Dear CC Community,
In her inauguration speech, President Richardson talked about the importance of ensuring that our campus community thrives. Prioritizing our mental health and wellness is an essential component of this. Only when our students, staff, and faculty learn, work, and live in an environment that fosters mental health and wellness can we provide our students with an outstanding liberal arts education, and the skills and habits to live healthy lives.
Less than two weeks ago, we updated our campus community, alumni, and parents on: (1) what we have done to date and (2) what we are planning to do to improve mental health and wellness on campus.
Today, we share more.
First and foremost, we are raising the level of importance of mental health and wellness for the whole campus to the same level we have put antiracism. We will engage the entire CC community including students, faculty, parents, alumni, and our local community in our mission.
Below are updates on some of the actions we are taking:
- We are creating a task force of students, faculty, staff, parents, and alumni to help us find the right solutions. Our Healthy Minds Survey of CC students highlighted that when it comes to “informal support” for mental health, our students overwhelmingly turn to their friends (58%) and family (51%). We are currently speaking to possible candidates and are planning to announce membership of the task force in January 2023.
- We will also work directly with student facilitators so that multiple existing and new peer-to-peer support services will be available to students in 2023.
We are leveraging outside experts to make us better:
- Last week, we held a series of conversations with the Colorado Department of Higher Education on the work we need to do to earn a “Healthy Minds” designation, which is awarded after a comprehensive review of programs and practices to address mental health across campus.
- Barring unforeseen circumstances, by Block 5 we will complete an external review of our mental health and wellness structures, programs, services, and practices, and explore models to provide wellness resources and promote healthy life skills and habits to our entire CC community. We will then plan to publish recommendations on Block 6.
- In the coming months, a few key leaders from CC will visit other colleges and universities like Denison University to learn about their approaches to building resiliency and creating healthy campus environments. Denison won an Active Minds, Healthy Campus award for innovation in prioritizing and promoting the health and well-being of its students.
We also recognize that the Block Plan can create some different stressors on our students than those faced by students at semester schools. Some things we are working on:
- We are working with faculty to develop guidance that includes absence for mental health as a part of the attendance and excused absences policy. We expect to announce changes by the end of the academic year.
- As promised, after January 1, 2023, we will launch an anonymous reporting resource for a wide range of campus concerns. More information will be shared in December.
- The vice president and dean of the faculty and the vice president and dean of the college have started conversations with the faculty about constraints on students’ time and ways we can make sure students can truly have a break from class, class assignments, emails, and notifications. We plan to announce some updates in Spring 2023.
We are going to invest in more and varied resources:
- We are exploring adding additional counselors who will be available to students, staff, and faculty for free. We expect to announce some of these additions by the end of the calendar year.
- We will soon announce enhanced partnerships with Children’s Hospital and Cottonwood Creek Wellness Center to expand resources and look at new and innovative ways to address mental health needs.
- Colorado College has joined the Suicide Prevention Collaborative of El Paso County. This alliance of organizations and community leaders share strategies, resources, and expertise with the goal of reducing suicide deaths in El Paso County by 20% by the year 2024.
- The vice president and dean of the faculty, senior director for Student Health & Wellbeing, and vice president for student life and dean of students plan to implement additional mental health training for all staff and faculty on an annual basis.
- Through the task force mentioned earlier, we will examine the need for more sexual assault response team staff and more counselors. We will report more after the task force meets.
Better communications:
- We are reviewing our key campus websites, including the Student Health Center, Counseling Center, Wellness Resource Center, and Title IX so that the most important information is clearly defined and easy to find. We are examining ways to improve and make our communication protocols more transparent, including communicating about our mental health commitment and work and using trigger warnings for sensitive communications.
- This week, the Board of Trustees will be on campus, and we invite students to an open dialogue with them this Friday, Nov. 4, from 3:15-5:45 p.m. (main level of Worner Campus Center). Interested students can sign up here for the Board of Trustees Listening Session.
- The president and the Cabinet are committed to listening and being in dialogue with students, faculty, staff, parents, and alumni. More specific information will be shared each block. The president will meet with students every block so she can personally understand their needs.
We have heard you and want to continue to engage our community for feedback and ideas. Real and sustained change will happen only through open dialogue and engagement, a willingness and commitment to have difficult conversations, and if we think and act differently.
It also takes accountability. We are currently working on a Mental Health Commitment website where we will continue to provide our community with updates on our progress as well as provide a place where our community can continue to share new ideas or concerns.
Thank you for your courage to raise these important issues and the grace you give us to work together on solutions.
Sincerely,
L. Song Richardson
President
The President’s Cabinet:
Pedro de Araujo
Vice President and Dean of the College
Professor of Economics
Emily Chan
Vice President and Dean of the Faculty
Professor of Psychology
Rochelle Dickey
Dean of Students, Vice President for Student Life
Mike Edmonds
Senior Vice President
Mary Ann Graffeo
Vice President for Advancement
Katharina Groves
Interim Co-Vice President, Information Technology
Director, ITS Applications and Security
Mark Hatch
Vice President for Enrollment
Lesley Irvine
Vice President and Director of Athletics
Robert Moore
Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Financial Officer
Ryan Simmons
Vice President for People and Workplace Culture
Manya Whitaker
Executive Vice President and Chief of Staff
Tulio Wolford
Interim Co-Vice President, Information Technology
Director, ITS Technology Solution Services
Todd Woodward
Vice President of Strategic Communications and Marketing
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