Presentation 1: As part of the Student Success Initiative at U-M, we aim to improve students’ success through increased student engagement with high-impact practices. Our work utilizes a mixed methods approach to characterize the experiences of students who took part in the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP). This project is guided by the following questions: How do UROP students experience research? And how does participating in UROP support student momentum towards degree attainment and post-graduation outcomes? Our work examines how the research environment, namely the tasks they were given and relationships formed, crafted students’ experiences. We are interested in how research experiences might contribute to students making connections, developing self-efficacy, and exploring their values and passions.
Presentation 2: Asian and Asian American college students are consistently found in the literature to face high rates of mental health stigma due to cultural norms, but it remains unclear whether this stigma or a lack of awareness of campus resources drives gaps in help-seeking. This session presents findings from the Healthy Minds Study, an annual national survey of student mental health across undergraduate and graduate students from universities across the country, comparing stigma, knowledge of campus mental health services, and treatment utilization across racial and ethnic groups. Asian/Asian American students reported the highest personal stigma of any group, despite holding public stigma perceptions and knowledge of campus mental health services similar to their peers, suggesting internalized stigma rather than lack of knowledge as the key barrier. This group also showed the lowest rates of formal and informal help-seeking, including among students already experiencing depression or anxiety symptoms. These findings point to internalized stigma, rather than lack of awareness, as the key driver of help-seeking disparities among Asian/Asian American students, highlighting the need for more culturally sensitive approaches to mental health support.
