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Lexington, Kentucky (March 19, 2024) — The Interdisciplinary Paradigm for Accelerating Collaboration and Transformation (IMPACT) Award was created in 2023 to champion necessary and groundbreaking work undertaken by University of Kentucky faculty and other members of the campus community. I did.
The inaugural IMPACT Awards have a total value of more than $600,000, with a particular focus on proposals that are interdisciplinary, innovative and in line with the UK’s objectives as part of the UK Strategic Plan.
In 2024, IMPACT will continue to fund similar projects aimed at helping universities continue to lead in education, research, service and care.
This spring, UKNow is highlighting the 2023 IMPACT Award projects and the faculty leading them. Today we’ll learn more about the project titled “Accelerating Cultural Change in Business and Engineering to Support Mental Health.”
Sarah Wilson, assistant professor in the Stanley and Karen Pigman Institute of Technology’s Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering; Joseph Hammer, Associate Professor and Director of Training in Counseling Psychology, Department of Education, School, and Counseling Psychology, College of Education. Alexis Allen, Acting Dean and Associate Professor in the Gatton College of Business and Economics; is conducting research aimed at supporting the mental health of business and engineering students.
Anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns are more common among college students than some people realize. For a growing number of first-year students, culture shock can have serious consequences. In fact, a study by the American Psychological Association found that one in three teens face a mental health disorder during their freshman year.
Business and engineering students are not necessarily more likely to have mental health concerns, but they are significantly less likely to seek help than other college student groups.
The results of this project will enable the development of interventions that enhance universities’ ability to create academic environments that support student health.
UKNow spoke to the research team to find out more about the project. For more information, check out the Q&A session below.
UKNow: What impact has the IMPACT award had on UK innovation with your research?
Interventions designed for students often do not take their perspectives into account. This project allowed our research team to involve students in the research process. Through focus groups, we were able to work with students to not only identify the challenges that exist in relation to mental health culture within the program, but also to identify potential solutions to these challenges. . This allowed us to identify new mental health interventions that have the potential to foster cultural change across our universities.
UKNow: How will your research positively impact Kentucky and the rest of the world?
One of the benefits of stakeholder-driven intervention development is that it can increase buy-in for the intervention. Through this research, we were able to identify changes that students believe can effectively drive cultural change across business and engineering to support student well-being. These interventions range from opportunities to form a greater peer community within the program to changes to policies and procedures that can be implemented at the university level.
We look forward to sharing the results of our focus groups with administrators and discussing how we can drive change to promote student well-being.
In addition, we were able to implement mental health training programs across both business and engineering disciplines, reaching over 3,600 students. Through this program, we measured increases in students’ knowledge of mental health resources available on campus. Ensuring students were aware of how to access mental health support was a major outcome of the project.
UKNow: How did you decide on this particular topic or area of research?
I (Sarah Wilson) began researching mental health in engineering after attending a conference where it was clear that many faculty members were interacting with students who struggled with mental health. This is exactly what inspired us to start, and we quickly discovered national data showing that engineering students are in a group that is far less likely to receive professional support when it comes to their mental health, so we started there. Through this grant, we are helping businesses enroll, as students enrolled in business show similar patterns in terms of prevalence of mental health distress and lower likelihood of seeking professional help. We were able to expand our business.
UKNow: What is the next step in your research?
We look forward to continuing to develop and implement interventions aimed at improving mental health culture in engineering and business. Trying to change a culture is not a one-time thing. We must persevere and continue our efforts to change the way we think and prioritize mental health in the lives of our students, faculty, and administrators. This takes time and requires buy-in from administrators across the university. We also hope to expand this to other universities across the university.
If you or someone you know is at risk, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. You can also text us at 741-741.
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