Why Does This Matter?

With all the aspects of life, demands of higher education, understanding ourselves as individuals, and how our identities affect our experiences in these realms, it is important for mental health to be a topic of conversation. By incorporating mental health discussions into the classroom, there is an opportunity to create a progressive environment, one which encourages communication, support, and success for both students and instructors. Instructors who can address mental health and well-being within their classroom can help the continuation of creating supportive environments within their college campus. Keep in mind that every student has a different background with mental health, and students with varying backgrounds, identities, gender, or sexuality may experience different or greater challenges. Below are some statistics that are important to consider.

• In a national sample of college students, it was reported that between 2020-21, 60% of students met the criteria for at least one mental health challenge (Ketchen-Lipson, et al., 2022).
• It was found that American Indian and Alaskan Native students had greater increases of mental health matters specific to depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, along with students of color having health service use at the lowest rate (Ketchen-Lipson, et al., 2022).
• The University of Michigan reports in their own study on the relationship between mental health and supporting their students that students may not seek out formal mechanisms of support due to their cultural norms attached to their identity (Collette, et al., 2018). Additionally, the relationship between students of color and the use of supportive services, like therapy or medication, isn’t as strong as compared to white students (Collette, et al., 2018).

Some students may have never had accessible resources that provided them with help and support whereas others may have had a hard time taking the first step to ask. It is important to understand that a student’s life within and beyond the classroom can affect their learning. Therefore within the classroom, there are many strategies that can be approached in order to help students at any point in the semester. In the next section, there are a few resources to help instructors guide students to what could further aid them.