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#13 Recommendations / Best Practices for Compliance

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#13 Recommendations / Best Practices for Compliance

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1.Remain calm when speaking to a student who may be suicidal or has expressed suicidal ideation.
2.Help the student feel comfortable to share their situation with you. It is far easier to destroy a bond of trust by jumping the gun than it is to build and rebuild said bond.
3.Have a written personal policy in place that outlines legal and ethical principles, and your personal belief system associated with those principles.
4.Mental health issues are a growing concern in higher education, and it is important for institutions to have clear institutional policies and support systems in place to help students get the help they need.
5. Review the changes in behavior, how a person talks or expresses themselves that may be associated with suicidal ideation to better identify when a student may need help.
6. In the event you feel uncomfortable or out of your depth when working with a student who is feeling suicidal, do your absolute best to make a referral to someone who will be able to help.
7. Review and keep in mind changes to existing law, development of new laws, or new court decisions that affect institution's duty of care to students.

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Texas Tech University's Risk Intervention & Safety Education office has a great resource on suicide prevention. The referenced page has a video on how to prevent suicide targeted at students, a three-point list on how to offer support to a student who may be suicidal, and colorful eye-catching pamphlets on how to recognize the signs and behaviors associated with students struggling with suicidal thoughts.

"Risk Intervention & Safety Education," (n.d.). Suicide prevention. Retrieved from http://www.depts.ttu.edu/rise/MentalHealth/suicideprevention.php

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According to ACPA Ethical Principles & Standard 2.7, specifically states to "Refer students to apporpriate specialists before entering or continuing a helping relationship when the professional's expertise or level of comfort is exceeded. If the referral is declined, professional staff is not obliged to continue the relationship nor should they do so if there is not a direct benefit to the student."

For students with mental health concerns and suicidal ideation, it is important to understand the professional expertise and comfort of student affairs personnel and case managers. It is also important to make timely and accurate referrals to the proper responsible entities.

ACPA (n.d.) Ethical principles and standards. Retrieved from https://www.myacpa.org/sites/default/files/Ethical_Principles_Standards.pdf

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Texas Tech University's Risk Intervention & Safety Education office has specific initiatives associated with suicide prevention, in connection with the Student Counseling Center and Student Health Services. The RISE office has a video for suicide prevention tips as part of Red Raider Orientation, encouraging students, faculty and staff to recognize the warning signs, take action, and reach out to the other person. The linked page also has resource pages available for print and download.

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texas tech university; suicide prevention

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State of Texas and Texas Tech University

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Texas Tech University; RISE Suicide Prevention resources

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Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) 34 C.F.R. §99 is the administrative law side of the FERPA act, outlining which entities are responsible and detailing the rights that parents and students have under the Act’s protections. https://gov.ecfr.io/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=b21e7520c52bc7033e2ba11b7c9b40c0&mc=true&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title34/34cfr99_main_02.tpl, federal administrative

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Nguyen v. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 479 Mass. 436 (2018). This case ruled that institutions of higher education do not exist as bystanders  and do have an associated duty to prevent a student's suicide in three circumstances. First, a student's suicide attempt that occurred while enrolled at the college or university. Second, if the suicide attempt occurred recently prior to registration and enrollment, and finally if the student has stated plans or an intent to commit suicide. For nonclinicians at higher education institutions, it means that if the student's suicidal ideation is sufficiently foreseeable then they need to take steps to initiate the school's suicide prevention protocol, and at that point licensed counselors take over in their treatment.

https://law.justia.com/cases/massachusetts/supreme-court/2018/sjc-12329.html, state judicial

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Schieszler v. Ferrum College, 236 F. Supp. 2d 602 (2002). In this case, the court ruled that Ferrum College officials had a duty of care to prevent the suicide of student Michael W. Frentzel, who had known behavior problems during his enrollment and had been contacted by those close to Frentzel expressing their concerns. The court ruled that the plaintiff, Frentzel's aunt who had been named administrator of his estate, succeeded in stating a claim for wrongful death against Ferrum College and the dean of students.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/236/602/2336518/, state judicial

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42 U.S.C § 290bb–36. This section of Title 42 specifically establishes suicide intervention and prevention strategies by directly empowering the Secretary and Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Abuse to award grants and cooperative agreements to states and other supported entities

to develop suicide intervention and prevention programs.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/290bb-36 , federal statutory

