As seen in the Fall 2025 CSB Magazine
Student mental health and well-being are major concerns on college campuses everywhere. Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s are no exception. In 2023 the institutions did extensive information gathering across all campus constituencies (as well as listening sessions with alumnae/i across the country) to identify the concerns and priorities of the full CSB+SJU community for strategic planning purposes.
“Student well-being, student health and wellness, student mental health, student emotional wellbeing … all of these were very, very strong themes across that entire information-gathering process,” said Jody Terhaar, dean of students for Saint Ben’s.
So when the current strategic plan was released in late 2023, and “the student experience” was identified as one of three pillars, it was fitting that one of the key supporting initiatives is “Belonging and community through mental health support.” This is a communitywide call for a communitywide effort to help our students “Be Well.”
“We have long recognized the importance of student mental health and have implemented various supports like an integrated health services program centering both physical and mental health. We offer a team of professionals to support students when they struggle and we have outstanding student accessibility services and proactive wellness programming,” said Terhaar.
Recently though, those existing resources have been stretched. Over the past five years, counseling appointments at CSB and SJU have nearly doubled. Campus data show an increasing number of students struggling with emotional distress, difficulty managing responsibilities and mental health-related academic disruptions.
It’s time to try something different. Specifically, the new Be Well initiative declares that “the CSB and SJU community, through education, new systems, inclusive practices, policies and funding, will promote positive, culturally appropriate student mental health and support resilience for academic success.”
Terhaar co-chairs the cross-functional committee driving Be Well, along with Dean of Curriculum and Assessment Karyl Daughters. She explained that one of the first steps taken was the choice to partner with the Jed Foundation and begin the process of becoming certified JED Campuses.
What’s a JED Campus?
The Jed Foundation (JED) is a nonprofit that protects emotional health and prevents suicide for our nation’s teens and young adults, giving them the skills and support they need to thrive. Its JED Campus program is designed to help schools evaluate and strengthen their mental health, substance misuse and suicide prevention programs.
“This is a program that is grounded in public health,” said Terhaar. “It’s not a random, one-off program. Rather, it is very much built on data, assessment and best practices.”
Currently, nearly 500 campuses are engaged in the JED Campus program, reaching more than 6 million students in 44 states and the District of Columbia.
“The college years are the age when many mental health issues first manifest, and it can be a time of significant stress and pressure,” said John MacPhee, chief executive officer of JED, on the foundation’s website. “JED Campus helps schools by working with them to evaluate what their college or university is doing to support student emotional health and well-being and find practical ways to augment these efforts in a comprehensive way.”
Taking a good, hard look
In spring 2025, Terhaar and her committee administered the Healthy Minds survey, organized by the University of Michigan, aiming to get a clear picture of mental health outcomes, knowledge and attitude on campus. “We had amazing participation from everyone – staff, faculty, students,” said Terhaar. “The folks at the University of Michigan were astounded at our response rate, particularly from students. So we feel like the information we’ll be getting back when those survey results come in will be incredibly helpful.”
At the same time, Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s were working with the Jed Foundation on a comprehensive campus scan. This is a sharp, hard look at the institutions’ current state in nine categories:
1. Strategic planning: What are the systems and structures? Who’s involved in what?
2. Developing life skills: What is being done right now to help students develop these critical skills? How is that programming offered? Is it in-person or online? How is it assessed?
3. Promoting social connectedness: What kind of culture and programming goes on in the residence halls? What athletic programs are available? Research shows that connected students have better health and wellbeing outcomes.
4. Identifying students at risk: What’s in place now to serve students who may be at risk for mental health challenges or potential self-harm?
5. Help-seeking behavior: When students feel empowered and encouraged to proactively reach out, outcomes improve. How is that currently being done?
6. Providing mental health services: What is currently in place? How is that staff used? How is it assessed? How is it treated? What partnerships are in place to serve students?
7. Providing substance use services: What are the policies around substance use and misuse? What kinds of support and resources are here for students?
8. Crisis management: What’s in place for students – individually and collectively – in the middle of a crisis? What about after a crisis? What behavioral intervention teams exist? What’s the emergency response protocol? What about after-hours resources?
9. Promoting means safety: What kinds of systems are in place to reduce access to legal means for self-harm?
“We did our very best to assess and honestly say, ‘This is where we think we are as institutions,’” said Terhaar.
Building a plan
September on campus this year brought more than the excited hum of new and returning students. This year the campuses welcomed a partner specialist from the Jed Foundation to work with the committee on developing a specific plan.
The Be Well plan that is developed with that Jed Foundation partner will consider all the deep statistical info from the Healthy Minds survey and layer that on top of self-assessment data in those nine categories. “In each of those categories, we’ll be identifying the gaps and what we can do in those areas,” said Terhaar. “We could be looking at staffing. We could be looking at programming. We could be looking at crisis response procedures. … And once we’ve identified our gaps and our opportunities, our job will be to evaluate. What’s going to have the greatest impact here? What things are we going to do to make a difference in our campus community?
“Once that’s implemented, the cycle becomes ‘do, assess, revise, repeat.’ Our five-year implementation plan is going to be that cycle of doing things, assessing them, revising where we need to do things, assess them and revise again. And along the way, the things we find with the greatest impact, we will be able to retain those. We can continue that cycle long after our partnership with JED is completed. We will have integrated this work and it will become a sustainable part of our campus community.”
No one’s in this alone
Terhaar pinpointed the date of the wake-up call for student development professionals everywhere regarding mental health protocols as April 16, 2007. That was the day a single student at Virginia Tech went on a terrible shooting spree.
“I think what came out of that horrific incident was that people knew that young man was struggling,” she said. “There was awareness, but there weren’t systems in place that allowed the institution to have access to information or systems that provided the help this student may have needed. After this incident, many institutions – including CSB and SJU – put together behavioral intervention teams to identify students who are struggling and identify a plan to intervene and provide support. Whenever a tragedy like the one at Virginia Tech happens, a common thought is ‘there, but for the grace of God, go we’ … We want to make sure we’re being as proactive as possible in reaching out to students who may be struggling.”
Student mental health services today aren’t about coddling young adults in the process of growing up. “There’s a normal level of stress, anxiety, frustration, sadness and missteps in college,” said Terhaar. “Working through these experiences and emotions is an important part of developing resilience. When we become aware of a student where the level of concern gets a little higher than that, we can intervene at a lower level and not a crisis level.
“Pragmatically speaking, prioritizing student wellness is an investment for us in terms of retention. Communicating with our students and parents that ‘We’re investing in your wellness and we’re going to give you opportunities and resources and support so that you can become proactive in taking care of your own health.’
“That’s a mutual relationship. And I think it’s something that can really distinguish us.”