Strong Student Campaign: Information for Faculty

All Red Hawks can be strong students. Faculty and staff from across the university have developed a campaign to raise awareness of the behaviors and actions that strong students develop and implement regularly. This campaign makes explicit what it takes to become strong – it’s small, simple acts that, in total, lead to success.

Please join the Strong Student Campaign by pledging to support students in adopting the small, simple behaviors that are essential to success in college!

Interim Provost Fatma Mili has challenged the Montclair community to consider how we educate students during the “Brain Age,” a period in which we need to “pay renewed attention to the health of the mind and to the human capacities that intelligent technologies cannot simply replicate.” Part of this work involves supporting students’ resilience and well-being, and creating the conditions that enable learning. The Strong Student Campaign is positioned to support faculty in these efforts by offering practical, consistent messaging directly to students about the habits that support deep learning.

You may not have come to teaching thinking you’d need to teach “studenting” skills, but, in fact, it’s those skills that many of our students need support in developing. Successful instructors teach something much harder than their discipline; they teach learning.

Each week of the semester, a new theme is promoted: on social media, on digital screens, in messaging to students and in university classes. The Office for Faculty Excellence will alert instructors about the week’s theme and offer guidance for supporting students in developing the behaviors.

Your engagement can be simple: Share each week’s message through slides, a Canvas announcement, or other tool.

Please let us know that you’re participating by completing this short form:

Strong Student Campaign form for Faculty and Staff

Do you have feedback about the campaign? Please let us know.

Rocky in strong arm pose superimposed on an aerial image of Cole Hall

Join the Strong Student Campaign!

Pledge to support students in adopting the small, simple behaviors that are essential to success in college!

Your engagement can be simple: Share each week’s message through slides, a Canvas announcement, or other tool.

How to Participate

Updated Fall slides available!

“Be a Strong Graduate Student” Slide Deck                Fall 2026 Graduate Student edition

“Be a Strong Student” Main Campus Slide Deck          Fall 2026 main campus edition

“Be a Strong Student” Bloomfield Slide Deck               Fall 2026 Bloomfield campus edition

“Be a Strong Student” Online Modalities Slide Deck    Fall 2026 online modalities edition

“Be a Strong Student” 7-Week Term Slide Deck           Fall 2026 7-week term edition

“Be a Strong Student” Online Programs Slide Deck      Fall 2026 7-week Online Programs edition

Make your expectations for strong “studenting” skills clear by utilizing the slides that are available for you to copy or download.

Suggestions:

  • As you set up for class, project the week’s slide; students will read the slide as they enter class and await for the lesson for the day to begin.
  • Leave the slide up as you take attendance and attend to other details.
  • To simply the transition to your planned lesson, copy each week’s slide into your own existing content.
  • Copy a single slide into your own content slides, or copy the whole deck for your own use.

You won’t be surprised by the slides’ content — it’s all those little tips you might think of but not actually articulate consistently.

*For asynchronous courses, consider including the message, adapting as appropriate, as a part of your weekly overview or announcement.

Slide Themes:

  • Week by Week Plan

  • Week 1: Attend Class Like You Mean It

  • Week 2: Do the Work (On Time)

  • Week 3: Plan Your Time (Better)

  • Week 4: Seek Academic Help

  • Week 5: Take Care of Your Health

  • Week 6: Make Your Own Community 

  • Week 7: Know Your Strengths & Weaknesses

  • Week 8: Recommit to Attending Class Like You Mean It

  • Week 9: Deal with Absences Effectively

  • Week 10: Recommit to Planning Your Time (Better)

  • Week 11: Seek Academic Help

  • Week 12: Take Care of Your Health

  • Week 13: Lock In and Finish Strong

  • Week 14: Celebrate Your Success

Graduate Edition Slide Themes

  • Week 1: Set the Tone for Success
  • Week 2: Create a Keep-Going Plan
  • Week 3: Practice Effective Time Management
  • Week 4: Seek Academic Feedback
  • Week 5: Take Care of Your Health
  • Week 6: Build Your Professional Network
  • Week 7: Know Your Strengths & Weaknesses
  • Week 8: Return & Reset
  • Week 9: Draw From Your Keep-Going Plan
  • Week 10: Practice Effective Time Management (Again)
  • Week 11: Implement  Academic Feedback
  • Week 12: (Continue to) Take Care of Your Health
  • Week 13: Lock in and Finish Strong
  • Week 14: Celebrate Your Success

Prefer to share the weekly message with students via Canvas? Import our Strong Student Campaign module from Canvas Commons. We have versions for online and face-to-face modalities. The module contains a weekly themed message you can share as a page or copy/paste into an announcement. It also includes optional assignments you can pick and choose from, and adapt to your class, if you wish. First log into Canvas, and then in Canvas Commons (accessible via the far left navigation menu in Canvas), search “OFE” and “Strong Student Campaign,” or try the links below:

Face-to-Face modalities module

Online modalities module

Don't want to import the model? Watch for sample assignments linked in our weekly fall and spring Strong Student Campaign emails.