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Greta Anderson's (2019) article outlines how Harrisburg Area Community College in Pennsylvania announced the decision to cease on-campus clinical counseling services. Anderson writes that this decision introduces concerning possibilities for community colleges.
1. Particularly concerning is the decision to defund despite student mental health being ranked the #1 issue by chief student affairs officers at NASPA's 2019 Vice President for Student Affairs Census.
2. With no on-campus counseling resources, student affairs practitioners have to pick up the slack and triage students with issues more effectively.
3. There are additional gaps in the types of counseling services offers. The article reference Community College of Allegheny County which only offers personal counseling, and does directly handle mental health issues.

Anderson, G. (2019). Defunding student mental health. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/10/18/mental-health-low-priority-community-colleges

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New Spaces & Roles for Student Affairs: An Ongoing Column of JCC Connexions

A Critical Issue

The mental health of graduate students represents a critical issue across college and university campuses. While scholarly and public attention in the previous decade focused on the growing mental health diagnoses influencing undergraduate students, including the rise of anxiety and depression among college students, recent studies demonstrate that graduate students also experience mental health challenges and mental illness at concerning levels.These issues influence students' trajectories through their graduate programs-and beyond, with many students reporting growing anxieties regarding career uncertainties.Increasingly, research demonstrates the need for higher education professionals, including student affairs practitioners and faculty, to recognize their powerful influence on the overall wellbeing of advisees and graduate student employees. Student affairs professionals and faculty members and others in the academic community must begin to take a more active role in addressing the mental health crisis among graduate students.

In my (Michael) last blog post I wrote about undergraduate mental health and the need to build communities of care to address these challenges. In this post, my co-lead author Lisa Kaler and I focus on graduate student mental health and the need for student affairs professionals and faculty members to take on active roles.

Recent Studies on Graduate Student Mental Health

In a recent global study of graduate students published by , more than a third of Ph.D. students reported seeking help for anxiety or depression.Students reported a range of defeating behaviors and interactions that contribute to poor mental health. For example, 21% of respondents said they had personally experienced harassment or discrimination, and the same number reported experiencing bullying. Faculty members, advisers, and/or supervisors engaged in many of these harmful behaviors. The recent suicide death of a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student, John Brady, represents a tragic and extreme example of what can happen due to an abusive faculty-student relationship.

Additionally, many of the students in the Nature survey reported heightened insecurity about uncertain futures, including the ability to find employment in academia. Only 26% of respondents believed that that their Ph.D. would substantially or dramatically improve their job outlook. Students encountered these uncertainties along with the inherent challenges of graduate study; nearly 40% of respondents said that they were unsatisfied with their work-life balance, including concerns about financial aid, expenses, and lack of funding.

Current Demographics

The results from the Nature study are not an isolated snapshot of graduate student mental health. National survey data from the American College Health Association (ACHA) demonstrates the prevalence of mental health issues and mental illness among graduate students. In the spring of 2019, graduate students reported experiencing the following issues during the previous twelve months:

24% of students reported that stress had negatively influenced their academics.

41% of students felt so depressed it was difficult to function.

46% of students reported that academics had been traumatic or very difficult to handle.

58% of students reported feeling very lonely.

63% of students reported feeling overwhelming anxiety.

What is the role of faculty, administrators, and student affairs practitioners in addressing this problem? We contend that faculty members and student affairs practitioners, in particular, can actively take steps to address the mental health concerns of graduate students.

Addressing Graduate Student Mental Health Concerns

While some faculty and higher education professionals may question their role in supporting graduate student mental health, we argue that faculty members, staff, and administrators have a moral and ethical responsibility to support graduate and professional students at all levels. Mental health should not remain siloed in campus counseling centers or even in student affairs divisions. For some graduate students, their interactions with student affairs professionals may be limited-or not exist. Supporting students and promoting their mental health need not require faculty to attempt to engage in therapy or counseling beyond their level of training or expertise. Rather, they can practice empathy, increase awareness of mental health resources and their mental health literacy, actively foster career development for graduate students, and take steps to facilitate culture change in their departments.

