When Students Struggle: How Colleges Can Respond

In this episode of the HigherEdJobs Podcast, Kelly Cherwin spoke with Dr. Alexis Redding, faculty co-chair of higher education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, about how colleges and universities can better support student mental health, from preparing faculty and staff to strengthening campus-wide approaches to care.

Why Institutions Struggle to Reach Students Who Need Help

Redding’s interest in this work goes back to her time as a college counselor, where she kept noticing a disconnect between the resources schools said they had and what students found once they arrived. She said the problem was not a lack of resources but a failure to communicate them in a way students could actually use.

The issue, she explained, is that colleges and universities tend to operate in silos. However, a student who may be dealing with a leave of absence or a financial hold for example often expects to be able to go to one place and get an answer, but in reality that issue might live across five different departments, sometimes with conflicting advice along the way.

“Each and every friction point that is built into the process is an opportunity for the student to fall out of the process,” Redding said, “but it is equally an opportunity for us to make sure they have the support that they need.”

Her suggestion is to build warm handoffs between offices and create website pages organized around specific student situations, like leave of absence policies or financial holds, so all the relevant information lives in one place instead of scattered across the site.

Finding the Friction Points

Redding suggested starting with something simple: sit down and navigate the institution’s website as a student would. In her professional development course, she has students who are active student affairs practitioners do exactly that, and one found it took nine clicks to request a counseling appointment. Before submitting the form, students encountered vulnerable clinical questions with no explanation of who would read their answers or what the privacy implications were.

Redding encouraged campuses to track where students drop off in online processes and to notice whether physical changes, like moving a food pantry to a more central location, lead to higher usage. Kelly pointed out that faculty and staff often forget what it feels like to not know how to navigate these systems “As staff, faculty, and administrators, we might know the answers — we take it for granted,” she said. And often, the fastest answers come from just asking students directly. “Most of the problems that I am brought in to help schools tackle … can be solved in a five- to 10-minute conversation with a small group of four or five students,” Redding said.

Pause Before You Panic

When a student uses words like “depressed” or “dissociating,” many faculty and staff immediately refer them to the campus counseling center. Redding argues that reflex, while well-intentioned, can actually get in the way of a more meaningful conversation. “We don’t want to miss something clinical. The stakes are too high. So in many cases, we are accidentally overreacting,” she said.

“It sounds like you’re recommending to pause and listen to the student [and] ask questions instead of immediately [referring them out],” Kelly said.

Taking 30 seconds to five minutes to ask a few simple follow-up questions, Redding said, can quickly clarify whether a student needs clinical care or is just having a rough week. “We want to make sure that all the students who need clinical care get it, but we also don’t want to flood that system with students who are having a bad day.”

What Faculty Can Do

For faculty who feel unsure about how to respond when a student brings up something difficult, Redding keeps it simple: just ask one follow-up question. “If you’re not sure, don’t just let the word depression or PTSD stand in the room,” she said. “Just ask, what does that look like for you?”

She also encouraged faculty to be honest about the hard parts of their own academic journeys. Redding makes a point of telling her own students about a C she received her first year of college. “Nobody has ever cared about that C,” she said, “but to me, it’s actually important that I lead with that, that it is OK to be imperfect.”

That messaging matters most in the first 10 days of a student’s time on campus but needs to carry through the rest of the year and into course syllabi as well. “We make a mistake if we only share something in those first 10 days and then we don’t remind students of it,” Redding said. Warm language around attendance and mental health signals to students from the start that their well-being matters.

Where To Start

For campuses with limited budgets, Redding said the most effective place to start is simply getting students in a room and listening. Organize a few focus groups at different times of day, bring good food, and ask where things are not working. “Take seriously what they say, because they will tell us candidly,” she said.

Students also need to hear more often that struggling is a normal part of the experience. “You’re going to have great days, and you are going to have challenging days,” Redding said. “College is hard. The process of growth is hard and that’s OK.”

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