1 Culture and Climate Progress

The Culture and Climate task force proposed recommendations and actions designed to incorporate an environment of care through all aspects of the college experience, understanding, and reduced shame surrounding student mental health.

RECOMMENDATION 1: Integrate Mental Health issues and actions across student organizations by creating two new committees and increasing access and resources for internal and cross-organizational events and efforts. 

Actions:

• Established a university-wide faculty/staff mental health advisory council and campus-level student mental health advisory councils on each campus.
• OCHO dedicated more than $50,000 in sponsorships during FY23 to student groups and events focusing on mental health; OCHO continues to fund student mental health events in FY24. Some examples are:
  • World Mental Health Day Cookies & Compliments on all campuses
  • IU Bloomington Dance Marathon
  • IU Indianapolis Stressbusters Week
  • IU Indianapolis Health & Wellness Promotions Sleep Challenge sponsorship
  • IU Bloomington Cultural Differences Around MH panel discuss and dinner
  • IU Bloomington Kamp Kesem at IU Study Break dinner sponsorship
  • IU Bloomington Asian Culture Center weekly dinners to build community after a crime against an Asian student

RECOMMENDATION 2: Neutralize stigmatizing messages around existing organizations and units that provide services around mental health or other stigmatized issues. 

Actions:

• All IU Campuses rebranded Offices of Disability Services to the less stigmatizing Offices of Accessible Educational Services; OCHO provided $4,000 for promotional materials marking the change of title.
• The week preceding final exams is no longer referred to as “Dead Week,” rather, most campuses and schools are now calling it “Care Week” or “Stressbusters Week” to reduce stigma around the stress commonly felt during that period.

RECOMMNEDATION 3: Create toolkits and suites of materials for faculty, staff, and students.

Actions:

• OCHO created Care Cards, which offer common sense advice to faculty and staff on how to identify signs of student mental distress, how to talk with the student, and how to direct students to mental health resources. More than 10,000 Care Cards were distributed to faculty and staff on all of IU’s campuses during FY23. Additional Care Cards were ordered to keep up with the demand and to distribute to new faculty and staff as needed.
• OCHO created “Start the Conversation” cards, which provide tips to help students talk about mental health issues with their peers and includes a QR to direct students to mental health resources available on campus. These cards are distributed during campus mental health events, new student orientation events and welcome week events, and are currently the biggest driver to the Student Mental Health website, excluding social media.
• OCHO worked with partners to roll out “Stall Talk” signage on the seven campuses that did not previously have the medium. Stall Talk is a program in which information about mental health resources is placed on bathroom stall doors.
• The mental health website links to the JED Foundation’s “You Can Help a Friend” and “You Can Help a Student” modules for addressing mental health needs in peers and students.

RECOMMENDATION 4: Leverage existing organizations, resources, and events to include special mental health emphasis to integrate and magnify the impact of mental health and anti-stigma efforts. 

Actions:

• OCHO sponsored numerous events and activities on all IU campuses, ensuring that events such as First Thursday, Dance Marathon, Friday Finish and Stressbusters Week promoted mental health awareness.
• As part of efforts to support revenue generation, IU is exploring long-range fundraising ideas to identify donors interested in supporting mental health and wellness initiatives. This is being done in partnership with IU Foundation, the Irsay Institute, VPSS, OCHO, and academic partners.

RECOMMENDATION 5: Utilize and institutionalize an evidence-based peer-to-peer anti-stigma program that integrates student extracurricular activities, coursework, research experience, and workforce development.

Actions:

• IU has committed to becoming a leader in the Big Ten by establishing and supporting evidence-based anti-stigma U Bring Change 2 Mind (UBC2M) chapters on each IU campus; OCHO has worked with student life leaders on all campuses to identify and fund staff mentors for the student chapters.

RECOMMENDATION 6: Deploy novel approaches to awareness of mental health and stigma issues, as well as services.

Actions:

• IU Communications and Marketing designed and created the “Unboxed” concept, an innovative and eye-catching marketing campaign intended to encourage students to open up about mental health issues and reduce stigma. Assets include:
  • Highly visible bus wrap on the IU Bloomington campus
  • Tunnel wrap and 72 sidewalk light pole banners in high traffic areas of the IU Indianapolis campus
  • T-shirts
  • Buttons and stickers
  • Digital signage on five campuses
  • 11×17 posters
  • Care packages, 1,104 were distributed during Stressbusters week events in partnership with student life leaders across all IU campuses
  • Stall Talk posters
• OCHO redesigned the student mental health website so that students on all campuses have a comprehensive listing of all resources available in one place. The Unboxed campaign helps drive traffic to the website and has shown more than 20,000 unique pageviews, a 500% increase from the original website launch in January 2022. The student mental health website has three pages ranked IU’s top 50 most visited webpages (home page, find resources page, and TimelyCare FAQ page).
• OCHO hosted World Mental Health Day events on all IU campuses, including a vibrant lime green tent to attract students to engage with the mental health activities.
• OCHO contracted with ManualCare, a men’s resource and engagement platform, to encourage young men, especially men of color, to overcome the stigma of talking about mental health issues; this is a pilot program on the IU Bloomington campus.

RECOMMENDATION  7: Educate and Empower faculty, staff, and students to respond to individual and campus-wide MH crises and incidents.

Actions:

• OCHO partnered with the National Council on Mental Wellbeing to train 11 faculty and staff to become mental health first aid trainers; these trainers will conduct three trainings per year around all IU campuses, dramatically increasing the availability of this level of training for all faculty, staff, and students.
• OCHO funded a Mental Health Community of Practice in partnership with the Irsay Institute.
• OCHO is working with care teams and first responders at all campuses to ensure that responses to events such as a student death or a bias incident take into account the mental health impact of such event on students, faculty, and staff.