have time right now.

I don't have office hours this week. You work for them. Like, I know that your research agenda is really important. And maybe you're preparing a lecture. Like, don't lose sight of why you're here. And we've been, I love that you brought up President Reese. He's exactly right. And we've been told this, just this past year at our university conference.

Students, students are your number one priority. That's why you're here. You're here to help students. So, if you don't have time to meet with a student, you don't have time to mentor with a student, you need to sit down and really re prioritize. Like, what is it that you're putting ahead of a student?

Because the university is not asking you to do that. We're asking you to focus on students. [00:36:00] So this idea that, no, you're not bothering me, because every time a student knocks on my door, he or she is like, oh, I'm sorry to bother you. No, you're not bothering me. I'm a full time employee and I work for you.

What can we talk about? Like that's a shift. So maybe that's where the training starts. It's just acknowledging the rest of the stuff you do is really cool and keep doing it. We hope you're excellent at all the things you do. You're here for students, period. I don't know. Am I crazy? Have I taken that too far?

Alisha: I think in my experience here at BYU, that's been a large component of the kind of mentorship that I have done. Is that informal mentorship. There's a student from my class or a student who got my name from somebody and they just need to ask some questions or talk or they're having an existential crisis in life and Need somebody to bounce ideas off of and and sometimes if you're trusted you can become that person not that we have all the answers as professors, but this informal kind of mentoring where we Show [00:37:00] love and we listen to students.

It can be really meaningful 

Cougar: I always tell students like if they raise a hand in class or ask about this or that in a large group I'll say hey whenever you make decisions like this, you got to talk to your people And those people should include mom and dad, siblings, the former Young Women's Leader, League Society President, Young Men's Leader, former Bishop, like, anyone you look up to.

And I hope that there are faculty that are part of that group. Like, it would be great if every student said, Hey, when I list my people, who I can bounce ideas off, related to career, or family, or faith, that someone like Dr. Redelfs Is on that list. Because I have full faith in my colleagues. We're here for the right reasons.

We really are student centered. It's not a hashtag. It's not something that we put in a mission statement. It is who we are. And I'm really thankful, Julianne , when I look at you, to think like, the university's [00:38:00] recognizing that. And they're recognizing that we can do more than one thing. We can excel in the classroom and excel with our research, and we can be there for students and connect with them.

Um, is there, are there just a couple things, like, what does, what does, because there's a lot of research, what does good mentorship include? What does it really look like? I don't know, is that a fair question? 

Julianne: Yeah, I think that's a really fair question, and, and to get back at what Alisha said, like, most of us have zero.

training in this whatsoever. And so a really important thing is what does good mentorship look like to a student? What do they want? And what we do know is that different students want different things. That is one thing that's come out of research and data. And that makes sense, right? We're just all different.

And so one student may really want just someone to talk to, really, about life and about different things. Whereas another student wants it to be more academic based, [00:39:00] different students need and want different things. And we have to listen to that. And so I think a lot of this is we're just trying to be more intentional, right?

We're trying to be more intentional by having an office of belonging. We're trying to be more intentional by having a mentorship committee, we're trying to be more intentional in all that we do. And part of that intention can be having the conversation with a student at the beginning of mentorship, like, what do you want out of this relationship?

What do you see as a good mentor to you? 

Cougar: Yeah. As a young missionary, we call this find out. 

Julianne: Yeah. 

Cougar: So you're going to ask some good questions and then you're going to be a really active listener. 

Julianne: And that's not something that I did as a mentor. I didn't sit down and go, what do you want out of this? And that's only something I've started doing since we got data about this.

Cougar: Oh, that's really cool. Alisha, what would you add to that? What, like what are the bullet points of, 

Alisha: so I think There are specific [00:40:00] things that can be considered as, like, if you're a mentor, I think acknowledging your mentees, the person that you're helping to provide this training to as people, like, as an individual who has their own needs, as you were both just mentioning, that's pretty critical, because sometimes There will I think, for me personally, when it, especially when it was a formal kind of mentorship, like I've hired this student to work with me either on my research or as a teaching assistant, like a TA for a class.

Sometimes it's easy to get just stuck in the, these are the procedures that, these are the skills I need to teach you. Which is an element of it, but when I step back and remind myself, like, what's the bigger picture for the student, that's when I can be a better mentor and you constantly have to remind yourself of that.

Like, it's not something that we innately do. Most of us. I think mentors who can. help [00:41:00] encourage a growth mindset in their mentees. That's in the literature is something that is really meaningful. And then there's, there's a whole bunch of skills. So lots of work has been done in this area and trying to understand what kinds of skills a mentor should be considering.

