Optimizing the mental health and well-being of its students will assist CUNY in realizing its historic mission to provide young people in New York City better chances of success and upward mobility.

The Steve Fund, an organization dedicated to the mental, social, and emotional health of students of color, is partnering with CUNY in using principles of design to support the improvement of mental health and academic equity throughout CUNY, the largest urban university system in the United States. The mental health and academic progress of students can be undermined by intersectional challenges and disparities in areas in their lives, such as housing, food security, disability and chronic disease, sexual and reproductive health, immigrant status, access to health care and child care. This conference builds on recent Healthy CUNY initiatives to engage students, faculty and staff in promoting mental health and the Steve Fund’s history of organizing convenings on equity in student mental health on diverse campuses and aims to provide an opportunity for teams of students, faculty and administrators from each of CUNY’s 25 campuses to explore campus mental health more deeply. Participants will discuss the impact of student characteristics and life circumstances and campus cultures on the mental health of their students. 

The ultimate goal of this meeting and its follow-up is to formulate solutions to overcome the barriers, activate the facilitators and create the conditions for mental health, emotional well-being and academic success for all students. 

Learning Objectives:
At the conclusion the conference, attendees will be able to:

Discuss the societal context and social determinants most significant to the mental health and academic well-being of CUNY’s large and diverse student body. 

Specify barriers and facilitators to mental health and academic well-being associated with a wide range of student intersectional identities and circumstances, including family income, age, race/ethnicity, gender and sexuality and nativity. 

Identify the levers, strategies and solutions associated with social determinants that can improve the mental health and academic well-being of CUNY students. 

List the roles that students, faculty and administrators can play in achieving the goal of mental health and academic well-being for all CUNY students. 

Describe the basic steps of the design process as it relates to making change in support of improving student mental health. 

Identify specific ways students, faculty and administrators can contribute to improving mental health and academic success on their campus.