A Call to Action

Our call to action aligns with other scholars who have advocated for culture change and more intentional collective efforts around mental health issues to support our graduate student population. To achieve this cultural change, we suggest simple, yet effective strategies. We offer four strategies towards building and extending communities of care focused on addressing mental health needs for graduate students.

Listen and inquire: Most faculty members and graduate students engage in a relentless pace in order to meet academic and professional goals. Slowing down occasionally to check in with graduate students in the classroom, the lab, or during research meetings can be an effective way to monitor how students are doing. Faculty and graduate student working relationships would be enhanced by improving interpersonal relationships, and we argue that this would ultimately improve scholarly output and mental health.

Cultivate departmental climates supportive of mental health: Many scholars and practitioners encourage faculty and student affairs professionals to develop greater awareness about mental health resources on campus. This is important, but we assert that faculty and student affairs staff should create climates where students feel comfortable discussing mental health, before the issues become exacerbated to the extent that they need professional intervention. At the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, faculty and student affairs practitioners (e.g., career counselors, academic advisors, and directors of multicultural centers, among others) can volunteer to become trained mental health advocates. These advocates receive additional training in awareness of campus resources and making referrals. Importantly, they also learn how to implement strategies to promote mental health in their departments; their role is to help promote wellbeing within their own departmental culture.

Extend partnerships with campus career centers: Graduate students, student affairs staff, and faculty often remain unaware of career development resources on campus. Many students face anxiety about their future work opportunities, including those who might pursue tenure-track positions: Concerns around the increasing " giggification " of the academy and pressures to publish as graduate students may contribute to these anxieties. Other students struggle with the realization that they might need to consider non-academic careers. When acknowledging that many graduate students hold concerns about career uncertainty (which can lead to increased anxiety and/or depression), it makes sense for faculty to work with other partners, such as career development services, to ameliorate these concerns. Collaboration in the form of workshops, class visits, and/or events serve as important opportunities for connection, and faculty members can assume lead roles in fostering these partnerships.

Embed specific programs into departmental structure to influence culture change positively: Graduate students in the Higher Education program at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities recently started a mental health initiative called Thrive. This program, co-led by one of the authors of this post (Lisa), includes a comprehensive, departmental-wide survey of graduate students' mental health concerns and contributing factors. The student-led initiative-working in partnership with faculty and administration-plans to collect qualitative data to gain a better overall understanding of departmental culture and climate. A specific inquiry focuses on the needs of marginalized student populations in this diverse graduate department. Ultimately, the Thrive team hopes to develop a departmental climate where both faculty and students feel comfortable discussing mental health issues, and where the departmental policies and practices facilitate positive mental health. Faculty members and student affairs practitioners at other institutions can encourage graduate students to advocate for their wellbeing and urge administration to undertake similar efforts, recognizing that not all departments currently have climates where graduate students can exercise this degree of agency.

Need for Collaborative Efforts

Efforts to support graduate student mental health concerns need to be thoughtful, intentional, and collaborative. Inevitably, progress will be slow and incremental. Yet, it is vitally important that faculty members join administrators and student affairs staff from across campus to address this growing concern in academia. Faculty play an important role in supporting graduate students, and thoughtful partnerships with student affairs professionals can enhance the graduate student experience. When mental health truly becomes "everybody's business," real change can result to support our graduate student population.
Author Note
The authors would like to thank colleague Jesse Lewis for his thoughtful consultation on this piece, and his collaboration as the co-leader of Thrive. Both authors contributed equally to this blog post. Correspondence regarding this blog article can be addressed to: Michael J. Stebleton, Coordinator Higher Education Program, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; email: steb0004@umn.edu
References
American College Health Association (2019). American College Health Association-national college health assessment II: Graduate and professional student executive summary spring 2019. Hanover, MD: American College Health Association. https://dev.acha.org/documents/ncha/NCHA-II_SPRING_2019_GRADUATE_AND_PROFESSIONAL_REFERENCE_GROUP_EXECUTIVE_SUMMARY.pdf

Evans, T.M., Bira, L., Gastelum, J.B., Weiss, L.T., & Vanderford, N.L. (2018). Evidence for a mental health crisis in graduate education. Nature Biotechnology, 36, 282-284. https://doi: 10.1038/nbt.4089

Kezar, A.J., DePaola, T., & Scott, D.T. (2019). The Gig Academy: Mapping labor in the neoliberal university. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Wedemeyer-Strombel, K.R. (2019, Aug. 27). Why we need to talk more about mental health in graduate school. Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-We-Need-to-Talk-More-About/247002

Woolston, C. (2019, Nov. 14). PhD poll reveals fear and joy, contentment and anguish. Nature, 575, 403-406.

