Today’s graduate students are facing multiple stressors that require thoughtful and comprehensive attention.
Those are the findings from a new report from the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and The Jed Foundation (JED), which provides a framework for individual and collective action to support the mental health and well-being of master’s and doctoral students.
“Supporting Graduate Student Mental Health and Well-being: Evidence-Informed Recommendations for the Graduate Community” is the result of a 22-month project that began prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unquestionably the pandemic has led to additional stress and impact to mental health, which is taken into consideration.
“We were already knowing there were rising concerns about graduate student mental health and well-being,” said Dr. Suzanne Ortega, president of CGS. “What we rapidly learned is that COVID, the police killings, the anti-Blackness waves have really amplified the stress that people were feeling.”
Information was collected from graduate deans, graduate students, student affairs professionals, disciplinary society representatives and researchers. The CGS/JED researchers developed a questionnaire about institutional practices and policies related to supporting graduate student mental health and well-being.
The final questionnaire was sent to 780 U.S. and Canadian CGS members or affiliates during the spring and summer of 2020 and 241 valid responses (31%) were received. Public institutions made up 72% of the respondents and 11% were from U.S. minority-serving institutions.
Ortega said the most direct way to address stresses specifically felt by graduate students of color is to provide open and honest space to discuss the challenges and to respond quickly to situations that may intensify their stress levels and impact mental health.
