US colleges celebrate failure to ease student stress

Bentley University has plenty of success stories among its faculty and alumni. But one recent evening, the school invited students to hear about the failures.

Speaking to a crowded auditorium, one professor recounted the time he sank a USD21 million company. Another recalled failing her college statistics course. One graduate described his past struggles with drug addiction.

Each story reinforced the same message: Even successful people sometimes fail.

"Failure is normal. It's healthy. And I think people on this panel would argue it actually is transformative," Peter Forkner, director of Bentley's counseling centre, told students.

"If you're not failing, it probably means that you're not taking enough risks."
"For many students, it's the first time they're navigating independently away from home, and if they also don't have basic life skills, it's sort of a perfect storm."
Stanford University encourages its students to celebrate their failures through song, poetry and other creative outlets at an annual event called "Stanford, I Screwed Up! "
When it comes to grades, Cornell College in Iowa is warning professors that they shouldn't soften their scoring for the sake of students' emotions. A directive on the issue notes that "a grade of a C or below is not the end of the world."
"Normalise failure. It's part of life. It's one way we learn," the message says. "Sometimes students need to fail, and not be given an undeserved grade by a sympathetic faculty member."
Efforts to tackle campus mental health have sometimes been met by sneers. On social media, some observers mock a generation of fragile "snowflakes" who need "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings."
"They're just responding to a different and more challenging landscape with the resources we've given them."