Social emotional development: a new model of student learning in higher education

A new construct, called social and emotional development (SED) which is defined as the desirable, sustainable enhancement of personal capacity to utilize emotional information, behaviors, and traits to facilitate desired social outcomes, is presented. The SED model, which includes self awareness, consideration of others, connection to others and impacting change, links the social emotional intelligence and competence development literatures. The purpose of SED is to provide a framework to understand and facilitate increasing student social and emotional capacity to recognize emotional cues, process emotional information, and utilize emotional knowledge to adapt to social challenges in higher education.