We began our season with the dense, dark star of the skills of learning to learn. By today’s episode, late in our season, we see that single star has been revealed to be an intricate constellation of disparate points of light and gravity. Our conversation in this episode is about creating constellations of meaning and support through the skills and experience of connection.

Our guests have come to see their work at the college as hinging on connection. We talk first with Brad Kauffman, program director at the William Jerry Wood Life Skills Center in the Academic Success Center. Brad works with students on essential skills like time management. As he works with them, he often discovers that other college services could have a direct impact on their academic success, so he regularly connects students to financial aid, counseling and disability services.

Angela Griffin, our second guest, is a professor of Psychology in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences. As her career has progressed, she's come to several revelations about the place of connection in academic success: both slow revelations and sudden. We walk alongside her to understand how she's changed her classes over the years and how much benefit this has brought her students.