Friday Replay: Student Well-Being

Featuring the team from Butler University's SWISS Program

If your campus has been a “flurry of activity” since the arrival of students, you are typical. Reports are coming out of students who are far less mature, making poor decisions and scraping on every nerve of campus and student affairs leaders. However, we are also hearing that events on campus are well attended by students and their families, who are itching for engagement. Yes, I said ‘families’ - as one colleague said recently, “These parents, they are coming to EVERYTHING.”

For this reason, this Friday replay is featuring this episode of “Office Hours with Dr. De Veau” which originally aired on August 16, 2022. The topic “Student Well-Being” is timely, and you may have missed it when we were so busy with the opening of the academic year. I recommend you listen to it now, and keep in mind the challenges and opportunities you may be experiencing on your campus, and how initiating a well-being lens may advance your priorities and impact your student’s success.

Student well-being has been a source of discussion and concern for some time. The team at the Butler University Institute for Well-being developed SWISS: Student Well-Being Institutional Support Survey. Since 2020, SWISS has been administered to 20 institutions and collected over 16,000 student responses. The assessment has helped universities across the nation understand students’ needs and improve well-being initiatives.

Guests:
Dr. Frank Ross, Vice President for Student Affairs at Butler University.  Dr. Ross is currently the senior student affairs officer at Butler University. His leadership in higher education has been in both private and public university settings. He joined Butler after serving as Vice President for Student Life at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and before that he was the Vice President for Student Affairs at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.

Dr. Bridget Yuhas, Director of Student Affairs Assessment and Strategy at Butler University  Dr. Bridget Yuhas has worked in functional areas such as student activities, alumni engagement, development, housing, and assessment. She also spent five years at the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) during her doctoral studies. She has presented original research on student wellbeing at many national conferences, and has partnered with the National Wellness Institute to study professional well-being practitioner competencies both within and outside of higher education. Dr. Yuhas developed and leads the Student Well-being Institutional Support Survey (SWISS) and is co-Executive Director of the Institute for Well-being at Butler University.

Josh Downing, CWP, Director of Recreation and Wellness. Josh Downing is Executive Director of the Institute for Well-being and the Director of Recreation & Wellness at Butler University. Josh has over 20-year years of Higher Education experience with expertise in Collegiate Recreation & Well-being. He leads a comprehensive well-being initiative, BU|BeWell, for the University through developing and overseeing short- and long-term goals and implantation of the strategies for achievement of goals and objectives. Josh serves in a number of national leadership roles. He’s currently the co-chair of the NIRSA Health & Well-being Task Force where he helps NIRSA ensure it continues to be a driving force in an integrated approach to health & well-being. He co-developed the NIRSA Promising Practices in Health and Well-being. He also currently serves on the Board of Directors for the National Consortium for Building Healthy Academic Communities (BHAC). He obtained his B.S. in Sport Management and M.S. in Recreational Sport Administration from Indiana University’s School of Public Health.