In a world where students face academic pressure, career uncertainty, and personal development challenges, life coaching has emerged as a vital support for both academic and personal success. IWU is leading the way, with 10 years of research showing how its life coaching program, housed in the Office of Life Calling and Career, is significantly impacting students' lives for the better.
Life coaching is a structured, one-on-one process that helps students clarify goals, overcome obstacles, and take actionable steps toward purposeful living. Unlike academic advising or counseling, life coaching focuses on growth, values, and forward momentum. Research published in February in the International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring by Levi Huffman, associate dean of Life Calling and Career, and Erin Davis, associate professor of Graduate Counseling at IWU, shows how the program empowers students to navigate college life. Their findings reveal that IWU’s approach goes beyond being a helpful resource. It is a catalyst for helping students discover strengths, define purpose, and find direction.
“We saw big gains in areas like self-efficacy and self-esteem with our students because of IWU’s life coaching program,” Davis said. “There were also jumps in knowing your major or feeling confident about your life purpose and being able to be more assertive.”
The life coaching program at IWU is available at no cost to students, and the impact is supported by compelling data. At many universities, undergraduate life coaching is rare if not non-existent. IWU’s model is now drawing attention well beyond campus.
Life coaching is often confused with counseling or mentoring, but it serves a distinct purpose. Unlike mentoring, which often involves sharing advice, or counseling, which addresses mental health and healing, life coaching is designed to move students from a good place to a better one. Counseling often looks to the past and present. Coaching, however, focuses on the present and future.
“Mentoring can turn into advice-giving: ‘This is how I did it’ or ‘This is how I would do it,’” Huffman said. “Coaching, on the other hand, is about personal discovery and making decisions about how to authentically integrate those discoveries. In counseling, the therapist is the expert. In coaching, the client is the expert.”
Many students benefit from combining both approaches. Davis noted that while therapy is essential, it can feel draining. Coaching, by contrast, often feels energizing and empowering. Therapy processes the past; coaching helps students move forward.
For Davis, coaching aligns with her passion for qualitative research and amplifying underrepresented voices. Her early work focused on Saudi Arabian women, but she later expanded into life coaching, drawn to its tangible impact on mental wellness and empowerment.
“You feel so seen and known and kind of alive when you’re coached because it really is focused on your goals, your plans, and who you are and what you want,” Davis said.
Huffman came to coaching through his commitment to helping students overcome obstacles. With a background in mentoring, discipleship, and positive psychology, he became a certified life coach and found innovative ways to integrate coaching into his student work.
“I’ve served in higher ed for a long time, in supervision, mentoring, advising, but coaching was a specific way of helping people I hadn’t experienced,” he said.
While IWU’s life coaching program was always believed to be helpful, 10 years of data now confirm its impact. Huffman and Davis collected survey responses from students before and after coaching sessions between 2013 and 2023. The results were compelling:
Although gains like these were expected, one finding in particular stood out: students of color reported even greater improvements than their peers from majority populations in areas such as self-efficacy, confidence in life purpose, and alignment of values with decision-making.
“Life coaching could be a really good tool, especially with students of color at institutions where they are underrepresented and may need added empowerment and support,” Davis said.
The research has attracted international interest because few similar studies exist.
“Our studies were published in the International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring,” Huffman said. “After publication, people from around the world reached out to learn how to replicate the program. The response was positive and surprising.”
Higher education has changed dramatically in the past decade, and student needs have grown more complex. Post-pandemic anxiety and isolation are at record highs, and many students feel disconnected. Online communication has only intensified this trend.
“Coaching helps bridge the gap in human connection,” Huffman said. “It’s about empowering, remaining curious, and being present with another human being as they make personal discoveries and navigate decisions.”
Huffman and Davis hope their research will encourage other universities to implement similar programs.
IWU’s decade of research affirms life coaching as a powerful tool for student success and well-being. By helping students realize they have answers within themselves and through Christ, coaching is transforming lives, one conversation at a time.
The data are clear: life coaching boosts confidence, clarity, and purpose. It is not available at every university, but its value is too significant to ignore.
“Life coaching is a powerful tool because it helps students realize they have the answers within them,” Davis said. “It’s about self-discovery and empowerment.”
