Antioch College awarded $100,000 grant

To address what U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has called “the defining public health crisis of our time,” 13 small liberal arts colleges, including Antioch, have each been awarded $100,000 this year and $75,000 next year as part of a multiyear collaborative project to address campus wellness, particularly mental health.

Funded by New York City-based The Endeavor Foundation, the first phase of the initiative is titled “Enhancing Student Learning and Experience through Campus Wellness, Student Wellbeing, and Mental Health Initiatives.”

“We are grateful to The Endeavor Foundation for this opportunity to strengthen the liberal education we offer by formally teaching student mental health, wellness and well-being in our curricular and co-curricular programs,” Antioch College President Jane Fernandes said in a press release.

In addition to Antioch, the other colleges included in the grant are Bennington, in Vermont; Blackburn, in Illinois; College of the Atlantic, in Maine; Northland, in Wisconsin; Prescott, in Arizona; Randolph, in Virginia; St. John’s, in Maryland; St. John’s, in New Mexico; Sterling, in Vermont; Unity Environmental University, in Maine; Warren Wilson, in North Carolina; and Wells in New York.

According to Lori Collins-Hall, the grant project director, vice president and chief operating officer at Sterling College, “Many colleges and universities are driven to prepare their students for a particular job or professional role. Given the mental health crisis we are witnessing among young people on our campuses, we are united in our aim to equip students with the curiosity, creativity, interpersonal communications skills, resilience and capacity for critical thought and self-efficacy that are essential for successful careers, meaningful lives and engaged citizenship in today’s world.”