Commitment to Care

President Sian Leah Beilock, a cognitive scientist who has long studied why people sometimes choke under pressure, has made student mental health and wellness a key priority of her administration. "Understanding how anxiety and stress play out in the brain and body has been the focus of my research for the past 20 years," she said in her inaugural address in September. "What I've learned is that there are discrete steps we can take to better care for ourselves and others and that well-being is directly linked to academic achievement."

In November, Dartmouth released the Commitment to Care, a strategic plan for supporting student mental health and well-being. The plan, which consolidates and builds upon significant progress that Dartmouth has made recently—including the implementation of 24/7 teletherapy, a new "Time Away for Medical Reasons" policy, and the elimination of overnight infirmary charges—has five strategic goals.

You can read the full strategic plan on the Commitment to Care website.

1.

Center well-being in all we do, both inside and outside the classroom.

Centering well-being will be accomplished by taking a holistic approach that prioritizes the well-being of our students; recognizes and draws upon students' inherent strengths; provides intentional and widely available support; and aligns our policies, environments, curricula, and resources with best practices for mental health and well-being.

2.

Create an inclusive community to foster mental health and well-being for students with diverse lived experiences.

As a community attentive to the nuances of diverseexperiences, we will reconfigure outdated systems, practices, and paradigms and continue to create new traditions in support of mental health and well-being.

3.

Equip students with the resources and skills to navigate both success and failure with strength and confidence.

We will lower barriers to support in our environment by surrounding students with a well-informed network of staff, faculty, and students trained to support students' mental health and well-being; enhancing resources to ensure students have easy access to services; and redefining stereotypical notions of strength to promote healthy help-seeking behaviors.

4.

Proactively work with those experiencing mental illness to aid students in reaching their goals.

At Dartmouth, we will promote mental illness awareness and reduce stigma; implement systems to identify students in need; and expand access to high-quality mental health services.

5.

Invest in innovative applications of evidence-based approaches to respond to changing environments and needs.

By listening to our community's voices and applying an evidence-based approach to system improvement, we will use data to guide how we direct our resources to meet changing environments affecting students' mental health and well-being.