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Staff & Faculty Wellbeing Guidebook

Student Wellbeing

The Office of Student Wellbeing strives to foster a campus culture where every student thrives, becomes confident, connected and prepared to cultivate a meaningful life in and beyond college. Our mission is to support, promote and create evidence-based opportunities, programs, collaborations and resources that enable students to achieve a holistic sense of health and wellbeing wherever they are on their journey.

"Research has shown the importance of student mental well-being to academic success, and during such a formative time in personal and professional development, it is ever more important to increase awareness and provide support for students to encourage these healthy habits."

- Binghamton University

About this Guide

Faculty and staff play an important role in supporting student wellbeing. This guide is intended to provide practical applications of wellbeing practices when working with students in various learning environments. Our friends and colleagues at the University of Texas, Austin and Arizona State University have granted permission for UNCW to share impactful practices utilized on their campuses.

You are encouraged to try what feels comfortable to you from the various practices suggested for balance, gratitude, sleep and resilience in the following pages.

Below are some common wellbeing practices implemented at many institutions of higher education.

  • Convey your passion about your career and/or about what you teach.
  • Talk about mental health to destigmatize it — show students information on the UNCW Counseling Center.
  • Share ways you take care of your health and wellbeing and have students share as well.
  • Include resource information on the syllabus or program handout.
  • Let students know you are open to talking with them.

Wellbeing is an essential part of student success. How a student feels mentally, emotionally and physically will influence how well they will perform in their academic studies. Misperceived campus norms can be influential in the types of decisions students are making around their wellbeing.

Below is data from the UNCW American College Health/National College Health Association survey that was administered in the Fall 2024.

  • 36% of UNCW students do not drink alcohol
  • 78% of UNCW students didn't drink in the last 30 days

National data shows the following:

  • Students who think "it's cool to get drunk" are 5x more likely to binge drink.
  • Correcting unhealthy beliefs leads to healthier behavior.

Most students do not regularly use alcohol or other drugs, yet many believe that most of their peers do.

Correcting these misconceptions reduces pressure to "fit in" and lowers actual substance use.

How to Talk to a Student About Substance Use Concerns

  • Don't talk when the person is intoxicated.
  • Use "I" statements ("I'm worried about you...").
  • Be kind and nonjudgmental.
  • Set healthy boundaries.
  • Don't take things personally.
  • Hope, optimism and support are pillars of addressing substance use.

Balance is maintaining harmony among different parts of life, such as work, school, rest, relationships, self-care and personal growth. Balance prevents burnout and contributes to sustainable wellbeing. —CHHS & OSW Wellbeing Workbook (2025)

More than ever, our students are balancing work and caregiving responsibilities while in college. This can mean more demands for finding balance and experiencing a positive college experience with managing load and commitments.

In your work with students, you can encourage, model and support balance with the following practices:

  • Consistent due dates and communication/course announcements.
  • Encourage the use of a planner or digital Calendar and adding paced due dates or checkpoints in their Canvas calendar.
  • Utilize a calendar date or sheet at the end of your syllabus for all due dates, reading assignments, and module checkpoints.
  • Opportunities for a percentage of active learning components to be done in class with earned credit or design assignments to be embedded in the classroom curriculum and presentations to promote more balance outside the classroom.
  • Provide rubrics to support students in approaching assignments in a predictable, balanced manner to protect their time and bandwidth.
  • Create a wellbeing statement in your syllabus that clearly communicates your intention for students to foster and promote their wellbeing, including considerations for time needed away from class, such as honoring sick days, mental and physical health needs, and unexpected personal or family situations.
  • Facilitate learning and work environments that help manage procrastination such as pacing written work or larger project submissions, by section or outline in small increments with due dates for each.
  • In their work and assignments, engage students in distinguishing goals from values and obtaining direction, meaning, and motivation for tailoring their work or assignments to their future aspirations and inner drive.
  • Facilitate opportunities and mentoring for students to develop skills to prioritize needs and engage in what ties learning goals and outcomes to the student’s unique purpose and goals, including guest speakers, workshop opportunities, or tailored mastery paths for assignments.

Resilience is your psychological "bounce-back" power. It's the ability to quickly recover or adapt when you face really tough situations - like extreme stress or challenging life events that might otherwise completely derail you (Smith et al., 2008). Stressful personal situations are not uncommon. For example, in the past 12 months, UNCW students experienced the following:

  • 61% have been sick with the flu or cold
  • 75% have had moderate to high levels of stress
  • 46.4% have had financial difficulties

Resilience is what allows students to handle pressures without shutting down. Students who have more of this "bounce-back" are generally better off — they tend to have stronger mental health, feel better overall, and often have better success in their classes (Johnson et al., 2014). Additionally, when students feel supported, they trust their professors and professional staff to help them get through their situation.