And it can be things like, are you an active listener? And can you identify the communication styles of these mentors? Students that you're working with, how good are you at building their confidence in whatever it is that you're working with them on, whether it's research or something else. How good are we at helping them network effectively?

How good are we at helping them balance work and personal life? So there are a lot of different kind of dimensions to mentorship. And to me, I think one of my Questions that I have kept coming back to is when I'm seeking a team, when I'm trying to look for a student that I'm going to be formally mentoring, like, what is my [00:42:00] process for finding that student?

Do I just pick students who have the highest grades in my class? And those are the only ones who ever get these opportunities. Or do I look for people who remind me of myself? And that's really common in the business literature even. So in a college like ours. where there are many more male faculty than female faculty.

If we're only looking for people who remind us of ourselves when we were young, well, that's leaving out wide swaths of our student population. And the same thing could be said for race, ethnicity, or in a whole bunch of other. Areas and subgroups. So when we start as mentors being thoughtful and intentional and self assessing, we're going to find a lot of places where we can improve, but it takes a lot of time, humility.

Yeah. 

Cougar: I really appreciate that. I think if we're teachers to [00:43:00] recognize we're always teaching something. May or may not be what we had intended to teach. Always teaching something. I'm just thinking right now, as you're talking of an experience I had when we did a study abroad program for five weeks, Western Europe and Scandinavia, 40 plus students.

We went to the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, heard from world experts. We had guest lectures at other universities as we traveled. The students all took six credit hours of coursework. We would once a week do a large lecture, sometimes in a park or sometimes in the mountains. It was such an incredible experience.

They learned about nutrition and work life balance and active living and active transport and built environments and all these things. And I had multiple students at the end of that five week experience. Write me personal notes and say the most [00:44:00] significant thing I got from this program was the opportunity to watch how you interact with your wife.

I'm gonna cry now. They just said I didn't have that modeled for me. And now I have confidence in marriage. Now I can see what this looks like. And how you talk to your kids. And also how you got along with your colleagues. That hasn't been modeled for me, and now I have hope. Like, I got this, because I can do that.

I can treat people the way you were treating others. And it's enough. And I just thought, oh my goodness. I'm glad we went to the WHO. I'm glad we organized all those modules. Online courses and lectures. But isn't that interesting? We're always teaching. And so, they're learning more about their savior. Or maybe they're learning, oh, this is someone who believes and goes to church, but their life, the way they carry [00:45:00] themselves, isn't really reflective of the Savior, so maybe that's not as important as I thought it was.

So we're always teaching something. That's what I'm hearing you talk about, even though there's, I know there's science to this, and I know we have studies from different academic fields. And I think the networking is vitally important. I think when a young student, when a student comes to us and they want to go into whatever our chosen areas of expertise are, we better know how to connect them with people outside the university, where the internships are, where the jobs are, who they need to send an email to and say, Hey, I talked to Dr.

Redelfs and she said, you'd be a great resource person as I'm looking for a job in the El Paso area. So, like, that's vital. And I think it also speaks to why we need to probably do sabbaticals and continue to stay connected and have research partners that aren't just in the university, aren't just in academia.

But there's so much there. It'll take us a week, a month to unpack [00:46:00] all the things that the two of you have mentioned. I really, I really am touched. So thankful to be a part of this university. And now I'm babbling again. Can I ask any final thoughts before, I have a final question about what you're listening to, what you're reading, what's inspiring you right now as lifelong learners.

Before I turn to that question, I should give each of you a final opportunity to talk about belonging and mentorship on campus. So I'll start with you, Julianne. Is that okay? 

Julianne: Yeah. 

Cougar: Final words or reflection? 

Julianne: Well, I just want to say how grateful I am that I'm in a community that believes in belonging, right?

And for all the professors and students who are on board with belonging, because it really does take all of us. And I'm really grateful that the university has dedicated an office to belonging. And for professors like Alisha who are stepping up and going, Hey, we really should have this [00:47:00] mentorship committee.

I really believe in it. You know, as a professor myself who didn't receive any training on how to mentor, I think we can make it more intentional and make it easier for professors. Provide them with resources, with ideas, with training. And, um, We know that this is going to really impact students from the survey results, right?

We know professors are a major compute contributor and, and it's for reasons like you said, right? We're always teaching something. They're watching us. And when we can really be trained and do things more intentionally and have more confidence to have these deeper interactions, we're going to see a huge increase in belonging on campus.

Cougar: Thank you. Alisha, what would you add to that? 

Alisha: So I've just been thinking as we've been talking. When I was an undergrad, I had no idea that I could even go talk to a professor. I [00:48:00] don't think I entered a professor's office until I was a senior. My mentors, I was playing basketball in college. So my mentors were my coaches and that was where I found belonging.

