Designing for Wellbeing: Student Innovators Use U-M Research to Enhance Mental Health on College Campuses
Mental health is in crisis, and students have been one demographic that have had to play their part in keeping themselves and their communities safe. Many students, however, may be unsure of how to navigate their stress and mental health coming out of the pandemic and going back to campus.
On the University of Michigan (U-M) campus, students across all degree levels are facing mental health challenges. According to U-M’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), COVID-19 has had a negative impact on students’ “feelings of isolation, motivational deficits, and overall mental health.” Graduate students have largely been impacted, making up 32% of those seeking out CAPS’s services in Fall 2021.
“[The] ‘work six more months and work really hard and it’ll pay off’ mentality that many entrepreneurs have, it leaves a lot of people out of the picture. It’s selling a toxic narrative.”
Even Greater Challenges for Student Entrepreneurs
For entrepreneurs, where the heart of innovation is inspiration and community, the COVID-19 pandemic, among other factors, has made both of these things more difficult to find. It can be especially difficult for student entrepreneurs who are balancing their existing school responsibilities whilst simultaneously working on professional ventures meant to exist long after graduation. Balancing academics with entrepreneurial activities can take a toll on a student’s mental health and well-being.
Shayon Donaldson is an MBA student at Michigan Ross who is also working on an +Impact Studio prototype called Racial Equity Pledge. In the past, she has found it difficult to juggle multiple responsibilities, and she shares that while she was sure there were resources, she had difficulty dedicating time to her mental health.
Ronit Tiwary, a senior in the University of Michigan College of Engineering and co-founder of the sports training app Dualete, believes that, “a big part of entrepreneurship is having enough energy to keep at it, and being around other people who are motivated and talented helps. The pandemic just made it harder to do that, so I think it was definitely hard to stay energized at times.”
While University services such as CAPS are a valuable resource, the need for mental health support for students is ever-growing. The availability of resources and waiting times, as well as the possible financial toll, impact this shift. As such, there has been a growing trend towards self-help tools and wellness initiatives that include meditation, journaling, mindfulness, fitness tracking, and various others. This has been reflected by the rise in the overall self-improvement industry, which is predicted by market researchers to be worth thirteen-million dollars by 2022.
How Venture Field Guide Can Help
“Venture Field Guide is a journal aimed at fostering greater well-being, clarity, and intentionality.”
During the Winter 2021 semester, students in the +Impact Studio Course “Translating Research to Impact” (BA670) at Michigan Ross interviewed local small business owners, finding a strong theme of mental health and well-being challenges in their community. One student team engaged U-M faculty members Dr. Ethan Kross and Dr. Sue Ashford to learn about their research and home in on a solution — journaling emerged as a powerful, research-based tool for enhancing well-being and performance as a leader.
In the summer of 2021, Applebaum Impact Design Fellow Jess Halter, MBA/MS ’23, was brought on to lead further development, prototyping, and testing of the journal concept, and Venture Field Guide was born. Venture Field Guide is a journal aimed at fostering greater well-being, clarity, and intentionality in both the personal and professional lives of entrepreneurs and small business owners. Currently it is focusing on supporting student entrepreneurs.
“Self-distancing is the ability to essentially focus on yourself from a more objective, psychologically removed perspective. To illustrate why it matters, I usually ask people to think of a time when a friend or loved one came to them with a problem that they were ruminating about or worried excessively about and the problem wasn’t really relative to them, just their friend. In these situations, most people report being able to easily coach their friends through their problems, give them advice about what they should do, how they should act and so forth.” — Michigan Ross Professor Ethan Kross
The journal prototype puts into practice research on journaling, reflection, gratitude, and self-distancing. Michigan Ross Professor Ethan Kross researches tools designed to create psychological distance and improve mental and emotional health, including practices of distanced self-talk (talking to oneself in the third person), and mental time travel (imagining your future self).
“Distancing facilitates the ability to work through the event, leading people to have insights that buffer them against future negative reactions. If you ask them (research participants who practiced self-distancing) to recall the same experience a week later, they don’t become as upset as people who don’t distance. They also ruminate less.” — Michigan Ross Professor Ethan Kross
Distancing practices are shown to help process negative experiences, reduce emotional distress and reactivity, think big-picture, and access their own wise reasoning.
The journal additionally incorporates a gratitude-centered approach, which has not only been linked to increased mental health but also physical health, as it encourages health-promoting behaviours and higher life satisfaction. The Venture Field Guide’s characteristics make it versatile to the user, and is especially useful for entrepreneurs as it is a tool that addresses problem-solving, expressing emotions, and keeping track of ideas.
“The ‘work six more months and work really hard and it’ll pay off’ mentality that many entrepreneurs have… it leaves a lot of people out of the picture. It’s selling a toxic narrative,” says Halter. Venture Field Guide was created with this perspective in mind, with the goal of the journal giving student entrepreneurs a common language to talk about their highs and lows and to encourage accountability and behaviour changes. This is an important tool in entrepreneurship where leadership is key: leaders who can reflect on what went right, wrong, and what can be improved have the knowledge on what to focus on moving forward in their ventures. Journaling is an avenue for leadership.
Looking Ahead
Next steps for Venture Field Guide include a partnership with OptiMize, a U-M organization that offers programs, courses, mentorship, and funding for students for their self-directed projects. These student entrepreneurs will test the new student-focused prototype. Jeni Olney, Associate Director of the organization, is excited to be working with the project as she believes the journal to be a tool that helps “to better structure [our] conversations and provides students with a consistent way to document, and visually track their goals and challenges over an extended period of time.”
Partnering with OptiMize will be an important avenue for Venture Field Guide’s growth.
“I’m really excited to have the new prototype done in early 2022 and to hear what the student community thinks about it, to learn about the community mindset around mental health, and working to destigmatize it,” said Halter.
From here, the potential for Venture Field Guide is vast, and the Impact Studio will be looking to other student and professional entrepreneurial communities locally and beyond to scale its impact.