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Promoting Graduate Student Mental Health: The Role of Student Affairs Professionals and Faculty

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A Critical Issue The mental health of graduate students represents a critical issue across college and university campuses.

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David Gooblar's (2018) article discusses important ways for faculty members at colleges and universities to assist students with mental health concerns who may be considering suicide, in three steps.
1. Notice that a student is in distress and needs help.
2. Ask the student to tell you about what is going on. Help them feel comfortable to tell their story.
3. Refer the student to on-campus or off-campus resources that can help.

Gooblar, D. (2018). How to help a student in a mental-health crisis. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-to-Help-a-Student-in-a/245305

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Advice

iStock

As faculty members, because we see our students on a regular basis, we often can tell if they are struggling emotionally. Yet we're not mental-health professionals. Most of us don't have the training to know how to offer support and guidance to students who are suffering with mental-health issues. So how should we help?

Anxiety, in particular, seems to be on the rise among undergraduates. The most recent data from the American College Health Association suggest a mental-health crisis on American college campuses. In its 2017 survey of 26,000 undergraduates, 40 percent said that at some point in the previous 12 months they had felt "so depressed that it was difficult to function," 61 percent had experienced overwhelming anxiety, and nearly 13 percent had seriously considered suicide. Those are worrisome numbers, and many faculty members see the fallout in our classrooms every day.

To find guidance, I spoke with Barry Schreier, director of counseling services at the University of Iowa, where I teach. He has been working in campus mental health for 27 years, and maintains that instructors have a significant role to play in helping students with their mental health. He recommended a three-step response.

Step No. 1: Notice. Only about 15 percent of students who have killed themselves on a college campus had any interaction with their institution's counseling service. At the same time, research strongly suggests that those who do attempt or complete suicide are telling people before they do it. "If they're not telling the counseling center, who are they telling?," Schreier asked. "They're telling the people they know." That includes faculty members, since we are regular fixtures in their lives over an extended period and are in a position to notice when something's not right.

It's the noticing that is crucial, Schreier said. You don't have to diagnose a mental illness; you just have to recognize that someone is in distress. That's not as difficult as it might seem. Distress might manifest itself as a downturn in a student's hygiene. A student suddenly might start missing class or failing to turn in assignments. Or someone who is normally alert and engaged might now be falling sleeping in class.

Those signs don't require a lot of training to spot - they just require you to be paying attention. If you feel that something is going on with a student, Schreier said, you're probably right. "You're going to notice distress. We often have an intuitive sense of that." Trust that intuition.

Step No. 2: Ask. So once you've noticed their distress, what do you do next? Schreier is adamant on this point: Ask them about it. "Lean in on your students," he said. "Lean in and ask them about themselves. Help them tell their story a little bit."

That doesn't require much more than talking with a student after class. You can say something like, "Hey, you seem a little off these days. Is everything OK?" You can send an email. You can ask a student to come by your office. The idea is to show concern and give the student a chance to talk about the problem. Maybe it's the usual stuff - academic stress, interpersonal drama, not enough sleep. But maybe it's not. Many of us have a natural inclination to explain away irregularities. It's probably nothing, we tell ourselves. And a lot of the time it is nothing. But, Schreier said, we have to push past that inclination and reach out to students. They may feel uncomfortable opening up to us. That's their right. But we have to give them the chance.

But isn't it risky to get so personal with our students? Won't students feel as if we're overstepping our bounds?

While acknowledging that instructors need to stay within the limits of their faculty role - don't, for example, invite a struggling student to come stay at your house - Schreier maintains that the risks of inaction are far greater than the risks of action: "What's the worst that could happen? The student might tell you, 'Bug off. I can't believe you asked me that.' But I'd rather that was the case than the student vanishes because something terrible has happened and then you sit, thinking, 'Dammit, I knew something wasn't right.' "

In short: Go out on a limb, show your students you care, and inquire when you notice potential distress.

