In Focus

It was early one afternoon, during the week of finals, when I sat in a small conference room in the Hugh and Hazel Darling Library with Chip Anderson, Ph.D., professor in the School of Education and Behavioral Studies. Three ministers from the Church of the Nazarene were also present to implement StrengthsFinder, a strengths inventory program that Anderson co-designed, into the process of hiring and delegating new ministers in their church. I was there to learn about StrengthsFinder also, but I was interested in understanding what is has to do with college students.

The StrengthsFinder is an online test administered through The Gallup Organization. The test requires a personal ID code to log on, which can be found inside the book cover of StrengthsQuest: Discover and Develop Your Strengths in Academics, Career, and Beyond, or purchased individually from the website, www.strengthsquest.com. The test identifies the 34 most common personality strengths (a quality, attribute, or talent that enables or empowers someone to do certain things very well) and discusses how people with those strengths use them in school, work, and relationships. The test takes 30-40 minutes and the individual's top five strengths are instantly projected, ready to print.

Beyond those logistics, StrengthsFinder is much more — a perspective revolutionizing the way APU approaches student development. Each fall, freshmen students, orientation leaders, and staff and faculty mentors took the StrengthsFinder as part of the Beginnings class curriculum.