Dear Reader,
When I was in college, I thought I had it together. I knew and loved what I wanted to study (political science!), was genuinely excited to go to class (never missed or skipped a single class!), had jobs on- and off-campus, earned acceptable (!) grades… Yes, I had thought I had it together.
Boy was I wrong. A significant part of my path to a career in student affairs, and service here as your VP, was the realization that the student experience is so much more than just doing well in classes and satisfactory progress toward degree requirements.
As a student I was a mess. I was neglecting a lot of the important experiences and processes that I now — as an administrator with decades of experience and a couple more degrees — understand were incredibly important. Friends, internships, study abroad, relationships, authenticity.
I did not understand or appreciate the importance of mental health in my college experience. As I recall, our student leader training on mental health focused on eating disorders and self-harm. Today we have a much more robust understanding of mental health and a vastly stronger commitment to supporting students’ access to resources and support.
I was so wound up in my own process of reconciling my values and being in the closet that I built high walls around myself and did not engage honestly, authentically and meaningfully in my relationships. I regret that I don’t have the deep relationships with college friends that I could have had and that I hope you will have with your classmates. We live and work in community. We grow and flourish in community.
Are you flourishing? Do you have – or know – what it takes to flourish? When you take the time to indulge in a bit of introspection, where do you see room for change or growth?
This summer, Student Affairs developed and launched a plan to support students’ flourishing. Our goal in this plan is to support your mental health, social connectedness, sense of belonging on campus and academic success. As I wrote in the introduction to our plan, students are our raison d’etre. We named the plan “Flourishing for Student Success,” a clear reminder that everything we do should in some way create the conditions or experiences that foster student success.
One step toward flourishing is tackling mental health. Just as our understanding of mental health is more complex and positive than my exposure to it in college, our strategy for addressing mental health needs is more ambitious. As we wrote in our “Welcome (back)” email a few weeks ago, Dean Jessica Edonick and I are very excited about opportunities this year to enact the JED Campus project. This is a four-year commitment to assessing current mental health supports and programming, then developing and enacting a plan to achieve our goals. This project starts this semester with a student survey called the Healthy Minds Survey — you will be emailed about this later this month.
I hope you will join us in community as we help each other grow and flourish and be our best selves.
If you have thoughts on this topic or would like to visit about something else, reach out to me at [email protected], and we can find a time to visit.
