Promoting Racial Equity in Student Mental Health

Mental health remains a significant concern for students of color in higher education. Students of color often report experiencing daily micro-aggressions, harassment, alongside racial discrimination, as they navigate classroom and institutional contexts at their college or university. As such, promoting and ensuring supportive and responsive learning environments can alleviate the stress experienced by students of color as well as strengthen and reframe how we define student success. As their campuses prepare to welcome them back for in-person instruction, recognizing, attending to, and ameliorating the effects of the past year’s accumulated racial trauma will be critical to support and promote student thriving and healing. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the unique racial traumas that undergraduate and graduate students of color may face in and outside of their classrooms. In addition, this session offers practical and culturally sensitive recommendations regarding how instructors can foster mental well-being for students of color in their courses.

Welcome and framing remarks by Tabbye Chavous, Director of the National Center for Institutional Diversity; Professor of Education and Psychology; and Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion in the College of Literature, Sciences, & the Arts at the University of Michigan

Moderated by Carlota Ocampo, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs; Associate Professor of Psychology at the Trinity Washington University; Steve Fund National Advisor

Panelists
Stephen Quaye, Associate Professor in Education Studies at Ohio State University

Cirleen DeBlaere, Associate Professor in Counseling Psychology at Georgia State University & Steve Fund Mental Health Expert

William D. Lopez, Clinical Assistant Professor in Health Behavior & Health Education at University of Michigan

Co-sponsored by The Steve Fund and the USC Race & Equity Center