In the United States, the rates of mental health challenges have skyrocketed across populations in the previous decade, exceedingly so in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of this is felt in families, communities, and of particular relevance to this conference, formal education settings such as schools and universities. Simultaneously, social evolutions in the US have led to broader attention to and acceptance of a variety of cognitive, functional, and neurological ways of being and learning. Graduate programs experience the impacts of these phenomena like any other setting. Still, certain dynamics in the graduate school setting create unique considerations for effective management of this dynamic to promote wellbeing and supportive learning conditions for all.

This paper offers a description of four archetypes of students with mental health challenges based upon comprehensive and systematic analysis of my experiences as a senior faculty member over the past ten years. These archetypes are articulated based upon the students’ styles of managing their assets, challenges, and relationships. While the investigation attempts to avoid using the students’ mental health issues/diagnoses as the foundation for the construction of the archetype, the impact and function of students’ mental health challenges play into their styles and are present in the archetypes. This tension is interrogated in the presentation.

Grounded in the extant literature and informed by my lived experience as a senior scholar-practitioner, this autoethnographic paper seeks to identify and articulate challenges that faculty, program staff, and university personnel face in their quest to educate and support students with challenging mental health conditions and experiences. The ultimate purpose of the paper is to offer a proposed conceptual framework to guide faculty decision-making and action in the face of these complex situations to foster the wellbeing of all within supportive and generative learning environments.

Keywords: Student Mental Health, Graduate Student Support, Learning Environments, Institutional Capacity.