Students Often Glorify Stress. Here’s How One College Is Helping Them Ease It.

College students are more distressed than ever before. And offering help shouldn’t fall solely to the counseling center. What does it look like to make wellness a broader priority?

“There are few issues that are more pressing for colleges and universities today than attending to the mental-health needs of their students,” says Virginia M. Ambler, vice president for student affairs at the College of William & Mary. At the heart of a new focus there on the multiple dimensions of well-being is the McLeod Tyler Wellness Center, which is home to counseling and student-health offices as well as meditation spaces. Early assessments have found that students may come in with a specific purpose, like attending a yoga class, but when they leave, they are more aware of the range of resources available.

The hope is that the center will encourage more students to seek help in various forms.

“We can be active partners in our own health and wellness as well,” says Patrick Abboud, a student-wellness ambassador. “We don’t want,” he says, “to slide to a point of really, really deep pain, and then we reach out then when it’s just unbearable.”