Students learn about boundaries

Boundaries in Life is a women-only six-week program that started at the beginning of the spring semester and is put on by the Center for Student Thriving.

According to Leanne Gifford, director of the Center for Student Thriving, the purpose of the workshop is to help students recognize that healthy boundaries equip people to identify and take ownership of their responsibilities.

The workshop utilizes resources such as the book “Boundaries” by Henry Cloud and John Townsend.

Boundaries in Life started in 2019 and was founded upon assessments and different surveys of the student body about areas that students needed to improve on throughout their daily lives.   

Surveys found consistent themes were peer pressure, unhealthy relationships and not knowing how to say no.

It became apparent that students needed a program teaching them how to place boundaries in their life.

“Our goal, really, is that students can learn what boundaries even are,” Sophia Payne, associate director for the Center for Student Thriving, said.

Payne continued by stating that the workshop serves to answer questions regarding boundaries as a Christian such as, “Is it possible to be a good Christian and have standards?” The main goal of the workshop is to give students a healthy foundation and help them apply it to their lives.

Over the duration of the program, students attend six sessions, which are each an hour long. They consist of a short teaching time followed by peer-led discussion groups.

“Every week allows you to, little by little, adjust your perspective on something,” Payne said. “They are able to think (the lecture) over, ask the questions and get an ability to express it and sort through it and see success.”

A key topic discussed in meetings is that boundaries are not a wall that shut things out. Instead, they are a picket fence with a gate that allow us to bring the good into life while shutting out the bad.

This does not happen through just sitting and listening to a lecture. Students come in and sit with the same peer facilitator each week to build trust. The peer facilitators are students who were trained and went through the workshop in a previous semester.

“The participants are able to reach out to their facilitator anytime throughout the week (when) they might have questions or feel the need to discuss something more in-depth,” Payne said. “Typically, they will offer one-on-one coffee hangouts in between a session in case someone has more going on that a 5-minute explanation is not sufficient.”

Boundaries in Life has been successful in helping students, especially freshmen, adapt to new ways to set boundaries in their lives.

Additionally, it can be helpful for seniors who recognize the areas they want to fix before going into the workforce. Boundaries in Life hopes to one day open its doors to the men of Liberty University.

“(For) anybody who is struggling with things that are ‘small’ — such as how to communicate a simple frustration or standards — … this is definitely for wherever they are at in life,” Payne said.  “I can’t think of a single female student who would not benefit from this because no matter what you think about boundaries, they are a part of our life.”

Airam Amaro-Millán is a news reporter for the Liberty Champion