Creation and Implementation of Mental Wellness Initiatives in First-Year Engineering with Faculty Development

Whitney Blackburn-Lynch; Matthew Sleep

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: First-Year Programs Division Technical Session 7: Teamwork, Reflection, and Wellness
Page Count: 11
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--40954
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/40954
Download Count: 461

Paper Authors

biography

Whitney Blackburn-Lynch University of Kentucky

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Whitney is a water resources engineer who spent 14 years as a practicing engineer before returning to school for a PhD where she fell in love with working with students in the classroom. Because of her own experiences of depression and anxiety, she set out on a path to understand her experiences and in 2010 started seminary with the intention of becoming a Spiritual Counselor. She completed her ordination and spiritual counseling work in 2106. She has since used the skills learned in her counseling program to create Mental Wellness Content for the First Year Program at the University of Kentucky where she is a lecturer in the First Year Program.

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biography

Matthew Sleep University of Kentucky

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Matthew Sleep is an Associate Professor Educator at the University of Cincinnati. Previously he has held roles as Associate Professor at Oregon Tech and Lecturer at the University of Kentucky. Matthew currently instructs geotechnical engineering courses as well as capstone design.

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Abstract

The mental health and wellness of college students has recently been given additional attention. Research has shown that students are increasingly reporting mental wellness issues. This is particularly true of students studying engineering. While students have self-reported increases in mental wellness issues, they have also been reluctant to use available university resources.

A large, public research university has recently taken initiatives to address mental wellness of their students. This paper addresses initiatives taken to increase mental wellness of first-year engineering students. To reach all first-year engineering students, these initiatives were implemented in a required, one-credit engineering course. This paper describes the initiatives taken in the course and the theory behind why these particular initiatives were implemented.

Because Introduction to Engineering is taught by faculty in the first-year engineering program, as well as engineering faculty from other college of engineering departments, it was determined that to fulfill the mental wellness objective for the students, faculty development would be necessary. To have maximum impact, faculty were provided with a four-hour professional development opportunity prior to the start of the fall semester. Eight faculty took part in the faculty development workshop to introduce the mental wellness initiatives for the semester. In this workshop, faculty were introduced to a new theory of well-being, PERMA, and how to implement it in the classroom. The faculty were provided direction on how to identify their personal value system and provided direction on how to teach from that value system. Evidence has shown that students are more willing to engage with content they believe the professor values.

With a focus on intention, and proven mental wellness research, four separate mental wellness initiatives were implemented in a required, one-credit course, Introduction to Engineering. This paper describes these initiatives and the intention behind the introduction of available resources, resilience, awareness, and goal setting.

The initiatives undertaken resulted in over 700 students participating in a variety of mental wellness initiatives. Over 2800 wellness surveys were collected prior to the start of each class. This paper will help initiate other faculty to include mental wellness initiatives in their classrooms and be successful. It will also describe the faculty experience of implementing these measures in the classroom.

Citation
Format

Blackburn-Lynch, W., & Sleep, M. (2022, August), Creation and Implementation of Mental Wellness Initiatives in First-Year Engineering with Faculty Development Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40954

TY - CPAPER
AB - The mental health and wellness of college students has recently been given additional attention. Research has shown that students are increasingly reporting mental wellness issues. This is particularly true of students studying engineering. While students have self-reported increases in mental wellness issues, they have also been reluctant to use available university resources.

A large, public research university has recently taken initiatives to address mental wellness of their students. This paper addresses initiatives taken to increase mental wellness of first-year engineering students. To reach all first-year engineering students, these initiatives were implemented in a required, one-credit engineering course. This paper describes the initiatives taken in the course and the theory behind why these particular initiatives were implemented.

Because Introduction to Engineering is taught by faculty in the first-year engineering program, as well as engineering faculty from other college of engineering departments, it was determined that to fulfill the mental wellness objective for the students, faculty development would be necessary. To have maximum impact, faculty were provided with a four-hour professional development opportunity prior to the start of the fall semester. Eight faculty took part in the faculty development workshop to introduce the mental wellness initiatives for the semester. In this workshop, faculty were introduced to a new theory of well-being, PERMA, and how to implement it in the classroom. The faculty were provided direction on how to identify their personal value system and provided direction on how to teach from that value system. Evidence has shown that students are more willing to engage with content they believe the professor values.

With a focus on intention, and proven mental wellness research, four separate mental wellness initiatives were implemented in a required, one-credit course, Introduction to Engineering. This paper describes these initiatives and the intention behind the introduction of available resources, resilience, awareness, and goal setting.

The initiatives undertaken resulted in over 700 students participating in a variety of mental wellness initiatives. Over 2800 wellness surveys were collected prior to the start of each class. This paper will help initiate other faculty to include mental wellness initiatives in their classrooms and be successful. It will also describe the faculty experience of implementing these measures in the classroom.

AU - Whitney Blackburn-Lynch
AU - Matthew Sleep
CY - Minneapolis, MN
DA - 2022/08/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Creation and Implementation of Mental Wellness Initiatives in First-Year Engineering with Faculty Development
UR - https://peer.asee.org/40954
DO - 10.18260/1-2--40954
ER -