Making Smiles
Happiness Centre at Nilgiri College of Arts and Science is an active cell conducting unique events and programmes on the theme of happiness. We believe that happiness is not only that huge smile on your face. It’s a sense of being, a conscious choice on how to live your life. Being happy all the time may take a bit of work, happiness is a choice.
We the Nilgiri family is in a journey to accomplish and ensure an individual’s holistic development. Happiness plays a pivotal role in the growth and overall development of an individual. However, it is true that happiness is the result of achievements-both collective and individual – rather than an end goal or achievement itself. Recent research by the American psychological association (APA) show a personal state of health, personal sense of security, and freedom plays a key role in determining their typical level of happiness. The purpose of life is not be happy, but to live a meaningful and selfless existence where we can contribute to the society and civilization.
In order to integrate happy and positive attitude with the academic discipline, we have formulated a solution focused approach in launching happiness centre in our campus. Since the core objective of our institution is to ensure the happiness of its staff, students and all stakeholders. Both the organization and individual can benefit from a deeper understanding of personal happiness factors and how to stimulate them. To achieve a deep organizational and personal understanding of happiness factor in the campus, the happiness centre will arrange a variety of events, contents and training programmes to build awareness, teach self- reflection and to project their self image. We are moulding our institution to make the choice to lead a happier environment.
For Making Happiness
The happiness centre will pursue a well defined systematic approach to influencing happiness for the whole institution. With a dedicated focus to measuring people’s happiness, our centre is continually researching and refining a scientific model inspired from the models propounded by the Govt. of Bhutan and as well as the happiness agenda of Dubai . We are spreading an extant, target – driven appraisal tool to monitor satisfaction and happiness level of all the stakeholders of the institution.
By implementing stakeholder satisfaction and affectivity analysis for the whole campus, the happiness centre will empower decision makers to act for the stake holders happiness in real- time , supported by the observed data .
A 2013 report by the Yale college council found that more than half of undergraduate sought mental health services during their time on campus. Mental health issues among young adults around the world. ”I was really surprised at the level of anxiety and depression student face”, Professor Santos (Yale university) says.
A 2009 survey of 80,121 students, conducted by the American college of health association – national college health assessment, showed that 39% of college students felt hopeless during the school year, and 25% felt so depressed they found it hard to function .nearly half (47%) reported feeling overwhelming anxiety and 84% said they felt generally overwhelmed by all they have to do.
Teaching students how to be happier isn’t just about helping them as individual – it can also be about helping them to better citizens. Happiness centre help students to develop their own voice to pick themselves up after failure.
“We favor globally unique a holistic approach to happiness by impacting individual’s basic and higher needs “.
Importance and Activities
According to hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1954) basic needs must be satisfied before higher needs are satisfied. Provision for basic needs will have an immediate, pragmatic and tangible value for stakeholders. Good stakeholder experience design as an example can reduce personal stress while delivering essential services efficiently easily.
It begins by defining happiness and making the case that happiness at work place improves the performance of individual employees and organizations as a whole, increasing innovation, productivity, engagement, retention and the quality of their work. it than explores the key factors that empirical research has linked to workplace happiness, involving practices such as gratitude, developing a strong sense of purpose and forming authentic , cooperative connections with others .
Stress, anxiety and burnout are rampant across workplaces today, 80 percent of workers feel stress on the job and nearly half says that they need in help learning in how to manage it. While many organizations may assume that intense stress is unavoidable, even admirable, research suggest that too much stress is toxic to our health and performance, leading to burnout and harming the culture of organizations as a whole.
“Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations”
Happiness centre values the talents and skills of every stakeholder while providing necessary measures to promote and motivate the stakeholders.The fundamental reason why happiness is so important is that it’s extremely vital to our own goals in life and can help us achieve many other cherished personal ambitions and goals. Also, by being happy, we have the potential to change many other lives just by being ourselves.
“Happiness is a good contagion and we want the people of the world to be affected by it enjoy goodness. This requires a tangible change in the culture of the government work. we want an actual translation of goals of the international organizations that all shares a general goal representing in strengthening positivity and maintaining a more sustainable world and achieving goodness for the human”- his Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum( vice president , UAE)
‘ABCD’ OF NEEDS
Inspired by Dubai Happiness Agenda
The happiness center aims to increase happiness by satisfying all needs towards a more complete and holistic positive experience
‘A’ for AFFECTIVE NEEDS
People need opportunities to be happy in the moment. We are focusing on making those moments possible.
‘B’ for BASIC NEEDS
Satisfying people’s basic service needs is the first duty of our college. Happiness and well -being must be built from there.
‘C’ for COGNITIVE NEEDS
People who are satisfied with their quality of life are more likely to feel positive in new situations.
‘D’ for DEEPER NEEDS
People’s desire to achieve a sense of meaning and purpose in life is a driving force for sustained happiness.
The Happiness Centre will measure and impact people’s happiness through an iterative framework to discover, change, adopts and measure people’s happiness.
