Ways that University of Michigan faculty and staff can support the growing number of students with mental health challenges were highlighted at the fall Provost’s Seminar on Teaching on Nov. 21.
A century ago, a U-M student struggling with depression or anxiety would have been more likely to be dismissed than supported, said Laurie McCauley, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.
By contrast, this year 73 percent of the incoming U-M freshman class reported having had some mental health support before coming to college, said Lindsey Mortenson, executive director of University Health & Counseling and Student Life chief mental health officer.
The event at the Michigan League, attended by nearly 150 faculty, staff and administrators, was co-sponsored by the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching and the Provost’s Office.
In his opening remarks, CRLT Executive Director Matt Kaplan said the seminar was “designed to outline the nature and scope of the issues we are facing; to offer an overview of ways in which the university has been responding; and finally, to share strategies that instructors, advisers and staff can leverage to promote student well-being in an appropriate way.”
McCauley gave a brief history of U-M’s mental health services, including how the university fell short 100 years ago but progressed after the introduction of the G.I. Bill in 1944 and the development of a veterans readjustment center.
In the early 2000s, as students grappled with 9/11, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mass shootings and an economic collapse, McCauley said, “The need for mental health support became clearer than ever.”
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Today, programming for mental wellness is integrated campuswide, with the goal of preventing — not just reacting to — mental health issues. To illustrate the university’s far-reaching support network, McCauley cited direct services available from Counseling & Psychological Services, Wolverine Wellness, and UWill teletherapy; CEW+ financial support; and the Well-Being Collective’s focus on policies and structures.
A panel discussion featuring U-M faculty and staff, explored how they stay current on the state of mental health, ways they navigate U-M’s decentralized system, and what they do to create supportive communities.
The panel, moderated by Mary Jo Desprez, director of Health Promotion and Wolverine Wellness, included Mortenson along with:
- Kelcey Stratton, chief behavioral strategist in University Human Resources.
- Kim Elliott, assistant dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability.
- Jolene Bostwick, assistant dean for co-curriculum and professional development in the College of Pharmacy.
- Ethriam Brammer, assistant dean of the Rackham Graduate School.
To keep up to date, Mortenson said her team uses data from national surveys, the School of Public Health’s Healthy Mind survey, U-M’s student surveys, and clinical dashboards and data.
“We also have a remarkable amount of visibility around how students work through our treatment sites, from wellness coaching all the way to psychiatric hospitalization. We know at what time in the year students struggle the most, and we have qualitative feedback from faculty and staff,” Mortenson said.
Stratton said partnerships, particularly with Michigan Medicine, have been key to staying abreast of mental health issues on campus. She also stressed that her team is a resource for faculty.
“We exist to support all of you in this room,” she said. “We can work at the individual or department levels, and we can consult about specific trends showing up in your department. Please call us.”
Brammer talked about how Rackham works to support the mental health of graduate students, making a decentralized system feel cohesive. One example he cited was a longitudinal study that started in 2017 and follows doctoral students through their experience at U-M.
“One thing this data has shown us is how stress and well-being fluctuates from one doctorate program to another, and how year one is very different from year five. This kind of data collection is helping inform how we work with graduate programs across campus,” he said.
Bostwick and Elliott outlined how their units create spaces for students to connect and find support.
Bostwick said the College of Pharmacy creates “pharm families” with faculty volunteers who act as “pharm moms and dad” to groups of students. “This has been a great way for students to connect with each other across cohorts,” he said.
Elliott shared how SEAS creates informal, nonintimidating spaces for students to connect with each other and with faculty. She also shared the importance of building a community from the time they start at U-M.
“We start orientation by taking busloads of students up north to the Biological Station. That’s where the magic happens, and we build a sense of belonging and community,” Elliott said.
After the panel, two successive sets of concurrent sessions enabled attendees to dive deeper into the mental health support strategies and resources at U-M.
Topics included:
- Supporting structurally disadvantaged students.
- Low-effort ways to support student well-being in the classroom.
- How to have challenging conversations with students in distress.
- Faculty mental health.
- Tools to address climate anxiety.
The seminar included the announcement of a new CRLT Players Canvas course, An Instructor’s Guide to Promoting Student Mental Health and Well-Being, that will be available to faculty and staff later this winter.
Update: This story has been amended from it’s original version to include a revised attendance estimate.
