A Faculty & Staff Guide For Assisting Students In Need

Dear Colleagues:

You are sitting in your office, thinking about a recent interaction with a student that has left you troubled. Many things are running through your mind. Is this a big deal? Should I call someone about this? Can I help this student myself? Should I even get involved?

For many of our students, personal matters have a profound effect on academic performance, and for that matter alone, such interactions are, indeed, a big deal and a reason to be involved. But these are complicated issues, and often, the idea of getting involved can be intimidating. Certainly, all one has to do is pick up a newspaper or magazine to read about the emotional problems suffered by college students. Our students struggle with anxiety, depression, thoughts of harming themselves and others, physical illnesses, family problems, and financial crises. Any of these can leave a student stressed and seeking your help.

This Guide is designed to help you respond to these students. It has been our experience that our faculty and staff want to help students in distress, but sometimes struggle with finding the right words and the best approach. The purpose of this Guide, then, is to provide some language and practical hints to help you navigate these challenging interactions. We designed this Guide to provide you with the signs of what distress looks like, ideas of what to do and what not to do, and even simple language to assist you with having the confidence to act when you know something is just not right with a student.

Your response may be a phone call to us, a conversation with the student, or a referral to one of the many offices and people at UConn who work with distressed students every day. In any event, we want you to know that you are never alone. We are all partners in the important work of helping a student in trouble find understanding, support, and the appropriate services here on campus.

We would like to acknowledge our colleagues at the University of Maryland College Park, whose similar Guide we have liberally borrowed from, as well as those here at UConn who contributed to our own version. We invite colleagues at other campuses to liberally borrow from this Guide. It is just this spirit of collaboration that serves our students, and our University, best.

Many thanks to Ada Elderkin and Karen Bresciano in the Dean of Students Office for their excellent work on this Guide.

Best wishes,

Lee Burdette Williams, Ph.D. Dean of Students

Barry A. Schreier, Ph.D. Director, Counseling and Mental Health Services

August 2008