As Student Affairs professionals, we recognize that by supporting students’ well-being and ability to manage stress, we build their capacity for success in and out of the classroom. We also know that while peer education is a proven and effective tool, all too often our student leaders immerse themselves in the promotion of health and wellness for others while sacrificing their own.

This session will introduce a framework by which the largest four-year public university system in the nation came together to address these challenges through a self-care summit led by students and for students. Since its inception the summit has gathered nearly 1,000 students representing up to 14 of our 23 campuses within the California State University (CSU) system. Each summit introduces student leaders to various wellness techniques, campus resources, an opportunity to network and build social support throughout the CSU system, and concludes with a conversation around the importance of using the skills presented to ensure their own success and ability to better serve their peers.

Presenters will review the history and evolution of the CSU Peer Leadership Summit and provide a framework for engaging student leaders in the planning and facilitation of the summit. Themes including self-care by the senses and recharging your self-care battery will also be shared, along with data highlights, lessons learned, and ways to adapt the summit on your own campus.

Learning Outcomes:

• Participants will have the opportunity to discover a framework by which Student Affairs professionals can support student leaders’ well-being.
• Participants will have the opportunity to learn about a formula for engaging students in the facilitation and planning of a peer-led summit.
• Participants will have the opportunity to reframe conversations around self-care and well-being in a way that resonates with student leaders.

The presenter created the four-week program, Living Intentionally to Flourish Everyday (LIFE), based on Seligman’s (2020) PERMA model, as a way for all first-year undergraduate students to participate in the program as a shared experience when entering the University of Chicago. If positive outcomes were achieved similar to other populations highlighted in the literature, this program would be implemented consistently every year to ensure that within four years, all undergraduate students would have participated in LIFE and have learned skills needed to flourish, not only within the university setting, but once they graduate.

Several items were measured among participants: psychological, emotional, and social well-being as well as flourishing. Keyes (2009)’s Mental Health Continuum Short Form was given as a pre- and post-survey to all participants to determine whether changes were sustained over time. Results of the study substantiated the positive impact on students' well-being.

The presentation session will cover in detail the creation of the program, ways it was implemented, and what were the results of the study, including limitations. The presenter will also share how PERMA and positive psychology interventions can be adapted to new environments as the presenter transitioned to Cornell University where she is experimenting with different ways of applying PERMA, from a one-credit course, to 60-minute workshops, to embedding it into the curriculum.

Learning Outcomes:

• Explain how the LIFE program was developed, what positive psychology interventions were used, and how the program was implemented.
• Analyze ways the LIFE program positively impacted students' well-being and flourishing.
• Illustrate ways the key components of the LIFE program can be adapted to new environments.

UMass Lowell’s Office of Student Life & Well-being is a new office launched in November of 2021. Our office was created to further our Division of Academic and Student Affairs holistic concept for student success by infusing health promoting actions and collaborations into campus culture.

One of the first programs created to infuse health promotion into campus culture was our college-based well-being leader program. We were able to secure funding to hire 2 well-being leaders for each of our 5 academic colleges. These students are trained in peer support, campus resources, and the 8 dimensions of wellness. They each work 4 hours per week holding office hours for peer support in each of their respective colleges. In addition to that, they help to promote well-being on campus by writing of our well-being blog and hosting one program per semester in their academic college.

This presentation will walk participants through the entire process of implementing this program from our initial proposal to securing funding, developing training, hiring, managing, and evaluating the program throughout our entire first year. In addition, we will break down the strengths and challenges of our program implementation and provide participants with a guide for implementing a similar program on their own campus.

This program was developed based on the evidence-based notion that students in distress often turn to their peers for support (Morse & Schulze, 2013), along with understanding our unique population of students’ needs and how they span across the 8 dimensions of wellness.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand the process of implementing a college-based peer education initiative focused on health promotion and well-being.
• Evaluate the strengths and challenges of implementing a brand new peer education initiative.
• Leave with tangible resources to implement a similar program on your campus. 

This webinar will demonstrate the impact of a transforming masculinities peer education model and how it leads to further exploration, including the concept of “transform yourself to transform the world” and how increasing the ability to empathize, be vulnerable and engage with your unearned privileges can have a lasting impact on how you operate in the world, positively shifting the underpinnings of structural violence.

