Education
Education
Montana Tech, MSU Billings, University of Montana Awarded Grant to Improve Grad Student Mental Health
Montana Technological University (Montana Tech), Montana State University Billings (MSU-B), and the University of Montana (UM) were recently awarded a three-year, $500K grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant, Mental Health Opportunities for Professional Empowerment in STEM (HOPES), will allow these institutions to design, pilot, assess, and implement evidence-based, sustainable, and replicable strategies to improve graduate students' mental health in STEM fields.
This collaborative project is led by Montana Tech, which has graduate programs predominantly in engineering. MSU Billings brings special expertise in mental health interventions, and the University of Montana provides considerable experience in faculty professional development and additional STEM-related graduate programs.
Beverly Hartline, Ph.D., professor emerita at Montana Tech, will serve as the overall project leader. She will be joined on campus by co-PIs, Scott Risser, professor and department head of the Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences; Charie Faught, associate professor in the nursing department; and Sue Schrader, associate professor in the Petroleum Engineering Department.
"The Mental HOPES grant we received from NSF is a collaborative approach, with faculty from UM, Tech, and MSU-B participating," noted Faught. "While the focus will be on a holistic model of STEM graduate student advising, the information and work will be of benefit for all Tech advisors and students. I am looking forward to helping bring resources to campus that will have a positive impact for years to come."
The Montana Tech team will work collaboratively with Ashby Kinch, Ph.D., associate dean of the Graduate School at the University of Montana; Jana Marcette, Ph.D., director of Graduate Studies at MSU Billings, and Sarah Keller, Ph.D., professor of communications at MSU Billings, to develop practices that will equip and empower diverse graduate students across the STEM disciplines and racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds to recognize, destigmatize, and manage mental health challenges they face.
Risser added, "This collaboration with the University of Montana and MSU-Billings is exciting because it allows us to positively impact our graduate students' professional and personal lives through impactful programming and support. Additionally, our NSF funding will let us scale-up these experiences to STEM (and non-STEM) institutions around the country."
Examples of mental health challenges include stress, impostor syndrome, lack of belonging and isolation, professional identity development, power imbalances between students and faculty mentors, and gender or race-associated harassment.
"As a single-parent graduate student, I experience unique social, financial, and family-based challenges, which often led to feeling isolated from fellow graduate students, faculty, and friends," said Julie Muretta, a 6th-year doctoral student in materials science. "I have worked with four different faculty mentors with very different mentoring styles, some of which left me feeling alone and often very anxious. Faculty engagement is so important to student success, and it helped me feel supported and able to be competitive in the job market."
"It is time the stigma around mental health is eliminated from STEM programs," said Sowmya Sudhakar, a recent master's graduate in mechanical engineering. "I hope our efforts in the HOPES project will help drive positive change at Tech and across the USA. I learned how much this means in conversations with other grad students and faculty, and I'm excited to see where it goes moving forward."
"The well-being of graduate students has been a burgeoning concern of graduate schools across the country for many years, but COVID-19 has certainly brought the issue to more people's attention," said Kinch. "This grant will allow us to work with graduate students and faculty mentors to increase participation in wellness activities and increase our institutional capacity to guide, advise, and holistically mentor our students."
"Montana Tech is an innovative university with a forward-thinking mentality to always improve," said David Barrick, a graduate student in geological engineering. "The HOPES grant will help Montana Tech support graduate students' mental health and resilience as we adapt in this ever more complex and stressful world. With Montana Tech's ideal professor to student ratio, there are a plethora of opportunities to provide experiences that are inclusive and welcoming of new perspectives and ideas."
In parallel, professional development for faculty mentors will be designed, piloted, and evaluated to help them shift mentoring practices that unnecessarily aggravate their mentees' mental health and to recognize warning signs and refer students for help. Training will also include professional identity development and inclusive mentoring practices.
An additional component will engage participating graduate students with their faculty mentors outside the classroom to help strengthen mutual respect, relationships, and rapport. Baseline and pre-and post-surveys of graduate students and faculty participants will be administered to assess the overall impact over three years.
"We are thrilled that we were awarded this grant to collaborate to research ways to help diverse graduate students and their faculty mentors mitigate mental health challenges, high pressure, and the ups and downs of graduate school in STEM fields," said Hartline.
NSF grants are awarded to projects such as this one that has transformative approaches to STEM graduate training. Marcette explains that while many graduate programs have a focus on well-being and mental health, the unique aspects of this work include the focus on interpersonal communication, which is grounded in the scholarship of MSUB Professor Sarah Keller, as well as the system-wide partnerships that will be sustainably built with the encouragement of Montana's Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education.
