The Mental Health Opportunities for Professional Empowerment in STEM (HOPES) project began in August 2021 as a collaboration between Montana Tech, MSU-Billings, and the University of Montana, with funding support from the National Science Foundation. The project, which just completed its pilot year, is funded through Summer 2024. The goal of HOPES is to design, pilot, assess, and implement evidence-based, sustainable, and replicable strategies to enhance graduate student mental health. HOPES was born from an awareness of the growing mental health struggles of graduate students across the country. The project recognizes that the broadening diversity of graduate students also entails varied mentoring needs, with many campus mental health services primarily designed for undergraduate students.
To address the mental health needs of graduate students, HOPES has four main objectives:
- Build and test activities that enable diverse STEM graduate students to acquire positive mental health and resilience
- Provide professional development for STEM faculty advisors to support graduate student mental health and transform the department’s culture
- Pilot scale-up and expansion to other campuses
- Assess to guide the project and determine its impacts
As part of its design, HOPES has several project components, including annual baseline and follow-up surveys for faculty and students, peer groups and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for students, and various faculty and student activities like workshops and role-playing. In AY 2023/2024, HOPES will scale up to MSU Bozeman, the University of Idaho, and the University of the District of Columbia. Ultimately, HOPES seeks to develop and support strategies that help build a sense of community and cross-disciplinary interaction at participating campuses, as well as tailor counseling and student services to fit graduate student needs.