ACC’s Gina Cowart shares how we’re building community to boost mental health
Mental health issues are a large and growing concern on college campuses. The 2024 Thriving College Student Index shows that 65% of U.S. college students feel stressed, 57% feel anxious and 57% feel overwhelmed all the time or often. Other research shows that 36% of students have been diagnosed with anxiety and 30% have been diagnosed with depression.
We are committed to nurturing the mental health of the residents of ACC communities. Mental health and wellness is a cornerstone of our Residence Life program, which is designed to help students connect with each other and build community.
Gina Cowart, ACC’s senior vice president of brand and marcom strategy, has been instrumental in developing and scaling our mental wellness programs. She serves on the board of Hi, How Are You Project (HHAYP), our nonprofit partner in developing peer-to-peer education campaigns for ACC communities. And she’s worked with HHAYP and other student housing leaders to form the College Student Mental Wellness Advocacy Coalition to bring awareness and support to as many U.S. college students as possible. We caught up with Gina to discuss what we’ve learned so far on this journey and what’s next.
Why are student housing communities important advocates for mental wellness?
College students (and their parents) are navigating a major life transition, and we’re right there with them in their new homes, helping them through new experiences. Many of our staff members, such as community assistants and resident assistants, are students themselves and can relate to what residents are going through. So, we are in a unique position of support and influence.
How did ACC get involved with the Hi, How Are You Project?
I’d heard about HHAYP and their mission of removing the stigma around talking about mental health on the radio and thought, "This is how we can provide dedicated support to students and our staff.” We met them in 2018 when we committed to preserving the Hi, How Are You mural on the side of the Goodall Wooten building near The University of Texas at Austin. We sponsored their annual fundraising concert, and as we built our relationship, we saw they were the ideal partners for us to build an awareness program at our communities.
How did you land on the peer-to-peer training model?
We were looking for a way to support not only our residents but also our onsite teams, which includes our student staff. Our CAs and RAs deal with mental health-related incidents in their communities and work hard to build personal connections with residents, which isn’t always easy.
It made sense to develop a framework for helping staff monitor and care for their own mental health and help residents do the same, which can include directing others to professional resources when needed. We worked with HHAYP to develop peer-to-peer training for onsite teams with 7 modules of training videos and a workbook covering topics such as identifying someone in need, how to have a “Hi, how are you” conversation and self-care. We just launched a new free resource, Mental Wellness Series: Peer-to-Peer Support in College, for college students and staff, which is an updated version of the training content and we have received positive feedback. We also help our communities organize communications and awareness events.
How did the pandemic affect things—and has it continued to have an effect?
When COVID hit, we were so grateful we had our framework in place so we could shift to online delivery of training content and putting together programs for students on Zoom. However, the lack of in-person socialization definitely took a toll on many people’s mental health.
As our Director of Residence Life Meg Nicholson noted in a recent interview, the pandemic has had the lingering effect of making students shyer about connecting with each other in person. So, we continue to complement community events with ways to connect and learn online and through social media. Having these virtual resources has also helped us scale our programs through the College Student Mental Wellness Advocacy Coalition.
How did the College Student Mental Wellness Advocacy Coalition emerge?
I think that it really was borne out of COVID. Other student housing providers were grappling with the same challenges of supporting students and realizing on-campus mental health centers were inundated. Jenn Cassidy at Cardinal reached out to a few other companies and was like, "How can we come together?" I had already been thinking about what this would look like, and so after a phone call with key industry leaders, things happened really quickly because everybody was ready. ACC’s established relationship with HHAYP made it seamless for us to offer our tools and learnings to other companies.
What has combining forces enabled you to do that you couldn’t do before?
We’ve worked with Ipsos to conduct the Thriving College Students Index, one of the largest-ever surveys of college students’ mental well-being, behavioral habits, and access to well-being resources. We knew we needed a baseline of understanding in order to develop new, targeted initiatives.
We’ve also brought the programs ACC developed with HHAYP to more communities nationwide. And the JED Foundation recently worked with the Coalition and HHAYP to create “Responding to a Suicide: Postvention Guidance for Student Housing Managers,” an emergency preparedness guidebook for off-campus student housing managers on how to handle the sudden and tragic loss of a resident in a community.
Have you seen any emerging trends?
Earlier this year we released our second Index report, which shows that levels of stress, worry and overwhelm have decreased slightly. Anecdotally, we’re seeing that the original mission of removing the stigma of talking about mental health has largely been accepted among college students. Now it’s more about understanding the ways to manage it.
Also, we consistently hear from our community assistants how much they love the program and that it makes their job very worthwhile. They like that it helps them overcome their own apprehension about reaching out to new people, lead by example and build strong relationships with residents.
What excites you about the future?
We hired a new executive director at HHAYP, Robert Sanchez, and we are excited to have his experience building programs, working with artists, leaning into the music and arts side to build strong partnerships aimed to deliver impactful mental health awareness and wellness programs. The Thriving College Students Index shows that listening to music is the number one behavior students engage in to destress, so there’s a lot of opportunity for us to explore there with finding ambassadors and spokespersons passionate about our work.
