The Steve Fund – a nonprofit dedicated to improving mental health for students of color – hosted a series of on-campus, daylong conferences called “Young, Gifted and @Risk.”
Each conference brought faculty, administration, students and mental health experts together for in-depth discussions on the emotional well-being of minority students.
The first conference in the series took place in October at the University of Michigan, and two more convened at Georgetown University and the City University of New York (CUNY) on Nov. 1 and Nov. 15, respectively.
While all of the conferences focused on the same broader theme of mental health for students of color, The Steve Fund worked with each school to create a conference agenda tailored to their interests.
“[The program] depends on what the desire is of that particular campus,” says Dr. Annelle Primm, chief medical officer at The Steve Fund. “We work in close collaboration with them in designing the program and in ensuring that some of the key issues of concern on that campus are highlighted and uplifted.”
University of Michigan’s conference “Young, Gifted, @Risk & Resilient” focused on how campus climate impacts mental health for students of color. One panel, for example, delved into the effect microaggressions can have on minority students while another dealt with how to respond to racial biases in higher education.
At Georgetown University, the “Young, Gifted and Advancing” conference emphasized how mental health and emotional well-being affect retention rates among students of color.
