• Student welfare, determined by a complex mix of developmental, social, socio-economic, environmental, physical, emotional and spiritual factors, is essential to academic success.
• Mental and physical health, critical determinants of students’ overall welfare, are determined by a combination of individual attributes, experience, vulnerabilities and lifestyle choices.
• As the diversity of the community increases, student welfare is affected by a progressive array of issues differentially affecting individuals and groups.
• With 21st century communications and a large international community, the campus is increasingly impacted by a sense of global instability.
• Demand for mental health consultation and direct service at Gannett’s Counseling and Psychological Services has nearly doubled in the last six years. 
• Establishment of healthy behaviors relative to exercise, sleep, nutrition, substance use, stress management, and interpersonal relations will optimize individual student welfare, regardless of individual mental and physical health vulnerabilities and experience. 
• Health-related patterns that are set during the college years may have lifelong impact on personal and career satisfaction. 
• Because student welfare is influenced by choices and behaviors exercised in the context of the academic and social environment, it is essential that divisional efforts address both individual health and campus climate. 
• The living and learning experience of all students is optimized when students in distress are identified early and connected expeditiously with appropriate campus resources. 
• In order to effectively address physical and mental health concerns, response systems must link with each other and with the environment in which the problems arise.
• Cornell’s reputation, admissions experience and student satisfaction are affected by the commonly held belief that the school is a high stress environment without adequate support for students. 
• Cornell’s size, diversity, and decentralized organization add challenge to efforts to distribute programs and services. 
• The cultivation of an environment that supports optimal student welfare is a shared responsibility of faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents, and the larger community.

• Agreement among SAS units about goals and priorities related to student welfare. 
• Coordination of programs that support individuals’ social, spiritual, mental, and physical health. 
• Linkage of these programs to students’ living and learning environments. 
• Comprehensive efforts to understand and influence the campus climate and particular environments within which health risks arise and protective behaviors are practiced. 
• Engagement of the staff and faculty who are most likely to have existing relationships with students, to provide caring, influence, and leverage to connect students with appropriate support resources. 
• Establishment of complementary resource allocation and coordinated timelines. 
• Ongoing needs assessment research. 
• Cultivation of partnerships between key departments, with creation of organizational structures devoted to specific dimensions of the strategic plan. 
• Establishment of an Executive Committee on Campus Health and Council on Mental Health and Welfare to engage faculty and academic partners in broadly addressing issues affecting student welfare, and mental health in particular. (The Executive Committee on Campus Health and the Council on Mental Health and Welfare were launched in January, 2004.)

• Improved access to programs and services through coordination and redistribution of existing resources. 
• Increase in faculty and staff awareness, willingness and capacity to respond to student needs. 
• Improved support for graduate students. 
• Increase in general level of students’ emotional and physical resilience. 
• Increase in timeliness and quality of support for students in distress. 
• Reduction in unnecessary stress related to student-unfriendly institutional policies and procedures. 
• Increased sense of community. 
• Increased satisfaction with the Cornell experience. 
• Enhancement of long term personal and work experience.

• Student welfare is central to the mission and activities of the division and of each of its departments.
• Joining together to declare that student welfare is a shared priority for our Division gives us the opportunity to highlight what we already do to support student mental health and to be intentional about it in our planning and communications. 

Consultants from within the division are available to assist departments or work groups in this effort.