As director of the Counseling & Psychological Services Center at App State, I think continuously about the ways our Counseling Center and our campus can continue to evolve resources to support our students’ mental health. Through my work in the Counseling Center, I hear the personal stories of both the challenges that our students experience and the resilience that has enabled them to get to this point in college.
Supporting mental health goes beyond the Counseling Center, and as a campus we want to hear about mental health from all our students. One current way we are seeking to understand our students’ mental health is through the Healthy Minds Survey.
The Healthy Minds Survey is a national survey out of the University of Michigan that focuses on college student mental health, including areas such as anxiety, depression, sense of belonging, stigma, resilience and help-seeking. We want to hear from our App State students so that, across campus, we can continue to develop our campus resources to meet mental health needs.
I encourage students to look for an email inviting them to participate in the Healthy Minds Survey, which closes at the end of fall break. The survey was sent to 12,000 randomly selected students at App State, and we hope to hear from those who were sent the survey. Please look for an email from healthyminds-appstate@umich.edu to share your experiences and perspectives to help us continue to design resources to support all of our App State students.
Chris Hogan