Participants will be introduced to an innovative and nuanced masculinities peer education model, which centers connection, vulnerability, and empathy. Founded in 2016 to provide spaces for students who hold considerable societal privilege to thoughtfully examine what healthier norms of masculinity could look like. The model being discussed has 8 years of evolved application with evidence illustrating its attainment of learning objectives. In the 2022-2023 academic year, 92% of participants indicated that after the program they were able to reflect on how gender norms and constructs affected their daily life and 89% were able to interrogate ways in which harmful practices and ideas around masculinity have existed in their groups. This presentation highlights lessons learned, the program's impact, the potential for adoption of practices at other institutions, and explores the possibilities of long-term impact on structural violence.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand the impact of unpacking male privilege on pro-health behaviors in and beyond college
• Identify strategies for increasing empathy and vulnerability in order to impact individuals and group culture
• Synthesize outcomes from this transformative masculinities peer education model with feminist change theory and consider the potential for growth and future applications in other settings

Higher education is increasingly focused on outcomes like retention, graduation, and employment rates (Franklin, 2013; Stewart et al., 2016). Students, families, and employers want assurance that college imparts essential workplace skills (NACE, 2022). Thus, institutions are under pressure to demonstrate their value in preparing students for post-graduation careers.

Co-curricular activities significantly contribute to student development and retention (Astin, 1984; Kuh, 1995; Mayhew et al, 2016). Administrators recognize peers' critical role in student growth (Lemon & Wawrzynski, 2022). As a result, many colleges recruit and train peer educators. These programs help students support their peers, engage in college life, find purpose, and develop job-related skills (Kuh, 1995; Lemon & Wawrzynski, 2022; Mayhew et al, 2016).

This presentation will discuss providing constructive feedback to student peer educators. Examples of formative and reflective tools will be shared. A sample evaluation tool incorporating NACE career readiness competencies will be reviewed, demonstrating how comprehensive feedback enhances individual student experiences and overall program effectiveness.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand the NACE career readiness competencies and their relevance in the context of a peer education program.
• Explore how to frame the NACE career readiness competencies in assessing peer educator performance, growth, and overall effectiveness.
• Gain insights into the potential impact of integrating the NACE career readiness competencies into peer educator programs, including how it can lead to more effective and impactful outcomes.

Data from the National College Health Assessment provides evidence that students who are not thriving academically are struggling in large part due to substance abuse and/or significant emotional distress. Students from traditionally marginalized subpopulations are more likely to experience emotional distress, substance misuse, and academic performance challenges (Moses & Smith, 2021). To address these struggles across our large and diverse student population, we recognized we would need to reinvent the way we involve faculty, staff, and student leaders who interact with students regularly. Upon review of the literature we developed the C3 program, which emphasizes Compassion, Communication, and Connection (C3) through the use of motivational interviewing techniques. C3 provides training and support of faculty, staff and student leaders in non-clinical positions to develop skills in the use of motivational interviewing (MI) as a way to strengthen a student’s motivation for and commitment to change. An aim of C3 is for motivational interviewing to be incorporated into the workflow and practices across all student facing areas of the university. We believe that by training faculty, staff and student-leaders to use effective behavior change conversation, students will make decisions that improve their emotional wellbeing and reduce problematic substance misuse.

Moses, K.S. & Smith, A. (2021, January 12-15). Using data to identify and address health inequities among diverse students [Conference session]. NASPA Wellbeing and Health Promotion Leadership Strategies Conference. https://learning.naspa.org/products/2021-naspa-strategies-conferences.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Explain how principles of motivational interviewing can be implemented in non-clinical settings to facilitate positive behavior change among students experiencing substance use disorders or emotional distress.
2. Describe the key factors contributing to successful program outcomes.
3. Examine the role of evaluation in improving program processes and outcomes.

In 2023, Active Minds, the nation’s leading nonprofit for young adult mental health, established an advisory council composed of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ college students. This board was created to help research, develop, and advise on the creation of mental health resources tailored to their communities and to be distributed nationally. The students transformed Active Minds' V-A-R training into a new tool called A.S.K., which stands for Acknowledge, Support, Touch. This presentation will explore the unique mental health needs of students from BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities, share practical insights from these young adults, and showcase A.S.K. along with the new digital experience designed to make students proficient in these three steps. This new tool can be used to help train peer health educators in inclusive, peer to peer support conversations and be used by peer educators to change the campus climate and culture around student mental health.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand the mental health disparities that exist for LGBTQ+ and BIPOC college students and their mental health needs.
• Articulate the three steps of A.S.K. and the components comprising each step.
• Create ways to use A.S.K. in your peer health education program at your college specific to the needs of your own campus.