Rackham Committee on Graduate Student Mental Health and Well-Being
The committee hopes to shift the focus from being primarily on whether students are making progress towards their degree. Instead, we call on Rackham Graduate School and graduate programs to prioritize graduate-student health and well-being alongside academic success. In promoting and prioritizing student health, we emphasize the World Health Organization definition of health: a state of physical, mental, and social well-being.
Rackham’s Mental Health and Well-Being (MHW) Committee is focused on advocating for the mental health and well-being of graduate students, including ensuring that graduate student mental health and well-being are prioritized by Rackham and individual graduate programs. The MHW Committee is working to implement the recommendations of the Rackham Graduate School’s Task Force on Graduate Student Mental Health (which ran from 2019-2021) and is also developing resources that departments and graduate programs can use to promote graduate student mental health and well-being. The MHW Committee, and its associated Advisory Group, will also work to identify emerging issues, to evaluate potential resources and changes, and to ensure that efforts within Rackham are well-integrated with those elsewhere at the university.
This work is urgently needed to better support the health and well-being of our students. Many graduate students face mental health challenges such as major depression, severe anxiety, disordered eating, and/or suicidal thoughts. A recent meta-analysis found that 24 percent of Ph.D. students showed clinically significant symptoms of depression, and 17 percent showed clinically significant symptoms of anxiety (Satinsky et al. 2021 Scientific Reports). This situation requires us to critically examine structures that can be changed to better support graduate student mental health and well-being.
Supporting graduate student mental health and well-being is not only the right thing to do, but also will promote academic success and long-term health of students. Well-being and academic performance are interdependent and dynamic: four in ten graduate students reported that mental or emotional health affected their academic performance in the previous four weeks (Eisenberg et al. 2007 Am. J. Orthopsychiatry).
Overall, supporting graduate student mental health and wellness is an essential component of Rackham’s mission to advance excellence in graduate education, to cultivate a vibrant and diverse student community, and to impact the public good through scholarship. The MHW Committee and MHW Committee Advisory Group are eager to take on this work.
Committee Members
We have assembled a diverse, multidisciplinary committee made up of faculty, staff, mental health professionals, and graduate students.
Sara Abelson
Graduate student and Lead for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Projects with the Healthy Minds Network, Health Behavior and Health Education
Robert Adams
Associate Professor of Architecture; Associate Professor of Art and Design; Director of University of Michigan Initiative on Disability Studies
Bader AlBader
Ph.D. Candidate, Architecture
Miranda Brown
Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures
Yixuan Chen
Graduate student, Chemical Engineering
Meghan Duffy
Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Chair, Rackham Committee on Graduate Student Mental Health and Well-Being
Todd Favorite
Director, Psychological Clinic, Clinical Associate Professor of Mary A. Rackham Institute
Luke Hyde
Associate Professor of Psychology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and Faculty Associate
Ann Jeffers
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Kristen Jensen
Manager, Associate Deans’ Initiatives (Interim), Rackham Graduate School
Laura Monschau
Embedded CAPS Psychologist, Rackham Graduate School
Joy Pehlke
Health Educator and Lead for Student Engagement and Academic Partnerships, Wolverine Wellness
Rosemary Perez
Associate Professor of Education, School of Education
Nyshourn Price
OSS Admissions Coordinator, School of Social Work
Darlene Ray-Johnson
Resolution Officer, Rackham Graduate School
Andrea Valenzuela
Graduate student, Chemical Biology
Arthur Verhoogt (ex officio)
Advisory Group
Ethriam Brammer
Assistant Dean, DEI Implementation Lead, Rackham Graduate School
Mary Jo Desprez
Director, Wolverine Wellness
Meghan Duffy
Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Chair, Rackham Committee on Graduate Student Mental Health and Well-Being
Kim Elliott, Director
Office of Academic Programs/Chief Enrollment Management, School for Environment and Sustainability
Angie Farrehi
Director of CARE Center, College of Engineering
Patty Griffin
Director, Housing Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution and COVID Response, University Housing
Kate Hagadone
Mental Health and Wellness Counselor, Medical School
Paula Hathaway
Manager of Graduate Education, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
Andrea Hill
Wellness and Inclusion Advocate, Biostatistics
Matt Irelan
Graduate Program Coordinator, Industrial Operation Engineering
Kristen Jensen
Manager, Associate Deans’ Initiatives (Interim), Rackham Graduate School
Mallory Martin-Ferguson
Associate Resolution Officer, Rackham Graduate School
Jennifer Nguyen
Student Services Supervisor, Linguistics
Jessica Randolph
Director, Student Services, Mathematics
Shoba Subramanian
Director of Curriculum and Educational Initiatives, Medical School
Ida Faye Webster
Director, Rackham Program Review
Rachelle Wilcox
Physician, University Health Service
Supporting Graduate Student Mental Health and Well-Being
Graduate school was already challenging and stressful for many students, and recent events have exacerbated existing stressors and added new ones. The Rackham Committee on Graduate Student Mental Health and Well-Being has created this resource to summarize the major stressors students are facing, and to provide guidance on principles, approaches, and strategies that mentors and graduate programs can use as they support students during these extremely stressful times.
Reports of the Graduate Student Mental Health Task Force
As mental health challenges continue to pose difficulties for graduate student health, well-being, and academic progress, Rackham formed the Graduate Student Mental Health Task Force in June 2019 to identify and implement specific changes in the U-M graduate student experience. Their reports outline recommendations to better support graduate student mental health at individual, program, and institutional levels, as well as a call on Rackham and individual graduate programs to prioritize graduate student mental health and well-being alongside academic success