The good news is that resilience isn't fixed; it's a skill you can actually build and strengthen over time. Research shows that it's connected to things like:

  • Mindfulness: Being fully present in the moment.
  • Having a purpose: Knowing your "why" in life.
  • Optimism: Having a positive outlook.
  • Active coping: Taking direct action to handle problems (Smith et al., 2013).

In your work with students, you can model and encourage resilience by:

  • Discussing times you’ve failed and how you worked through or learned from those failures.
  • Having students review assignments and discuss areas of common struggle and what their mistakes can teach them about their thinking and learning.
  • Teaching specific strategies you use to overcome failure.
  • Focusing less on performance/perfection and more on learning and mastery.
  • When students share about a tough situation they’re dealing with, or ask for modifications, ask the student what kind of support they’d like and how they plan to cope with the situation; refer to Counseling Center | UNCW, Student Health Center | UNCW Office of the Dean of Students | UNCW

Most college students, including those here at UNCW, are running on empty. About 78% of UNCW Seahawks reported feeling tired or sleepy for three to seven days out of the past week in the Fall 2024 NCHA Survey.

When asked what impacts their schoolwork, students rank sleep difficulties (19.7%) as the third biggest problem, right after stress (36.2%) and anxiety (33.1%) (UNCW ACHA Fall 2024).

When you don't sleep enough, your brain literally can't do its job well. Insufficient sleep is linked to:

  • Decreased Memory: Your brain can't properly save what you learned (memory consolidation).
  • Worse Critical Thinking: Learning and decision-making skills go downhill.
  • Higher Stress Levels (Batterink et al., 2017; Lemma et al., 2014; Dusselier et al., 2005).

Sleep plays a bigger role in GPA than most people realize. Students who consistently got 7 to 9 hours of sleep had higher GPAs than those who skimped on it (Yu & Arendt, 2017).

The single biggest factor affecting grades isn't just the hours achieved, but overall sleep routine —specifically, regular weekday and weekend wake-up times. This habit had a stronger effect on GPA than things you might think are more important, like eating breakfast, exercising, gender, or age (Trockel, Barnes, & Egget, 2000). Basically, that wild weekend wake-up time can hurt Monday morning focus!

In your work with students you can model and encourage healthy sleep habits with the following practices:

  • Adjust Canvas assignments and due dates from the default of 11:59 p.m. to 8 p.m. or earlier; be sure to communicate this with your students!
  • Space out assignments and exams to limit intensified work times.
  • Integrate goal setting in classes and programs that include assessing sleep habits.
  • Remind students not to pull all-nighters.
  • Create an activity where student track sleep to identify barriers and sleep strategies.
  • If you notice students falling asleep in class or at work, do not call them out or embarrass them. Approach them afterwards and check in one on one. This may involve referring to the student for support services through SHC or CC and/or discussing workload and balance.
  • Invite OSW Peer Educators to talk about sleep health and other wellness issues.

Gratitude is defined as "a felt sense of wonder, thankfulness, and appreciation for life" (Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Lyubomirsky, 2007), expressing gratitude has positive effects on both mental and physical health (e.g., Bartlett & DeSteno, 2006; Neff 2011). Additionally, demonstrating and practicing gratitude can be a long term initiative allowing students to be more optimistic and develop relationships that are more meaningful (Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Lyubomirsky, 2007; McCullough, Emmons & Tsang, 2002).

In your work with students, you can model and encourage gratitude with the following practices:

  • Reflect on the past week or time spent together by going through and discussing "highs" and "lows" and asking what students are looking forward to in the upcoming week.
  • Be optimistic in your time with students, focus on the positive; at the beginning of the semester or program, focus on the benefits of being there; at the end of the session, share how teaching or presenting or working with the students benefits you and have students share out as well.
  • Show students how to express gratitude by sharing what you are grateful for, writing notes to students describing something they have done that you appreciate
  • Share what you are grateful for, practicing what you are trying to implement with students will help show its importance.
  • Have students think about or list things they are grateful for-before an exam, at the beginning of a program or at the start of a work week have them think about one thing they are grateful for
  • Emphasize the benefits of both giving and receiving compliments. Practice giving and receiving!