The University Well-Being Coalition (UWBC) is a collaboration among campus partners working cross-functionally to create a healthier and thriving community for students, staff and faculty. The committee is focused on building and enhancing opportunities. To guide our collaborative work, the UWBC has adopted the following Inter-Association Definition of Well-Being:
‘We define well-being as an optimal and dynamic state that allows people to achieve their full potential’
This definition opens our collective work to the customization needed to serve each unit's students, staff and faculty through unique options chosen by that unit’s work team. The full definition and 15 aligned professional associations can be found here. The UWBC recognizes and emphasizes that no single unit — however innovative or influential — can foster personal and community well-being alone. Instead, we're working to bring individuals, departments and units together to achieve social change.
MSU Counseling & Psychiatric Services, CAPS, is the centralized place on campus for students seeking help for a wide range of mental health concerns, including depression, anxiety, stress management, homesickness, adjustment or acculturation, relationships, gender identity and sexual orientation (LBGTQ) concerns, substance abuse, trauma, eating or body image concerns, and other personal concerns.
The Mission of the MSU Employee Assistance Program is to support and enhance the emotional health of the campus community. EAP provides emotional assistance to employees and their families as they attempt to work through life changes, expected and unexpected events, chronic physical and emotional health issues, and work/life balance concerns. These services are available at no charge to gradaute student employees, meaning those who are on contracts for teaching assistantships, research assistantships and other types of assistantships that make them benefits-eligible.
Health4U provides faculty, staff, retirees, graduate student employees and their partners/spouses with education, opportunities, and support for developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Health Services and related support services including primary care, women’s health, allergy/immunizations, sports medicine, massage therapy, laboratory, radiology, physical therapy, and pharmacy are provided at Olin Health Center. Neighborhood clinics in Brody, Holden, Hubbard and McDonel Halls also provide primary care services (these clinics are closed at this time due to COVID-19, so all servcies at this time are provided at Olin).
Graduate School Office of Well-Being Collaborations
GROW has been a cosponsor and designer of the following programs at MSU:
Academic Women's Forum
The MSU Academic Women’s Forum is an opportunity to connect with other academic women, support one another, and become empowered at MSU.
The goal of the MSU Academic Women’s Forum is to create a space for women-identified faculty, academic staff, post-docs, librarians, and graduate students to come together to:
- Build supportive relationships and reduce social isolation through regular contact and meaningful discussions with peers
- Gain awareness of and access to campus support services and community resources
- Engage in authentic, solution-focused conversations about the challenges of being a woman-identified academic at MSU
- Explore issues related to privilege and power across constructs such as race, gender, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, level of education, role/function, among others
- Foster authentic relationships across human difference in higher education
- Learn emotional wellness skills designed to increase resilience to work challenges, navigate life transitions, balance competing and conflicting roles, and more effectively respond to the frequent micro-aggressions experienced as women and women of color in academia
Like the Academic Women's Forum Page on Facebook:
The Fatherhood Forum is for fathers of all ages and experiences, mothers, expectant parents, MSU students, staff, faculty, professionals, community partners, educators and anyone interested in parenting.
The goals of the forum are:
- Create a network to support Dads
- Fatherhood and parenting across complex issues
- Provide opportunities for relationship-building among fathers
- Tap the strength, wisdom and resiliency of people from diverse families
- Support men’s identities around what it means to be a man/father from boyhood to manhood.
The MSU Student Parent Resource Center offers a supportive environment to obtain information and resources for ALL students who are parents and their families on and off campus.
Services Offered by the SPRC:
- Advocacy for student families
- Academic and family support
- Guidance for communicating with faculty and advisors
- Financial Assistance for child care, infant to age 12
- Support in researching quality child care
- Student Parents on a Mission (SPOM) peer organization
- Pre-finals child care
- Community Resource Guide
- Student list serve with up-to-date information about community resources and opportunities for families
- Other services as needed and requested by student parents
Other Resources for Graduate Students