UNCG’s Culture of Care: Guidance for Faculty & Staff to Support Student Mental Health and Well-being

Faculty and staff play an instrumental role in supporting students as they navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic of racism and the nation’s current culture wars, while also working to pursue their academic goals. Below are resources to help staff and faculty members identify what students may be experiencing, ways to support students, and ways to engage in self-care along the way. It takes all of us to create a Culture of Care.
Caring for Our Students (AND Ourselves)
What are students experiencing right now?

UNCG students are persistent, resilient, and determined as they face many new challenges. As staff and faculty, we can support and enhance that resilience with a good understanding of what students are facing and how these challenges can impact learning. Difficulties with attention and motivation are common with stress, anxiety, depression, grief, trauma, and financial stress. Difficulties with sleep are also common. At times, students who are grieving may be overcome with emotion. Others may have periods of panic that will interrupt learning. Some students are trying to learn while dealing with hunger. Trauma can affect thinking and learning through an overactivation of fear and vigilance and a reduced capacity to regulate emotion and to objectively sort through information. This is a set of complex emotional demands that our community must keep in mind as students pursue their education.
Recognizing & Supporting Students in Distress

Faculty and staff are often the front line for students experiencing crisis or distress. Students not only interact with them on a regular basis, but often look up to faculty and staff as mentors and as part of their support system. Faculty and staff are often adept at recognizing students who are suffering and can be critical to their well-being.
- Sudden decline in quality of work and grades
- Increased listlessness and disengagement
- Extreme mood changes or excessive, inappropriate display of emotions
- Social isolation or declining engagement with class, instructors, or peers
- Repeated absences
- Repeated requests for extensions
- Not responding to outreach
- What they say to you: ”I’ve been really stressed,” “I have been feeling overwhelmed.”
- Marked changes in personal hygiene
- Disclosure of family problems, financial difficulties, depression, grief, suicidal thoughts or self-injury
- Excessive fatigue or sleep disturbance
- Sharing bizarre, disorganized or garbled/disjointed thoughts
- Unprovoked anger or hostility
- Making implied or direct threats to harm self or others
- Use of alcohol or other substances in the learning environment
- Empathize: Express your understanding of their concerns. Sometimes this is just by quietly but attentively listening. At other times, you may find it appropriate and natural to share your own experiences with difficult times or with seeking help. No matter what you say, genuine concern and understanding is healing.
- Normalize: We are all going through a shared set of crises and challenges. Let students know it is entirely normal to be overwhelmed, stressed, sad, anxious, or whatever else they may be experiencing. Often students will compare themselves to others and carry the idea that they are inferior if they are not coping as well as their peers appear to be. Reminding them that others’ outside appearances do not necessarily represent their inside world can be useful.
- Validate: Students will often minimize or dismiss their challenges or feelings. When they choose to share them with you, they will be impacted when you validate their experiences and emotions as important, their challenges as difficult, and their ability to cope as resilient.
- Consult! You are not alone! The UNCG Counseling Center and The Dean of Students are resources to help students and to help you help students. (Counseling Center: 336-334-5874; Dean of Students: 336-334-5514)
- Crisis? Call UNCG PD if you have an urgent concern for your safety or the safety of a student. 336-334-4444 or 911.
How Can I Promote Mental Health & Create a Culture of Care?

A recent survey from Active Minds, a mental health advocacy organization for young people, asked about the impact of the pandemic on college students. Eighty percent of college students indicated that their mental health was negatively impacted by the pandemic. A summary of results is here.
Students were asked what they thought were the most important things for educational leaders to be thinking about during (and after) the pandemic in order to support them. Included in the top responses were:
Increased academic support: Leniency, accommodations, and flexibility
Focus on soft skills: Empathy, compassion, communication, understanding, and validation for the burdens students are experiencing.
More mental health resources: Increased investment in counseling and coping resources.
UNCG administration, faculty and staff have already been responding to these needs with empathy and creativity. Some additional resources and ideas specific to these areas are below.
- Starting class with a brief well-being practice, such as a brief mindfulness video or recording sends the message that mental well-being matters AND that it can be part of the learning experience. In fact, starting a class with a focusing practice such as mindfulness could improve learning. Here is a link to a 30 second guided breathing exercise and a two minute guided breathing exercise.
- This list has several other ideas that could be used before, during or at the end of class.
- Other practices that signal that you are part of a culture of care would be to say something in your first class about the resources for health and well-being on campus, or to put something in your email signature that indicates your support for mental health such as a quote or even just “Mental Health Matters.”
- Dean of Students
- Office of Accessibility Resources & Services
- Intercultural Engagement
- Career & Professional Development
- Housing & Residence Life
- Leadership & Civic Engagement
- Military-Affiliated Services
- Students First Office
- The Academic Achievement Center
- Student Health Services
- The Counseling Center
- Recreation & Wellness
- Campus Activities & Programs
- Elliott University Center
- Office of Student Rights & Responsibilities
- Financial Aid Office
- Educational Opportunities Programs
- UNCG Cares
- Ask. Listen. Refer.
- Safe Zone: Canvas 1.0/2.0
- Trans Zone: Canvas 1.0 and 2.0
- Recovery Zone
- Green Zone: Contact Military-Affiliated Services for more information.
- Campus Violence Response Center: Interpersonal Violence Survivor Support Ally Training; Supporting LGBTQ+ Survivors of Violence; Managing Secondary Traumatic Stress
- Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR)
- UNCG recently launched a Racial Equity at UNCG website to serve “...as a launching pad for Spartans, community members, and prospective students and families to learn more about our commitment to racial equity.” It includes resources, events, and updates.
- Renowned anti-racist author and scholar Ibram X. Kendi has curated an anti-racist reading list.
- UNCG Libraries has developed a page devoted to African-American authors, anti-racism texts, and additional resources related to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.
- Check out this link that features TED talks to enhance the understanding of racism in America.
- Follow the Office of Intercultural Engagement as well for events, resources, student initiatives, and trainings related to race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, privilege, and oppression.
- Take advantage of the UNCG developed Gender Diversity Toolkit.
Taking Care of Yourself

It is essential that you stay attuned to your own well-being and needs as you support our students. You are in the same storm of uncertainty, fear, disruption and grief that they are. These resources may help you pay attention to and improve your own well-being as you navigate teaching, mentoring, and supporting our students.