But I didn't know that there were opportunities to get involved in research. I didn't know that I could be a TA for a class and see if that was something that I liked. There were so many things that I didn't know because my exposure, To professors never included a mentor, and it wasn't until I got connected to Mike Barnes here from our Department of Public Health at BYU that I learned about what public health is, and he kept following up with me, even though I was some random person who had never attended BYU.

And once I got here into the Masters of Public Health program, I found other mentors. And I worked with Josh West, and Mike continued to mentor me. And those connections to mentors were what [00:49:00] got me to my doctoral program, and what got me back here to BYU. I really feel so strongly that mentorship matters.

And to kind of like, Tie this up a little bit. I thought a lot when people ask me, Well, you're in public health. Like, why are you studying, studying mentoring? And I'll basically say, Well, this is not my area of expertise. But I feel like it's so important that I am learning and I'm studying it. And I'm trying to figure out how do we move forward?

Because to me, mentorship is a part of public health. So when we talk about public health, currently in our public health paradigm, we talk a lot about social determinants of health, which are things like poverty and education. And how do we change those? We talk a lot about programming so we can set up programs down the road to try and help improve health [00:50:00] for people.

But how do we address poverty? How do we Fix things upstream instead of downstream and mentorship is one of those potential ways so Mentorship for a student who has received good mentorship. They're more likely to graduate on time They're more likely To get a higher paying job They're more likely to get into graduate school, which also equates with a higher paying job.

They're more likely to have a bigger network to help them navigate their future. And in all of those ways, mentorship can increase social mobility. It can change the trajectory of a person's life. and their family's life. And to me, that's huge. Like, if I can do that for just a couple of students, then my purpose here at BYU is fulfilled.

But the cool thing is, as a faculty at BYU, it's not just a couple students that we can do this for. We can do this for many students, [00:51:00] and it might not be completely life altering for all of them, but if we each can do a little bit to change and improve the life of a student, even if it's their self confidence, and maybe it's not them going on to graduate school, that's okay.

Like their confidence, their self efficacy, that matters in so many different ways through the rest of their life. So to me, it's just like this great opportunity for us. To really make a difference in the lives of students. And there are a lot of different projects that we have going on that will continue over the next few years.

It's, this is not a short term fix. I would say like, this is something that's going to take time and commitment from the university and from faculty and staff, but it can be so meaningful. 

Cougar: I'm having so many little epiphanies as you're talking, Alisha, as we talk about mentoring, I [00:52:00] can't help but think about ministering.

Cougar (2): Yeah. And 

Cougar: how we've transitioned from, you know, home of teaching to ministry, 

Cougar (2): and 

Cougar: it's spirit led, and it's individualized, and it's flexible. It's going to look different in every situation. And as you're talking, Juliannea, and this shouldn't be about me, I apologize to our listeners. I was really intimidated at BYU, and I probably wasn't academically prepared for the rigor of my coursework.

I had never been a great student. I learned how to read in the fourth grade. I've mentioned before on the podcast, everyone else seemed to know what they were, they had a really clear path as far as their major and graduation and things were falling into place and they were getting married and they knew where they were going to live.

And I just thought, I don't know any of that. I have so many question marks. I, I was so intimidated and I've always used that word to describe my BYU experiences, intimidated. And sometimes [00:53:00] lonely. It's remarkable to think you're lonely amidst a campus of 35, 000 plus people. But really, it was about belonging.

I didn't feel like I fit in or I belonged, like I was good enough. That's really what we're talking about. 

Julianne: Yeah. And I love that you opened up and said what you said, because I have to say that's the number one reason that students have come into my office for the past 16 years. They feel like everyone else knows what they're doing.

Everyone else knows what they want to major in has known since they were two or whatever, they've got their life planned out and they don't. And so I think this is kind of a facade that. We've put out there somehow, right? That where there's so many students in this situation, it's a very common place to be a very common feeling.

Cougar: Yeah. Now that I'm on this side as a faculty, I 

Julianne: think we're alone in that when we're a student, 

Cougar: I realized, Oh, that's [00:54:00] the majority of students are like, I guess I'll just sign up for some more classes next semester. I don't know what I'm doing. I feel like an imposter. I hope no one else knows how important this is to really come together.

And. As we talk about this, it's clear this is not just about diversity, equity, inclusion. This is about Zion. This is about feeling one heart, one mind. We're here, and you belong here, and we want you here. And we're better because you chose to be. So it is humility. It's all of those things wrapped together.

It's the gospel of Jesus Christ wrapped together. In this massive thing called a university. And we'll continue to stub our toe as we try to figure it out. But I love what Alisha said, which is, this is not a one off. This is not, you know, we need to put out a press release. Look, we're addressing a particular concern.