The majority of data collection will occur among graduate students and faculty at the University of Montana and Montana Tech, and faculty teams at the three institutions will collaboratively design both interventions and data collection for impact evaluation of the program. The work will commence this fall and will take place over the next three years.
The funding comes from NSF's Division of Graduate Education, with cost-sharing from NSF's EPSCoR Office.
This collaborative project is led by Montana Tech, which has graduate programs predominantly in engineering. MSU Billings brings special expertise in mental health interventions, and the University of Montana provides considerable experience in faculty professional development and additional STEM-related graduate programs.
Beverly Hartline, Ph.D., professor emerita at Montana Tech, will serve as the overall project leader. She will be joined on campus by co-PIs, Scott Risser, professor and department head of the Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences; Charie Faught, associate professor in the nursing department; and Sue Schrader, associate professor in the Petroleum Engineering Department.
"The Mental HOPES grant we received from NSF is a collaborative approach, with faculty from UM, Tech, and MSU-B participating," noted Faught. "While the focus will be on a holistic model of STEM graduate student advising, the information and work will be of benefit for all Tech advisors and students. I am looking forward to helping bring resources to campus that will have a positive impact for years to come."
The Montana Tech team will work collaboratively with Ashby Kinch, Ph.D., associate dean of the Graduate School at the University of Montana; Jana Marcette, Ph.D., director of Graduate Studies at MSU Billings, and Sarah Keller, Ph.D., professor of communications at MSU Billings, to develop practices that will equip and empower diverse graduate students across the STEM disciplines and racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds to recognize, destigmatize, and manage mental health challenges they face.
Risser added, "This collaboration with the University of Montana and MSU-Billings is exciting because it allows us to positively impact our graduate students' professional and personal lives through impactful programming and support. Additionally, our NSF funding will let us scale-up these experiences to STEM (and non-STEM) institutions around the country."
Examples of mental health challenges include stress, impostor syndrome, lack of belonging and isolation, professional identity development, power imbalances between students and faculty mentors, and gender or race-associated harassment.
"As a single-parent graduate student, I experience unique social, financial, and family-based challenges, which often led to feeling isolated from fellow graduate students, faculty, and friends," said Julie Muretta, a 6th-year doctoral student in materials science. "I have worked with four different faculty mentors with very different mentoring styles, some of which left me feeling alone and often very anxious. Faculty engagement is so important to student success, and it helped me feel supported and able to be competitive in the job market."
"It is time the stigma around mental health is eliminated from STEM programs," said Sowmya Sudhakar, a recent master's graduate in mechanical engineering. "I hope our efforts in the HOPES project will help drive positive change at Tech and across the USA. I learned how much this means in conversations with other grad students and faculty, and I'm excited to see where it goes moving forward."
"The well-being of graduate students has been a burgeoning concern of graduate schools across the country for many years, but COVID-19 has certainly brought the issue to more people's attention," said Kinch. "This grant will allow us to work with graduate students and faculty mentors to increase participation in wellness activities and increase our institutional capacity to guide, advise, and holistically mentor our students."
"Montana Tech is an innovative university with a forward-thinking mentality to always improve," said David Barrick, a graduate student in geological engineering. "The HOPES grant will help Montana Tech support graduate students' mental health and resilience as we adapt in this ever more complex and stressful world. With Montana Tech's ideal professor to student ratio, there are a plethora of opportunities to provide experiences that are inclusive and welcoming of new perspectives and ideas."
In parallel, professional development for faculty mentors will be designed, piloted, and evaluated to help them shift mentoring practices that unnecessarily aggravate their mentees' mental health and to recognize warning signs and refer students for help. Training will also include professional identity development and inclusive mentoring practices.
An additional component will engage participating graduate students with their faculty mentors outside the classroom to help strengthen mutual respect, relationships, and rapport. Baseline and pre-and post-surveys of graduate students and faculty participants will be administered to assess the overall impact over three years.
"We are thrilled that we were awarded this grant to collaborate to research ways to help diverse graduate students and their faculty mentors mitigate mental health challenges, high pressure, and the ups and downs of graduate school in STEM fields," said Hartline.
NSF grants are awarded to projects such as this one that has transformative approaches to STEM graduate training. Marcette explains that while many graduate programs have a focus on well-being and mental health, the unique aspects of this work include the focus on interpersonal communication, which is grounded in the scholarship of MSUB Professor Sarah Keller, as well as the system-wide partnerships that will be sustainably built with the encouragement of Montana's Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education.
The majority of data collection will occur among graduate students and faculty at the University of Montana and Montana Tech, and faculty teams at the three institutions will collaboratively design both interventions and data collection for impact evaluation of the program. The work will commence this fall and will take place over the next three years.
The funding comes from NSF's Division of Graduate Education, with cost-sharing from NSF's EPSCoR Office.