Instructors are also invited to extend their participation further and utilize the instructor strategies that we suggest for each theme. 

  1. Let all students know they are capable and can succeed.
  2. Incentivize attendance and make absences, missing work and/or late work consequential.
  3. Provide a comprehensive schedule of Canvas assignments to populate students’ Canvas “To Do” list.
  4. Assign homework regularly — students learn best with manageable consistent engagement.
  5. Submit grades in Canvas promptly so students stay on track and see their emerging final grade
  6. Require (and evaluate) engagement with readings, viewings, or anything you assign for homework.
  7. Keep class active and interesting: in every class session students should speak, do, write, interact, or perform. Make it obvious that class matters, and that it’s a place of active learning.
  8. Spread out the points — students should start earning points by the second week of class, and they should continue to do every week throughout the semester.
  9. Make your expectations explicit. For example,
    1. If you want laptops closed, say so.
    2. If you want phones removed, say so.
    3. If you want every student to speak once in a class, say so.
    4. If you think students cannot learn in a class if they have not completed the reading, say so.
  10. Use Navigate to identify students who are struggling. There are two reporting periods each semester, and instructors can also enter “alerts” at any time. Make referrals. Talk to students individually, pointing out concerns you have and referring students to resources.

See Student Support Resources for a full list of health services (mental and physical), academic support services, and other “life” support referral options.

Additional Resources

Explore additional resources and information:

These are just a few positive student learning behaviors we recommend. For more, please come to an OFE workshop or read more on these pages:

Active Learning: Specific, manageable techniques to maximize student engagement and value for your class sessions.

Attendance: Design a strategy that increases students’ belief that attendance matters and plan what you’ll do when a student’s attendance is poor.

Assignments & Assessments: Authentic assessment, formative assessment, assessment add-ons like problem-solving logs, exam wrappers, minute papers, “muddiest point” questions.

Collaborative Learning: Groups and Teams: Techniques for making sure groups work well.

Connect with Students: Students learn best when they feel connected to their instructors, and it’s not so hard to connect as you might think.

Flipped Learning:  Ask students to read, view, and digest material at home, and then apply, demonstrate, and perform in class, individually or in small groups.

Grading Methods and Strategies: Plan a manageable approach to grading that enhances student learning

It’s Time to Start Teaching Your Students How to Be a Student (The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 19, 2024)

Teaching: Should You Teach Your Students How to Be Students? (The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 28, 2024)

Teaching: More on How — and Whether — to Develop Students’ Study Skills (The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 11, 2024)

Academic Success Tip: Weekly Skill Building for Students (Inside Higher Ed, Apr 29, 2024)

How to Build a Better Student (EAB podcast, ep. 194, Apr 30, 2024)

NB: Montclair employees have access to The Chronicle; sign up with your Montclair email.

The Strong Student Campaign is a collaborative effort inspired by instructor and staff voices of concern for students, led by an ad hoc committee:

  • Academic Affairs: Danielle Insalaco-Egan, Acting Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education and Acting Dean of University College; Emily Isaacs, OFE Managing Director; Catherine Keohane, OFE Director of Faculty Development; Julie Mazur, Assistant Provost for Academic Success and Tutoring.
  • Enrollment Management: Tara Morlando-Zurlo, Director of Red Hawk Central
  • Student Development and Campus Life: Marie Cascarano, Assistant Director for Health Promotion; Tory Elisca, Assistant Director of Residence Life; Hannah Lindeblad, Student Communications Manager; Kelsey Nyman, Coordinator of Student Communications; Paige Easterbrook, Coordinator of Social and Digital Media; Dom Sylvester, Student Communications Technical Director; Antonio Talamo, Assistant Director of Student Involvement.
  • University Communications: Elyse Fernandez, Media Relations Coordinator; Paul McGroarty, Social Media Manager.

Have Questions?