Supporting Health And Well-Being On College Campuses

Health and well-being are crucial to students’ academic and personal success, yet nurturing student well-being on campus is a constantly evolving challenge.

Colleges are seeing a nationwide trend: an increase in student stress levels and growing demand for a variety of student services, from academic support to time management guidance to counseling.

The reasons for this growing demand are complex. Several national studies have noted factors such as increasing financial pressures, the polarized social and political climate, current events that impact marginalized communities, ever-present social media, increased safety and security concerns and heightened awareness of and de-stigmatization of mental health issues—a positive shift that has led to more students seeking support.

How are colleges and universities tackling this upsurge in student demand for support to ensure that our students have what they need to succeed?

Typically, much of the work falls to Student Affairs staff, who have adapted quickly to meet the constantly changing needs of each incoming class. But in the best efforts, promoting student health and well-being is a campus-wide effort that requires a campus-wide commitment.

Many colleges are responding innovatively—developing effective, impactful ways to strengthen student health and well-being during college and to teach skills that will help students remain resilient in their future careers.

I talked with Harvey Mudd’s Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, Anna Gonzalez, about the issues facing students today and how her team is engaging the whole campus to help promote health and well-being.

Maria Klawe: How do you define student well-being?

Anna Gonzalez: For me, well-being means to have a sense of self-awareness of who you are and where you are at the moment, and to be able to know what your limits are, to identify what you’re willing to do and then what you need to do to move toward your goals. So first of all, it’s self-awareness. The second way I would define well-being is a sense of balance. But balance does not mean equal. People often talk about work/life balance as if they’re both equal. But that is never going to happen, and it shouldn’t happen. For me, balance means knowing that you are devoting the right amount of time to your priorities. If your priorities are getting a great academic degree and becoming a good leader, then much of your energy while in college will probably be spent in those spheres. The main thing is to identify your priorities and invest your time accordingly.

Klawe: What are some of the main issues students are facing and how are colleges addressing them?

Gonzalez: Mental health is definitely at the top. We are seeing an increase in student demand for mental health services across the nation, and colleges are developing a lot of new approaches to meet the need. Some are more innovative than others. A lot of colleges are hiring more counselors and developing better triage systems so that students can access the specific services they need more quickly. But you can never hire enough. We need a more comprehensive approach to support overall student well-being.

I think it’s about teaching students ahead of time what resiliency is, and by resiliency I don’t mean pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, or handling everything yourself. I mean gaining an understanding that there will be curveballs thrown at you, and you can understand yourself better and learn how to address difficulties and to thrive in different situations. You can learn how to take yourself out of a situation that you know is not healthy, and identify what resources you need, and how often you need them. Student Affairs staff often refer to this approach as an “upstream model.”

Klawe: How are you working toward this comprehensive approach?

Gonzalez: At Harvey Mudd, we are approaching teaching these skills from multiple angles. We offer a six-week course on emotional intelligence every semester, which is getting great feedback from students. We are using technology, specifically a program called Kognito, to help students identify their stressors, understand when they are going into distress, and what resources are available. Kognito is an avatar-based app that we made available and promoted this past year to all students, and we hope to extend to families, faculty, and staff in the coming year. It not only teaches students how to be more self-aware but also how to be more aware of their environment in terms of friends, peers and classmates. They learn to recognize the symptoms of distress in themselves or someone else, and they learn what interventions they could pursue before they reach a high level of distress. Whether it’s just, “Oh, maybe I should tell a faculty member this student seems really in distress,” or learning, “Oh, wow, this is a high stressor for me, what do I need to do to get myself out of this situation?”

Another important piece is actually learning what the resources are both on campus and in the community, including the use of insurance. We’ve implemented a program and have had really good success at teaching students what insurance is, how and where to use it, and how to advocate for yourself. The students who have gone through the workshops are more able to find good, specialized wellness resources in the community.

Klawe: What are some of the other issues that Student Affairs is working on with students?

Gonzalez: I think another issue students are facing is financial stress. It’s not just the expenditure of college but the need for students to learn how to manage their finances. This has definitely come to forefront post-recession. Students generally haven’t been directly involved in financial budgeting, and they need to gain a balanced understanding of how it works and how not to be overwhelmed by it.

The third piece is learning how to be risk takers. Parenting has changed over the last decade, and most students today have been raised with limited, or protected risk. They are expected to come here, live alone, and we’re encouraging them to take risks, and they might fail. I think that’s the third piece in terms of what Student Affairs is facing—we have students who might not have taken risks and failed before. Especially at Harvey Mudd, many of our students have always succeeded. So, how does it feel to fail, and how do you cope with that? These are the biggest issues we’re grappling with.

Klawe: What other aspects of health and wellness are you working to promote?

Gonzalez: It may seem obvious, but the fundamentals need to be taken seriously by students and colleges: eating well, exercising and getting enough sleep. At Harvey Mudd, we have a high-quality food program that offers plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meats, vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options. We provide nutritional information and promote healthy eating throughout the dining hall and campus.

And we encourage physical activity with exercise facilities with extensive hours, intramural sports and clubs. We have health and wellness pop-ups and educate students about self-care, healthy sleep practices, yoga and other relaxation methods. We work to provide and promote lots of healthy lifestyle offerings for our students. It’s all about being active, getting some of those healthy endorphins going and eating healthily. It’s so important for everyone’s physical and mental health.

Klawe: What kinds of campus collaboration are you working on?

Gonzalez: We already partner with faculty, staff and students, but I’d like to do even more, to utilize things like Strengths Quest and Kognito more widely, so that everyone on campus can develop a sense of self-awareness and begin to understand what thriving could look like, so that we all have an idea of how to thrive and in what contexts we thrive. It’s very strengths-based. We want everyone to understand what their particular attributes are, what they are good at, and how to use those attributes well in all facets of their lives.

I think we can all be good allies for each other so that if a student or even a faculty or staff member is experiencing a moment where they need support, the community has an understanding of what to do and how to help. So that across our community, people will be informed enough to know, “Oh, this is the time to recommend counseling,” or “Oh, this student just needs some support right now, to have someone to talk to.” To equip the entire community with those skills would be amazing.

Klawe: What would success look like for you in terms of student health and wellness?

Gonzalez: Ultimately for me, the dream state for health and wellness is that students are able to find their joy, to find their joyful moments in whatever they are doing—while studying or while engaged in a club or organization—to view their efforts not as a chore but instead to find moments of passion and joy in what they are doing and how they are developing as a person.