NIRSA represented at ACE Mental Health in Higher Education Roundtable

Last month, the American Council on Education (ACE) hosted a roundtable focused on Mental Health in Higher Education, sponsored by the Lumina Foundation. The event gathered higher education leaders, organizations, foundations, and representatives to discuss how they might come together to help address this growing concern.

ACE’s Pulse Point surveys continually demonstrate that college and university presidents see student mental health as a top concern on their campuses. A recent Gallup-Lumina study found that mental health “was cited twice as often as the pandemic, the cost of college, or the difficulty of coursework as the reason college students had considered stopping out.”

The event began with a “fireside chat” between Lumina President and CEO Jamie Merisotis and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. Dr. Murthy has been a longtime advocate for mental health in his role as Surgeon General, having issued a Surgeon General’s Advisory on Protecting Youth Mental Health just this past December. Advisories are “reserved for significant public health challenges that need the nation’s immediate awareness and action.”

Opening remarks from ACE and the fireside chat with Dr. Murthy can be viewed below.

Health & Wellbeing in Higher Education

NIRSA joined representatives from the American College Health Association, Active Minds, the Action Network for Equitable Wellbeing, the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors, the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State University, the Healthy Minds Network, Inseparable, The JED Foundation, the Mary Christie Institute, NASPA, and the Steve Fund, among others.

Many of these organizations have also joined NIRSA in signing on to the Health & Wellbeing in Higher Education: A Commitment to Student Success.

“Having the opportunity to join this incredible group of mental health experts and advocates is a meaningful moment for NIRSA. It is a real testament to the incredible work our members have been doing on their campuses in pursuit of holistic wellbeing, and it offers us the opportunity to continue building cross-campus partnerships,” notes Erin O’Sullivan, NIRSA’s Director of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships.

Attendees at the event readily acknowledged that the mental health crisis on campus cannot be solved by counseling centers alone. They spent much of the day in small group dialogues discussing what else can be done and how to actualize the type of future all their organizations are working towards building.

“Higher education needs to be proactive in putting sustained, meaningful resources behind integrated and upstream approaches to mental health for the entire campus community. A culture of change must be embraced by the leadership, with appropriate resources and accountability behind it. No one staff member or one department can own and manage this work. Integration creates potential for true culture shift on campus, and for students to see that support reflected in all aspects of their campus experience.

We’re incredibly grateful to the ACE and the Lumina Foundation for not only recognizing this need, but also taking steps to try to make this change for the betterment of all of our campus communities,” says Erin.