Mental health should come first at colleges

New Dartmouth President takes the courageous step of saying so

This appeared over on my blog at Science.

In September, Sian Beilock gave her inaugural address as the new president of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. I spoke with her about her decision to place mental health front and center in her remarks. Today’s Editorial in Science highlights the views she expressed to me about how to implement better mental health support on campus. Our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, is below.

Holden Thorp: I was so impressed that in your inaugural address as president of Dartmouth College, you discussed real challenges and led with mental health. So tell me, first of all, why you decided to make mental health the most important priority in your speech.

Sian Beilock: I really do believe that if we aren’t helping our students have the tools to feel okay, then they’re not going to do okay. So it’s really a first principle for everything that we’re trying to do. I also believe that the goal of institutions is to be able to have difficult conversations across differences. That’s how you get to the best outcomes, and you can’t do that if people don’t feel okay with who they are or equipped to have those conversations. And again, that comes back to mental health. So I think that when universities talk about mental health and wellness as sitting next to academic excellence, that’s the wrong way to talk about it. It is a precursor to it.

Holden Thorp: And what was it in your experience before you got this job that led you to believe these things?

Sian Beilock: Well, I’m a psychologist by training, and I study how anxiety and stress impact the brain and body, and I’ve seen people with so much potential not be able to reach it because of stress or anxiety. And I know the power of equipping students and faculty and communities to deal with these issues. And so it really felt important for me to bring it up to the forefront.

Holden Thorp: So have you gotten any pushback about doing that, saying why didn’t you lead with big data or AI or whatever?

Sian Beilock: I think actually people have been surprisingly supportive. It’s clear we have a mental health crisis among our young people that was not instigated—but certainly accelerated—by COVID, and it touches everyone’s lives. And it’s not all or nothing. I mean, it’s not either or. Focusing on health and wellness, again, is a precursor to success, and I think faculty, students, alums, and parents have all felt that and seen it in one way or another.

Holden Thorp: Yeah, and I think when a lot of people hear this, they probably think first about undergraduates because those are the ones that are often the most vocal in terms of asking for services. But most of our readers are perhaps more focused on their graduate students.

So tell me about, in your experience, how undergraduates and graduate students are the same or different when it comes to all this.

Sian Beilock: Yeah, I think one thing that I’m really proud of is next week we’re planning to roll out a comprehensive student mental health plan across the university. And it’s not just for undergraduates. It involves all of our graduate and professional schools. And it calls on us as faculty and administrators to get trained to understand how to focus and deal with our students. It’s a collective effort, and it calls on students to get the help they need when they need it. And to my knowledge, there’s not another comprehensive plan that crosses the entire institution.

Holden Thorp: So what can faculty do? I mean, this often gets to be a problem of how can you hire enough counselors, but this requires more than that. So tell me how you’re thinking about how all the different stakeholders in the campus are going to participate in this.

Sian Beilock: Yeah, so we’re working on trainings for faculty and staff. We’ve already done hundreds of trainings with faculty and staff on mental health first aid, on really creating a culture of care, and also for faculty and staff to understand where they can help students reach out for help. And another point that I’m making is I’m hiring a chief well-being officer that will sit on my senior team and be thinking about this for faculty, students, and staff across the institution.

I think one of the big points is that health and wellness is not something that just sits in the counseling center. It is something that sits with the entire institution, and that requires having a senior leader who’s dedicated and responsible and thinking about how we support our whole community.

Another aspect of what we’re doing is focused not only on trainings and support and counseling but also on those things that are important for students, faculty, and staff. Housing, for example, and childcare. We’re really working to beef up resources and support because we know those are important for alleviating concern and worry.

Holden Thorp: Yeah, terrific. So I mean, be practical. If I’ve got somebody in my lab and I’m concerned about their mental health, what should I be doing?

Sian Beilock: First, I would understand what resources are available on campus and help students to understand what those are and connect with them. I also think it’s okay for faculty to talk about their own distress and to let students know that we’re all imperfect humans. It often lowers the obstacles to seeking help or getting involved when you understand that your PI [principal investigator] also has had some of these same issues. But what I would do as faculty is really make myself aware of the resources on campus, especially for graduate students and postdocs if you’re working with them, and make sure all of your students know about those resources.