No, this is us fulfilling this divine [00:55:00] destiny. This prophetic destiny of becoming the Lord's University. I just, wow. I feel so inspired. I didn't anticipate, I knew we were gonna talk as friends today, but I didn't anticipate having some of the feelings that I'm having. I hope the listeners will, will pick up on just how important you and I and you know, the three of us feel about this.

So 

Alisha: can I just add one more thing? Yeah, please. 

Cougar: You can go all day if you want. 

Alisha: This was not what I anticipated studying and, and focusing on when I came here to BYU, but it was about the summer of 2020 when. I think all of us were pretty introspective at that point. And I just had this feeling that I needed to start moving into the darkness and taking steps in this area of mentorship and trying to help students feel belonging.

And I had no idea what I was doing. So I kept hesitating, because I I am pre CFS, or I was, which means I don't have tenure. I just got [00:56:00] my letter, so yay. But at the time, I kept thinking, well, that's not wise of me. Like, I need to focus on what I already know and work in this area. And I reached a point where it really felt like the spirit kicked me.

Like, not just, here's a little small nudge, but like, I am shoving you forward because you need to move now on this. And I think that's a sign to me of how important this is at this moment on campus. This didn't come from me. I don't think belonging came from Completely the Co Reb or from President Worthen or President Reese.

I think this is led by the Lord. And there's a reason for that. And if we just keep trusting in that and we're moving forward, like you said, we're going to stumble and we're going to make some mistakes along the [00:57:00] way. It's not going to be perfect, but I think this is His plan. 

Julianne: Absolutely. I just want to echo that, right?

I was a full professor here at BYU. Had my research going well. Had my teaching down. Like, things were just going smoothly. And then I received the kick to join the Office of Belonging. That's a complete 180 for me. A big switch. And I had a lot of people tell me, you shouldn't do this. Like, your research is going great.

Your lab is going great. Don't do this, right? But once again, it was the Lord like it the feeling was so strong and and it is because he cares so Much about this and it is his work 

Cougar: Amen, you can make as many plans as you want Julianne and Alisha

That stretching is uncomfortable and at times you're like no no, I got a plan and the Lord's like your plans You Not as good as mine. Trust me. [00:58:00] Exactly. Well, let's wrap this up. And I always ask the same question. I just want to know, you know, we really are lifelong learners, or we should be in academia. Is there anything you're reading or listening to or thinking about that has you inspired, that gets you excited, hopeful for the future?

I'll start with you, Alisha. 

Alisha: I have a whole series of podcasts that I love listening to. But one of the books that I've read recently I'm seeing on your shelf is Outlive. That one is fascinating, and it's got me thinking about a lot of things. In terms of some of the podcasts that are on my list, I like anything with Adam Grant.

He's out of pen. And the newest podcast that I've been listening to is called No Stupid Questions. So Angela Duckworth, who wrote Grit, she's one of the hosts on that podcast. 

Cougar: Very cool. 

Alisha: Yeah. 

Cougar: I'll add both of those to my list. 

Julianne: Hidden brain. 

Cougar: Hidden brain. How about you, Julianne? Well, I 

Julianne: just got back from our first Office of Belonging study experience [00:59:00] and it was civil and religious freedom.

We toured the church history sites and the civil freedom sites from Boston, Plymouth, New York. Gettysburg, Philadelphia, Washington, D. C., and we took a law professor and the dean of religious education here at BYU. And now I'm just entrenched in all this reading around civil and religious freedom, right?

The key Supreme Court cases, the putting together the Constitution, like, at a depth that I've never. Read these things before, right? 1776 articles on Gettysburg. And of course, the Joseph Smith papers, lots of really good readings. 

Cougar: It was 

Julianne: phenomenal. You should, you should be envious. Cause I went with some, you know, 19 incredible students.

It was amazing. 

Cougar: So many cool opportunities. Maybe that's the last thing we want to say. Maybe the [01:00:00] last thing we want to say is to students, do not be afraid. Approach us. We're trying to bust up the hierarchy, this power structure, that we're your professors, we assign grades, we determine your future. The hierarchy, we're busting that up, come, sit down, let's talk.

We're here for you. I mean, because so many, for students and for faculty alike, maybe we just need to get that information out there like 15 times a day. Yeah. We're here for you. And if you feel lost, you feel intimidated, there's so much here. So much as far as learning and experience that we enjoy together.

So, let me say thank you to you both. This took a little longer than I had told you, so a little false, but I really appreciate your time. And, uh, this has been one of the most enjoyable things we've had here on this podcast. So thank you so much. 

Cougar (2): Thank you for joining us today. Catch us on our next episode and don't forget to subscribe to future Y Health [01:01:00] episodes.