Commitment to Care is a five-year strategic plan for student mental health and well-being at Dartmouth. The plan covers graduate, professional, and undergraduate students and draws upon the findings of our mental health review, which included an external review by the Jed Foundation, a comprehensive mental health survey, a review of best practices, and an internal review encompassing the deep engagement of hundreds of students, faculty, and staff. The evidence-based mental health review examined our culture, resources, processes, and policies. 

The plan is centered around five main goals, with 73 actions to be taken in the first year. More than 35 are already underway, such as the updated Time Away for Medical Reasons policy and the search for an inaugural chief health and wellness officer.

No. This plan is for all students at Dartmouth, whether they’re undergraduate, graduate, or professional students. In 2021, Dartmouth took the unique step of engaging with the Jed Foundation to assess its entire system for mental health and well-being for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.. This study and review provided a foundation for the plan. 

One of our tasks when developing the plan was to craft a guiding vision to direct our goals over time:

Dartmouth continually strives to be a caring, inclusive community that prioritizes mental health and well-being and equips all of its students with the resources and skills to thrive at Dartmouth and beyond.

To achieve this vision, the plan is organized around five main strategic goals, with actions to be taken over the next five years to achieve each one:

1. Center well-being in all we do both inside and outside of the classroom.
2. Create an inclusive community to foster mental health and well-being for students with diverse lived experiences.
3. Equip students with the resources and skills to navigate both success and failure with strength and confidence.
4. Proactively work with those experiencing mental health to aid students in reaching their goals.
5. Invest in innovative applications of evidence-based approaches to respond to changing environments and needs.

Among many initiatives, this plan will provide for:

1. Expanding mental health education for faculty and staff. In addition to continuing our commitment to training faculty and staff already employed at Dartmouth, we are developing a policy for equipping all newly hired employees with the skills to recognize when students may be experiencing mental-health problems and to connect them with the resources they need.
2. Systematically reviewing organizational structures to assess the capacity of mental health and well-being-focused staffing across all schools.
3. Developing and launching a comprehensive, user-friendly, and easy-to-find website for all student mental health and well-being resources and information.
4. Hiring an inaugural chief health and wellness officer who will report directly to the president and oversee health and well-being across Dartmouth.

In the summer of 2021, as part of our mental-health review process, Dartmouth engaged the Jed Foundation to help us better understand the mental-health landscape at Dartmouth and expand our use of best practices.

Dartmouth’s partnership with the Jed Foundation began with administration of the Healthy Minds Study (HMS) student survey in fall 2021 and our assigned JED Campus advisors’ review of Dartmouth policies, review of our website, and three site visits in winter and spring 2022.

In September 2022, Dartmouth formed several work groups to process initial feedback, and in March 2023, Provost David Kotz convened a steering committee charged with creating a comprehensive, collaborative, and consistent all-Dartmouth strategic plan for student mental health and well-being.

From May through September 2023, at least 250 stakeholders, including students, were engaged to provide input into the strategic planning process, primarily consisting of students, staff, and faculty, resulting in the vision and five main strategic goals below. As a part of this stakeholder engagement, we have endeavored to align with several intersecting efforts across Dartmouth.

In October 2021, Dartmouth invited all 7,258 active and graduate and undergraduate students to take the national Healthy Minds Study (HMS) student survey. More than 2,500 students responded (a response rate of 34.5%, which is higher than the national average). The survey covered several topics including questions about:

• Mental health and substance use status, knowledge, attitudes, and service utilization;
• Overall health status and related health protective and risk factors (e.g., sleep, financial stress, sexual assault, public safety, resilience);
• Campus environment, climate, and student experience (e.g., diversity and inclusion, academic competition, peer support, upstander/bystander behaviors); and
• Demographics.

The survey results found a number of areas for growth as well as strengths to build upon, including: 

• Depression and anxiety: Compared to the national HMS sample, Dartmouth students report similar or lower rates of prior depression (19%) and anxiety (26%) diagnoses and similar or lower prevalence of reported risk for moderate to severe depression (33%) and anxiety (27%).
• Alcohol consumption: Among Dartmouth students who reported consuming alcohol in the two weeks before taking the survey, 68% reported having engaged in high-risk drinking at least one time during those two weeks. This is higher than the national HMS sample (59%).
• Community and belonging: 17% of Dartmouth students did not feel like they have a community, group, or social circle where they belong at Dartmouth and only 59% of Dartmouth students reported feeling that they "belong" at their school.
• Peer support: Most Dartmouth students report that their school is a campus where people look out for each other (81%). Perceptions of peer support at Dartmouth are especially strong, with 89% of students agreeing, to some extent, that students are working to promote mental health at their school.
• Sense of purpose: While about three-fourths of Dartmouth students report leading a purposeful and meaningful life, a sizable percentage of them do not share that sense of purpose and meaning (11%) or have mixed feelings (11%).

The HMS survey will be readministered to all Dartmouth students in the final year of the JED Campus partnership (academic year 2024-2025) to identify areas of growth and opportunities for continued improvement.

Yes. Dartmouth asked many students to review and contribute to the plan. Student representatives attended the JED site visits in Winter and Spring 2022 and were members of committees and work groups developing recommendations that fed into this strategic plan. In collaboration with the Office of Pluralism and Leadership (OPAL); Geisel Diversity, Inclusion, Community, and Engagement (DICE) office; and DEIB leaders at our other graduate and professional schools, additional students provided input into the development of the vision and strategic goals. As another example, students who took time away from campus shared their experiences and offered feedback on the recently announced updated Time Away for Medical Reasons policy. This policy change is one of the 73 actions to be taken in the first year of the student strategic plan.

The implementation of the plan has already begun and will continue over the next five years. For instance, Dartmouth announced a new policy last month that addresses Time Away for Medical Reasons, and a search is underway for an inaugural chief health and wellness officer. Other objectives will begin this year but take multiple years to realize fully.

Faculty and staff are not included in this plan. We are committed to their positive mental health and well-being as well and taking actions to support them.

We are hiring an inaugural chief health and wellness officer, reporting directly to the president, who will act as a key adviser on all health matters focused on the entire campus.

In September, Dartmouth announced that for the first time, it will offer childcare subsidies for employees. This is the beginning of important work to improve housing and child care access and affordability, both of which are enormous stressors for faculty and staff.

Dartmouth will assess the effect of its academic calendars on student mental health and well-being as part of the plan. This will include examining the undergraduate quarter system and D-Plan and the calendars for each of the four graduate and professional schools. As part of this review, we will identify opportunities to strengthen the mental health environment at Dartmouth, with input from students, staff, and faculty. 

As outlined in the plan, Dartmouth aims to center mental health and well-being in everything we do and to expand supportive programs and resources that help achieve the goals of the 2022 Day of Caring: Building community and connecting students to resources that can help them thrive at Dartmouth and beyond.

As part of the academic calendar assessment, we will consider whether something like the Day of Caring could be built into the permanent academic calendar, or if its goals are better achieved in other ways. Such assessment requires careful consideration to balance the intent of the day with other goals of the academic calendar, including the length of a term.

Dartmouth will define a set of metrics to track the progress of the plan’s implementation and a system to collect and analyze those metrics. This work will enable the evaluation of pilot projects noted in this strategic plan, development of our multi-year strategic plan assessment, and regular community updates on plan progress.

The HMS survey will be readministered to all Dartmouth students in the final year of the JED Campus partnership (academic year 2024-2025) to identify areas of growth and opportunities for continued improvement.