Advancing and Supporting Campus Mental Health and Well-Being

During the 2022/2023 academic year, the Institutional Task Force on Student, Faculty, and Staff Mental Health and Well-being (MHTF) was charged to assess Miami’s current services and culture around mental health and emotional well-being and to make recommendations for improvement.

Based on the work of three workgroups (students, faculty/staff, and community), campus listening sessions, literature on mental health and well-being, local and national survey data, and a review of best practices, we have crafted recommendations in four major areas: systems, communication, education, and culture. This work is an important first step in a comprehensive, multi-campus effort to advance mental health and emotional well-being at Miami.

Strengths

As we reviewed the current state of mental health and well-being at Miami, we identified areas of strength that we can build on. Miami offers a broad range of resources and services, particularly for students, extending well beyond counseling services to meet a wide range of needs related to emotional well-being. Training, education, and programming related to mental health and well-being are abundant. We have a robust system in place to identify students of concern, and a case management approach to follow up with those students. And we have a culture at Miami that is relational, open, and aware, which offers a good base to grow upon.

Areas for Improvement

As we looked toward recommendations, there were areas for improvement that we identified: 

• Although students, faculty, and staff have access to a wide variety of resources, many people are unaware of them, or have misconceptions or disagreements about what they can or should offer. That misalignment of expectations and our practices can lead to issues of trust. 
• Our communication efforts around mental health and well-being should be more intentional, proactive, timely, and accessible. 
• Staff are working at capacity and financial resources are limited so we need to use the resources available strategically, ensuring that services are equitable, culturally-appropriate, and accessible to all members of our community. 

In addition, we also identified challenges in our culture that impact well-being and our campus as a whole. Among those cultural challenges, three were noted most often: 

• Not all populations on campus feel an equal sense of safety, belonging, or acceptance on campus or in the community, and, for some groups, there is still a sense of stigma related to seeking help for mental health. 
• Many people noted feelings of intense pressure for achievement in our culture, while the reasons for and degree of that pressure vary depending on one’s roles and identities. 
• Many in our community are feeling low morale and burnout as we adapt to rapidly changing and increasingly complex student needs. 

Recommendations

As we turn to the future, we hope to inspire a campus environment where holistic wellness is experienced at all levels, both for the individual and overall community, measured both objectively and subjectively. To help achieve this vision, we offer 56 recommendations in four categories. Read the full report.

During the course of this year, we were energized by the amount of interest and passion we encountered in exploring this topic. This work was informed by many voices in our Miami community– Oxford and Regionals, all categories of faculty and staff across every division, individuals with varied identities, students representing many different academic majors and subcultures, parents, alumni, and community partners– as well as by national best practices and conversations with experts currently in the field. We recognize the many people at Miami who have prioritized these topics for many years, and we are excited to move to a new phase of work around mental health and emotional well-being that is comprehensive, coordinated, and inclusive.