Over half of college students experience mental health challenges. In light of Mental Illness Awareness Week, this post is dedicated to sharing some key mental health resources available to the Georgetown community. Consider including these and an array of other campus resources in your syllabus (if they’re not there already) or sharing them on your Canvas course site. Syllabus day might feel like it’s in the far past—(re)sharing these resources could serve as a refreshing reminder for students that there are many support services across Georgetown available as the semester’s calendar picks up.

Hoya Wellness Wheel 

The ultimate guide to finding the appropriate resource, the Hoya Wellness Wheel offers a needs-based approach to finding support. Select a topic or category of support services, and get connected with the right folks who can help. 

Campus Safety Net

Cura personalisi, the idea of “care for the whole person,” can be realized in several different ways. One way that faculty can care for students is to be familiar with campus resources available to help students who may be struggling. Georgetown’s Student Outreach and Support (SOS) has compiled a guide to recognizing and supporting students in distress. Campus organizations like Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS), Health Education Services (HES), the Center for Multicultural Equity & Access (CMEA), and the LGBTQ Resource Center, as well as, more broadly, confidential counseling resources support all sorts of student concerns and needs, including crisis intervention and counseling services around sexual assault.

The Engelhard Project for Connecting Life and Learning

Georgetown’s Engelhard Project embodies the mission of “educating the whole person” by providing a framework for faculty who wish to integrate issues of health and wellness into their courses. Using a curriculum infusion model, Engelhard faculty fellows partner with campus health professionals to link health topics with academic course content, not only empowering students to learn about the health topics but also making the academic course content relevant to their lives outside the classroom. Visit the Engelhard Project website to read course profiles and to learn more about the project.

Inviting students to bring their complete selves into the classroom requires faculty to do the same in some way. In the video about the Engelhard Project below, several faculty members share their compelling stories about how opening up to students can create a foundation of trust to build a true community in the classroom, one that makes the learning experience more powerful for all.

[The Engelhard Project for Connecting Life and Learning video transcript.] For further examples of how Georgetown faculty have incorporated topics of well-being into their classrooms, check out our Engelhard Course Profiles page.

Explore our Syllabus Policies resource to see sample language you can use in your course documents regarding campus policies and resources, and as always, we’re available to meet one-on-one with you if you have any questions. 

Additional Campus Resources

• Academic Resource Center (ARC)
• Counseling and Psychiatric Service (CAPS)
• Center for Multicultural Equity and Access (CMEA)
• Disability Cultural Initiative (DCI)
• Georgetown Emergency Response Medical Service (GERMS)
• Georgetown University Police Department (GUPD)
• Health Education Services (HES)
• LGBTQ Resource Center
• Residential Living
• Residential Ministry
• Office of Neighborhood Life (new window)
• Office of the Student Ombuds (OSO) (new window)
• Office of Student Financial Services (OSFS)
• Student Health Center (SHC)
• Title IX
• Women’s Center

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Further Reading

• American College Personnel Association, and National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. (June 1998). “Powerful Partnerships: A Shared Responsibility for Learning.” ACPA—College Student Educators International.
• Harward, Donald W. (2016). Well-Being and Higher Education: A Strategy for Change and the Realization of Education’s Greater Purposes. Association of American Colleges & Universities.
• Wexler, Ellen. (January 2016). “Should Colleges Measure Well-Being?” Inside Higher Ed.
• Zakrzewski, Vicki, and Brunn, Peter. (May 2015). “Should Student Success Include Happiness?” Greater Good.