Today's Update: Thursday, August 18
August 18, 2022
Dear Student Life team,
While students are moving in and we’re busy preparing for the new academic year, I had the opportunity to brief our Board of Trustees on how we are refreshing our focus on student support and well-being.
I want to start by expressing my appreciation (an early High Five) to everyone whose daily work informed the presentation. Your work allowed me to simply tell our excellent story, and I am Scarlet and Grateful for all you do.
At yesterday’s Academic Affairs and Student Life committee meeting, I was given the opportunity to talk about the things we are planning for this semester and beyond. And I was very grateful that all my comments didn’t need to revolve around pandemic response and preparation!
You are no doubt well-aware that our comprehensive and multi-modal well-being model is framed around ten dimensions of wellness.
Our overarching commitments are to ensure that students:
- Have – and understand that they have – access to the tools, resources and services they need, including those on campus and in our surrounding communities
- Are being educated or provided with information about the importance of advancing and paying mindful attention to their own, overall well-being.
- Are consistently receiving outreach, either general messaging or personalized in response to a specific issue or situation.
- Are being referred to the best and most effective treatment, which doesn’t always mean one-on-one counseling sessions. Sometimes a student may benefit from wellness coaching from a peer educator, a Beating Anxiety workshop or group counseling sessions.
We must constantly monitor, review and be prepared to adapt our educational approach, as well as tactics, to ensure we are meeting students where they are, delivering the best information in the most effective delivery method for that moment in time and need.
I updated the Board on several new items for this fall. In an effort to help students make good decisions, we will be rolling out new training modules dealing with alcohol, tobacco and other drugs as well as one required by Ohio law on hazing identification and prevention. We also have the Off-Campus Housing Network, a program that helps students know which property owners have committed to a list of safety and other best practices criteria.
You’ll also see more results from the work of the Commission on Student Mental Health and Well-being, including the next phase of the Buckeyes Reach Out campaign which encourages community members – not just students – to reach out to ask for help when they need it; and to be mindful of offering help to those in need.
Another major project of the Commission in progress is the development of a central portal, or website, that will assist anyone – student, family member, faculty or staff member – in finding resources according to need, location and urgency level.
As I told the Board members, our work is never done. We should always be changing, innovating, learning and applying that knowledge to enhance what we do and how we do it.
It’s how we stay Scarlet and Great. I hope you are having an amazing Move-In week!
Melissa S. Shivers, PhD
Senior Vice President for Student Life
The Ohio State University