Step No. 3: Refer. Keep a piece of paper in your office with the phone numbers of relevant mental-health and student-services offices on the campus. Bookmark your institution's counseling center. Be ready to point students in the right direction. If necessary, you can even call the counseling service yourself, and hand the phone to the student. Or you can walk the student there. A little preparation - just knowing what resources are exist and how to seek them - can go a long way toward being able to help if such a situation arises.

Like many instructors, I include information about campus mental-health resources on my syllabi, along with a brief paragraph telling students about the many people working on the campus to help take care of them. I tell students on the first day of class: These people's jobs are to help you; that's what they are here to do. There's no shame in taking advantage of resources created with you in mind.

Instructors can do that basic step - acknowledging in advance that students might need help, and letting them know where to get it - even when students don't show signs of distress, Schreier said. Let them know you understand that college is stressful sometimes, that there are resources available, that they are not alone.

I asked Schreier if students ever mentioned to the counseling staff any specific things that instructors did that were helpful, and he had a ready answer. He's heard over and over again that when a faculty member starts class by asking students how they are, even briefly, it makes a difference. "They hear it," he said. "Whether they answer you or not, they heard that you did it. It means you've thought about them. You weren't just thinking about the job you have to deliver."

None of these steps require a lot of time or planning. You don't need to be an expert in mental health to be able to look out for your students. You don't need to radically change your syllabus, your lesson plans, or your pedagogical approach. You just need to care about your students, invest a little time in preparation, and do something if you notice that something is off. As the human face of your institution, you are in the best position to connect students to the help they need.

David Gooblar is a lecturer in the rhetoric department at the University of Iowa. He writes on teaching for The Chronicle and runs Pedagogy Unbound, a website for college instructors who share teaching strategies. To find more advice on teaching, browse his previous columns .

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How to Help a Student in a Mental-Health Crisis

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Advice As faculty members, because we see our students on a regular basis, we often can tell if they are struggling emotionally. Yet we're not mental-health professionals. Most of us don't have the training to know how to offer support and guidance to students who are suffering with mental-health issues.

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A blog post hosted on the NASPA website by Michael J. Stebleton and Lisa Kaler (2020) suggests the promotion of graduate student mental health. While the offers statistics from a national survey of graduate students, and recommendations on how to address mental health issues. Listen and inquire, cultivate departmental climates supportive of mental health, extend partnerships with campus career centers, and embed specific programs into departmental structure to influence culture change positively. This blog post is important due to offering statistics related to mental health issues, but also the specific recommendations to cultivate a cultural change in higher education.

Stebleton, M.J., & Kaler, L. (2020). Promoting graduate student mental health: The Role of student affairs professionals and faculty. Retrieved from https://www.naspa.org/blog/promoting-graduate-student-mental-health-the-role-of-student-affairs-professionals-and-faculty

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New Spaces & Roles for Student Affairs: An Ongoing Column of JCC Connexions

A Critical Issue

The mental health of graduate students represents a critical issue across college and university campuses. While scholarly and public attention in the previous decade focused on the growing mental health diagnoses influencing undergraduate students, including the rise of anxiety and depression among college students, recent studies demonstrate that graduate students also experience mental health challenges and mental illness at concerning levels.These issues influence students' trajectories through their graduate programs-and beyond, with many students reporting growing anxieties regarding career uncertainties.Increasingly, research demonstrates the need for higher education professionals, including student affairs practitioners and faculty, to recognize their powerful influence on the overall wellbeing of advisees and graduate student employees. Student affairs professionals and faculty members and others in the academic community must begin to take a more active role in addressing the mental health crisis among graduate students.

In my (Michael) last blog post I wrote about undergraduate mental health and the need to build communities of care to address these challenges. In this post, my co-lead author Lisa Kaler and I focus on graduate student mental health and the need for student affairs professionals and faculty members to take on active roles.

