Students take notes during the fall GRIT workshop.
DUNWOODY, Ga. — Dr. Claudia Vargas, an assistant professor of biology and Dr. Michael Baker, an assistant professor of psychology are from different disciplines, but both recognized a skill that needed to be taught to help their students succeed.
It was all about resilience.
In 2022, Baker and Vargas teamed up to write a grant proposal to develop and present a series of workshops aimed at honing student resilience. The result was Global Resilience Initiative, or GRIT for short. Their idea was implemented through a 2022 Dean’s Team Innovation Grant.
The duo will offer a student “GRIT’ workshop from 10 to noon on Friday, Feb. 9 on the Clarkston Campus. (This is the second workshop they have offered; their fall workshop on the Dunwoody Campus was well attended.)
Teaching their GRIT workshop together seemed a natural fit, they said. “We have two different perspectives that work nicely together,” Baker said. “Claudia covers the biology and neuroscience behind stress, and I cover the factors that influence resilience.”
Vargas, who also is an associate faculty for Georgia State’s Neuroscience Institute, teaches the underlying neuroscience of resilience in her Introduction to Neuroscience class.
“Some of the things we talk about include reframing a situation and shifting the perspective from passive to active voice, choosing to change from negative to positive. It’s a learned skill. It doesn’t change the circumstances but shifts how you think about it; I do that all the time in my own life as well,” she said.
Sometimes she refers to class tests as “celebrations of learning” rather than exams. “My students laugh, which releases dopamine and helps them do better—and that’s part of practicing resilience.”
Many of her students shared how much they were using the information in their daily lives and other classes, Vargas said.
In his Introduction to Psychology class, Baker also taught many aspects of resilience, including motivation, meaning and purpose, emotional intelligence, stress and stress management, and the importance of social support. He also recognized the significant impact of these topics on his students.
Connecting students to available free counseling and mentoring resources on campus is also a part of the workshop. “There are lot of counseling services available at GSU that students just don’t know about,” said Baker.
Keeping the workshop to 50 students seems to work best, they both said, so seating for the February workshop will be limited. But they hope to record the session for a broader audience.
“This is a high impact workshop that promotes student success,” said Vargas.
For information on the February workshop, contact Vargas at [email protected] or Baker at [email protected].