University President Kristina M. Johnson announced the formation of a new task force to help improve mental health and wellbeing on campus. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Photo Editor
University President Kristina M. Johnson announced the formation of a new task force to help improve mental health and well-being on campus in an email Thursday.
The commission is co-chaired by Melissa Shivers, senior vice president for Student Life, and Bernadette Melnyk, chief wellness officer and dean of the College of Nursing, according to the email. Melnyk said the task force aims to focus on further preventing mental health issues and creating a culture that fosters wellness at Ohio State.
“We will do all we can for our students, our faculty, our staff and our culture to make it the best and healthiest university on the planet,” Melnyk said.
The commission is a follow-up and extension of Ohio State’s Suicide and Mental Health Task Force created in 2018 by former University President Michael V. Drake. It was formed in response to two students who died after falling from parking garages within days of one another, Melnyk said.
The 2018 task force came up with recommendations to improve mental health resources and a wellness app, which was automatically downloaded to student iPads, according to its website.
The new task force is also in response to fall 2020 surveys completed by 3,589 students, faculty and staff that showed 70 percent of the student respondents and 37 percent of staff and faculty were burnt out or burning out by December 2020, Shivers said.
“[President Johnson] really wants to be focused on the student experience and certainly our student health and well-being, and I think this task force — as Dean Melnyk mentioned — is certainly the genesis of all of that,” Shivers said.
The commission will focus on suicide prevention, improving student engagement in mental health and wellness resources, education and more, Shivers said.
Both Melnyk and Shivers said the task force will specifically consider the impact the pandemic has on mental health.
“It felt like a really nice sort of natural next step to make sure that as we prepare to return in the fall that we are also considering and thinking strategically about what may be some of the implications from COVID that we haven’t planned for,” Shivers said. “We know that people have lost friends and families and loved ones and so there’s going to be some trauma associated with that.”
Students are represented in the task force, including Undergraduate Student Government President Jacob Chang and Council of Graduate Students Vice President Abby Grief, Shivers said.
“The student voice is critical here,” Shivers said. “ We can come up with all the strategies and evidence-based practices, but if they don’t meet students’ needs and they don’t connect with students, they’re sort of for naught.”
Melnyk said unlike other university programs, the task force will be less crisis-oriented and will instead focus on providing students with evidence-based practices such as resiliency, cognitive behavioral skills and mindfulness.
“I always use the analogy: we wouldn’t send divers into a deep ocean without an oxygen tank,” Melnyk said. “So, we have to look at our students holistically in that way too.”