Recent Studies on Graduate Student Mental Health

In a recent global study of graduate students published by , more than a third of Ph.D. students reported seeking help for anxiety or depression.Students reported a range of defeating behaviors and interactions that contribute to poor mental health. For example, 21% of respondents said they had personally experienced harassment or discrimination, and the same number reported experiencing bullying. Faculty members, advisers, and/or supervisors engaged in many of these harmful behaviors. The recent suicide death of a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student, John Brady, represents a tragic and extreme example of what can happen due to an abusive faculty-student relationship.

Additionally, many of the students in the Nature survey reported heightened insecurity about uncertain futures, including the ability to find employment in academia. Only 26% of respondents believed that that their Ph.D. would substantially or dramatically improve their job outlook. Students encountered these uncertainties along with the inherent challenges of graduate study; nearly 40% of respondents said that they were unsatisfied with their work-life balance, including concerns about financial aid, expenses, and lack of funding.

Current Demographics

The results from the Nature study are not an isolated snapshot of graduate student mental health. National survey data from the American College Health Association (ACHA) demonstrates the prevalence of mental health issues and mental illness among graduate students. In the spring of 2019, graduate students reported experiencing the following issues during the previous twelve months:

24% of students reported that stress had negatively influenced their academics.

41% of students felt so depressed it was difficult to function.

46% of students reported that academics had been traumatic or very difficult to handle.

58% of students reported feeling very lonely.

63% of students reported feeling overwhelming anxiety.

What is the role of faculty, administrators, and student affairs practitioners in addressing this problem? We contend that faculty members and student affairs practitioners, in particular, can actively take steps to address the mental health concerns of graduate students.

Addressing Graduate Student Mental Health Concerns

While some faculty and higher education professionals may question their role in supporting graduate student mental health, we argue that faculty members, staff, and administrators have a moral and ethical responsibility to support graduate and professional students at all levels. Mental health should not remain siloed in campus counseling centers or even in student affairs divisions. For some graduate students, their interactions with student affairs professionals may be limited-or not exist. Supporting students and promoting their mental health need not require faculty to attempt to engage in therapy or counseling beyond their level of training or expertise. Rather, they can practice empathy, increase awareness of mental health resources and their mental health literacy, actively foster career development for graduate students, and take steps to facilitate culture change in their departments.

A Call to Action

Our call to action aligns with other scholars who have advocated for culture change and more intentional collective efforts around mental health issues to support our graduate student population. To achieve this cultural change, we suggest simple, yet effective strategies. We offer four strategies towards building and extending communities of care focused on addressing mental health needs for graduate students.

Listen and inquire: Most faculty members and graduate students engage in a relentless pace in order to meet academic and professional goals. Slowing down occasionally to check in with graduate students in the classroom, the lab, or during research meetings can be an effective way to monitor how students are doing. Faculty and graduate student working relationships would be enhanced by improving interpersonal relationships, and we argue that this would ultimately improve scholarly output and mental health.

Cultivate departmental climates supportive of mental health: Many scholars and practitioners encourage faculty and student affairs professionals to develop greater awareness about mental health resources on campus. This is important, but we assert that faculty and student affairs staff should create climates where students feel comfortable discussing mental health, before the issues become exacerbated to the extent that they need professional intervention. At the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, faculty and student affairs practitioners (e.g., career counselors, academic advisors, and directors of multicultural centers, among others) can volunteer to become trained mental health advocates. These advocates receive additional training in awareness of campus resources and making referrals. Importantly, they also learn how to implement strategies to promote mental health in their departments; their role is to help promote wellbeing within their own departmental culture.

Extend partnerships with campus career centers: Graduate students, student affairs staff, and faculty often remain unaware of career development resources on campus. Many students face anxiety about their future work opportunities, including those who might pursue tenure-track positions: Concerns around the increasing " giggification " of the academy and pressures to publish as graduate students may contribute to these anxieties. Other students struggle with the realization that they might need to consider non-academic careers. When acknowledging that many graduate students hold concerns about career uncertainty (which can lead to increased anxiety and/or depression), it makes sense for faculty to work with other partners, such as career development services, to ameliorate these concerns. Collaboration in the form of workshops, class visits, and/or events serve as important opportunities for connection, and faculty members can assume lead roles in fostering these partnerships.