There’s also trainings that faculty could take. I mean, it’s something we’re making widely available and hope to implement across the entire institution.

Holden Thorp: And what if I’m in a lab and I’m worried about somebody in the lab and my PI isn’t interested in talking to me about doing anything about it?

Sian Beilock: Again, I think you could familiarize yourself with the resources that are on campus. And I think often working to connect your colleagues or other students with those resources can be really beneficial.

Holden Thorp: Yeah. Do you think that we’ve done a lousy job, in that we’ve made people think that we care more about how many papers and grants they’re going to get and not enough about the welfare of everyone? And if so, how do we reverse that?

Sian Beilock: Yeah, I guess I would say that I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. I think that to get the best out of people, they have to feel okay and have the tools to get help when they need it. And I think sometimes we as PIs and leaders don’t always make that clear. And so we should make clear that failure’s going to happen, it’s inevitable, and it happens to all of us. We care about how you are and how you succeed because feeling well will allow you to succeed even better. And we should make clear what the resources are and whom students can turn to. I think there’s always more work to do there.

Holden Thorp: Yeah, and how does substance use relate to all of this stuff? And do we need additional resources for that?

Sian Beilock: I mean, we know there’s been increased opioid addiction and so many things that are related to substance abuse across young people. And so I would say again, some of this does go back to health and wellness and how we’re equipping our students to get help, lowering the barriers and the stigma associated with it, and making sure that students have all the resources that a university offers at their disposal.

I think one of the most powerful things a PI can underscore is that everyone needs help from time to time. And that’s part of taking care of yourself and being successful.

Holden Thorp: Yeah. And so you’re doing all this stuff at Dartmouth, and it’s absolutely awesome because it’s a place that people pay attention to and it’s going to have a lot of influence. But what do you think national organizations should be doing to try to get more schools to think this way? I mean, former AAAS [American Association for the Advancement of Science, the publisher of Science] chief executive officer and director of the National Institute of Mental Health Alan Leshner did a big report for the National Academies that I’m sure you saw. And I mean, you go to the Association of American Universities meetings, you go to the Ivy League presidents’ meetings. What do you tell everybody else about what needs to be done?

Sian Beilock: Yeah, I mean, I think Dartmouth will lead by example focusing on this. And I also think there are real opportunities for partnerships. There are organizations focused on student suicides and supporting mental health across campus. And I’m encouraged by more universities joining with that. And one of the things that I’m most proud of is, a few weeks ago, as you know, we had all the living surgeons general on campus to discuss mental health, to be a place where we’re talking about it. And I think part of the first step is talking about it. We need to be taking responsibility—this is something that is about providing the tools our students need to succeed, and my hope is that others will be paying attention and want to partner on this as well.

Holden Thorp: Terrific. And when a crisis happens, as we’re in now, obviously that makes this even more important, but how does that give us the tools to get through these kinds of things?

Sian Beilock: Yeah, I think we really have to focus on giving our students and faculty tools to have dialogue. I think one of the things that the surgeons general talked about as contributing to the mental health crisis was the inability to talk across difference. And in a time where we’ve just seen horrific terrorist attacks and the taking of human life in Israel, having tools to come together and discuss it and talk about how we can create a better future is so important.

Holden Thorp: Anything else you want the readers of Science to know about this?

Sian Beilock: I would just underscore that focusing on health and wellness for our students, for our faculty, our staff, our undergrads, and graduate students is, I believe, a necessary precursor to success, to publishing papers, to succeeding in the lab. And so I think if we can change the conversation to make that clear, it opens up lots of possibilities for people to come together and support each other.

Holden Thorp: And to change the world with the things we discover.

Sian Beilock: Exactly.

Holden Thorp: Yeah. Well, you’re kind to do this in the middle of everything.

Sian Beilock: Thank you.

Holden Thorp: Thanks for all the great work you’re doing.