DISCOVER
A primary portfolio in the happiness center is the ‘discover’, which is geared towards ensuring clear and shared information amongst the stake holders. The essence of this area is to discover rather than assume facts and concept that lie at the heart of subsequent activities. This will result in enhancing the efficiency and chances of success of these activities.
CHANGE
This is the area that is primarily responsible for creating change in the college with regards to the happiness. This change will be made by having a clear strategy towards the holistic approach to happiness as well as producing policies and associated awards that encourage activities and services that enhance happiness. It also contains programs aimed at delivering customer interventions as well as city transformations that improve the quality of life in the campus.
ADOPT
Build awareness, teach self-reflection and influence campus to prioritize happiness. An important area of increasing happiness in the campus is to bring awareness and to educate teachers, students, parents and other stakeholders with regards to happiness activities and its culture.
MEASURE
Research, formulate and implement a happiness impact decision making tool and happiness index.
In order to ensure efficient and effective delivery of activities and programs within the happiness center, it is important to sustain ongoing measurement of key aspects of happiness and stakeholders benefits. We will conduct regular assessments of happiness in the campus, as well as assessing the effectiveness of the framework. One of the factors that need to be taking into account when measuring happiness is ‘adaptation’.
This is the factor that as adoption increases, people are initially happy and satisfied, but these feeling decrease as the service becomes routine. A steady stream of new services and upgrades are required to sustain high levels of satisfaction and happiness. Therefore, the happiness center is by definition, dealing with moving targets, and measurements of happiness must take this into account.
MAJOR DOMAINES
Happiness center is extensively inspired from the Bhutan’s Gross Nation Happiness Index (GNHI) and have adopted the index with certain modulation in respect to the provision of the institution. The phrase ‘Gross National Happiness’ was first coined by 4th king of Bhutan, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, in 1972 when he declared, “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic product. The concept implies that sustainable development should take a holistic approach toward notions of progress and give equal importance to non-economic aspects of wellbeing
THE HAPPINESS INDEX INCLUDE DOMAINS
- Psychological Wellbeing
- Health
- Education
- Time Use
- Cultural Diversity and Resilience
- Good Governance
- Community Vitality
- Living Standards
- Safety and Security
The happiness index is decomposable by any demographic characteristic, meaning it can be broken down by population group, for example , to shoe the composition of happiness Level among men and among women students, or , by Age , and by dimension , for example to show which group is lacking in certain happiness areas such as mental health, physical, family etc.,
Based on the observation Happiness Center will categories four group of people –unhappy, narrowly happy, extensively happy and deeply happy. The analysis explores the happiness people enjoy already and then focuses on how policies can happiness and sufficiency among the unhappy and narrowly happy people.
AREAS AND ACTIVITIES
1. HOSPITALITY
Hospitality is the relationship between guest and host, or the practice of being hospitable. Hospitality is also known as the act of generously providing care and kindness to whoever is in need. The prime area of happiness center is the hospitality which includes guest reception, visitor’s management, visitors review and thanking notes.
2. COUNSELLING AND MENTORING
In every organization, a robust staff development program is a key tactic to advance the organization by grooming individuals for increased levels of responsibility and creativity. It is also a key component of job satisfaction and aids in employee retention. Counseling and Mentoring is the process that develops the next generation of leader, by focusing on professional development and vision. This approach includes general professional development, such as introduction to contacts and networking opportunities, support with professional membership and involvement, and increased professional visibility, both in and out of the organization.
Happiness center will address personal and academic grievance of staffs and students and boot them with confidence and esteem.
3. STUDENTS SUCCESS CENTER
The role of student in education that they pursues is to be involved in every. They must pass with a sufficient grade to be determined worthy to be accepted into their field of area, but the role extends much further. Student success centre will take initiative to provide remedial classes for academically backward students.
4. FESTIVALS AND EVENTS
Happiness center will organize various festivals like Onam, Bakrid, Teacher’s day, Pongal, Christmas etc. Along with that activity week will be organized which includes remedial class, expert session, communication skills and so on .Independence Day , Republic Day will be celebrated with the initiative of each department.
5. ART OF HAPPINESS
We focus on spreading ideas and innovations on happiness in certain ways. Happiness Talk (H-Talk) will be held in the campus once in a week by experts, faculties, students.
6. WELL-WISHERS FORUM
Well wishers forum will be formed to promote well being of all people who intervene with our college.
7. FEEDBACK AND REVIEWS OF VISITORS
Feedback is designed to note where things are going right and where they are going wrong. Valuable comments and feedback from the guest and visitors shall be collected so that the institution can improve its affairs in all areas of involvement.
8. STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICE
Students these who need financial support for genuine reasons could be financially assisted by happiness center. Special scholarship also will be provided.
9. ALUMINI ASSOCIATION
Education institutions are changing the way they see and interact with their alumni community. Alumni are the brand-ambassadors of the institution they graduated from. Institutions have realized how a strong and a positive relationship with their alumni can benefit socially, academically and professionally.
HAPPINESS LUNCH
Happiness lunch is provided freely to students who couldn’t able to support their lunch and also happiness lunch is provided to students who come up with exceptional performance in academic , curricular and co-curricular activities in the campus.