Embed specific programs into departmental structure to influence culture change positively: Graduate students in the Higher Education program at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities recently started a mental health initiative called Thrive. This program, co-led by one of the authors of this post (Lisa), includes a comprehensive, departmental-wide survey of graduate students' mental health concerns and contributing factors. The student-led initiative-working in partnership with faculty and administration-plans to collect qualitative data to gain a better overall understanding of departmental culture and climate. A specific inquiry focuses on the needs of marginalized student populations in this diverse graduate department. Ultimately, the Thrive team hopes to develop a departmental climate where both faculty and students feel comfortable discussing mental health issues, and where the departmental policies and practices facilitate positive mental health. Faculty members and student affairs practitioners at other institutions can encourage graduate students to advocate for their wellbeing and urge administration to undertake similar efforts, recognizing that not all departments currently have climates where graduate students can exercise this degree of agency.

Need for Collaborative Efforts

Efforts to support graduate student mental health concerns need to be thoughtful, intentional, and collaborative. Inevitably, progress will be slow and incremental. Yet, it is vitally important that faculty members join administrators and student affairs staff from across campus to address this growing concern in academia. Faculty play an important role in supporting graduate students, and thoughtful partnerships with student affairs professionals can enhance the graduate student experience. When mental health truly becomes "everybody's business," real change can result to support our graduate student population.
Author Note
The authors would like to thank colleague Jesse Lewis for his thoughtful consultation on this piece, and his collaboration as the co-leader of Thrive. Both authors contributed equally to this blog post. Correspondence regarding this blog article can be addressed to: Michael J. Stebleton, Coordinator Higher Education Program, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; email: steb0004@umn.edu
References
American College Health Association (2019). American College Health Association-national college health assessment II: Graduate and professional student executive summary spring 2019. Hanover, MD: American College Health Association. https://dev.acha.org/documents/ncha/NCHA-II_SPRING_2019_GRADUATE_AND_PROFESSIONAL_REFERENCE_GROUP_EXECUTIVE_SUMMARY.pdf

Evans, T.M., Bira, L., Gastelum, J.B., Weiss, L.T., & Vanderford, N.L. (2018). Evidence for a mental health crisis in graduate education. Nature Biotechnology, 36, 282-284. https://doi: 10.1038/nbt.4089

Kezar, A.J., DePaola, T., & Scott, D.T. (2019). The Gig Academy: Mapping labor in the neoliberal university. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Wedemeyer-Strombel, K.R. (2019, Aug. 27). Why we need to talk more about mental health in graduate school. Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-We-Need-to-Talk-More-About/247002

Woolston, C. (2019, Nov. 14). PhD poll reveals fear and joy, contentment and anguish. Nature, 575, 403-406.

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Promoting Graduate Student Mental Health: The Role of Student Affairs Professionals and Faculty

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A Critical Issue The mental health of graduate students represents a critical issue across college and university campuses.

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Information and answers to the interview with Marcus Smith, Director of Academic Advising and Counseling and Government Relations at Clovis Community College. http://www.clovis.edu/advising/advisors.aspx

Understanding the legal and ethical principles and limitations when working with suicidal students is incredibly important in the field of higher education. Many institutions offer counseling services to students who may be struggling. As a result of these services, it is incredibly important to understand the responsibility and duty of care that extends to education institutions in working with suicidal students.

Three best practices concerning students with suicidal ideation:
1.Know your ethics and your law, and your responsibility to warn is, no questions asked.
2.Have a written plan in place that identifies your own personal policy and belief system in association with the above point.
3.Continue with training and gaining experience to remain current and up-to-date on how to work with suicidal students.

A current issue Smith noted in the interview that all institutions continue to struggle with is technology and remaining in compliance. Technology has the benefit of making jobs and recording information about students easier, but comes with risks, including that the servers could be hacked or information could be lost. Another factor of technology is that it creates another job requirement. A licensed counselor may have years of experience working with students, but have an inability or unfamiliarity in working with technology at the institution. It is important to remember how necessary technology has become in the field of education and how it affects employment.

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Currently, I work as the Student Resource Coordinator at Clovis Community College. Part of my job duties are working as a case management employee with the Starfish early alert system hosted by Hobsons. Working in case management, it is important to accurately assess and listen to student issues, and listen both to what the student is saying and how they are behaving. It is important for this assessment process to be accurate in order to make sure students who may have suicidal ideation are properly given resources.