Student-Led Climate Assessment Promotes a Healthier Graduate School Environment

This article describes a graduate student-led effort to develop a climate survey to assess, advocate for, and improve the well-being and mental health of graduate students and postdocs in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Graduate students have an increased incidenc...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of chemical education 2020-03, Vol.97 (3), p.643-650
Main Authors: Beasley, Madeleine S, Lumley, Margaret A, Janicki, Tesia D, Fernandez, Rebeca L, Manger, Lydia H, Tucholski, Trisha, Thomas, Nicole C, Whitmire, Lauren D, Lawson, Andrea, Buller, Andrew R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemistry
Cognition
College students
Colleges & universities
Depression (Psychology)
Educational Environment
Environmental assessment
Graduate schools
Graduate Students
Graduate studies
Incidence
Mental depression
Mental disorders
Mental Health
Mental health care
Mental Health Programs
Motivation
Organic Chemistry
Polls & surveys
Science Departments
Student Surveys
Students
Well Being
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This article describes a graduate student-led effort to develop a climate survey to assess, advocate for, and improve the well-being and mental health of graduate students and postdocs in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Graduate students have an increased incidence of depression relative to the general population, and given the transient nature of the student population, understanding and addressing mental health concerns can be challenging. The goal of this article is to illustrate how students, with the support of departmental faculty, staff, and existing on-campus mental health resources, can take the lead to investigate and assess issues related to the challenging graduate school environment. We describe the student-led development and implementation of and the subsequent follow-up to a department-wide survey aimed at destigmatizing the subject of mental health and fostering a more supportive community. This article serves as a framework to assist other interested and motivated graduate students who, with the support of local faculty, wish to develop and initiate a similar process in their own departments. We demonstrate that student-led actions can effectively tackle department-level problems and encourage other interested students to initiate a similar effort.
ISSN:0021-9584
1938-1328
DOI:10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00611