NC State has partnered with The Jed Foundation, a nonprofit organization that aims to protect mental and emotional health and prevent suicide in teenagers and young adults.
Monica Osburn, executive director of NC State’s Counseling Center, said at the university level, JED assesses the systems in place on campus that address mental wellness and makes strategic recommendations to better these programs and equip universities with the resources they need to support students properly.
“The JED Campus program is an outside set of eyes that will look at what we do here at NC State, give us an honest assessment of the programs that we have in place and make recommendations for what we could do further, what we should keep and maybe what we should tweak,” Osburn said.
The Jed Foundation has existed for over two decades but has not had a presence on NC State’s campus until now.
Student Government and the Student Mental Health Task Force advocated to bring the JED Campus program to NC State. In 2022, the Student Senate introduced and passed R 58: Campus Suicide Prevention and Response Act.
The combination of the passing of R 58 and similar recommendations during this time from the Student Mental Health Task Force provided the proper context to bring the JED Foundation to NC State’s campus.
“I think the time was right,” Osburn said. “It was something that Student Government was very interested in and advocating for, and it’s something that I’ve advocated for out of the Mental Health Task Force. JED is also partnering with the UNC system to have this occur in several of the UNC system schools, so I think a lot of things came together at one time to really make the timing right because it’s a big undertaking.”
The JED Campus program outlines an incremental four-year comprehensive plan for the University that assesses, plans, implements and evaluates systems in place to address and support student wellness. The program — which is composed of an assessment, strategic planning, implementation, evaluation and sustainability phase — has begun and will continue through spring of 2027.
The current assessment phase of the program involves the email distribution of a “Healthy Minds Survey” to select students. Around 12,000 students received this email and are urged to complete the survey as soon as possible.
Timothy Reid, a fourth-year studying business administration and student body president, discussed the importance of the assessment period and explained how the process will affect the University.
“The survey will help us figure out what’s working, what’s not, and it’ll help JED figure out what we need by analyzing where students are right now, so it’s really crucial,” Reid said.
Despite the length of the full implementation of this program, Reid said he believes the University will see its effects soon.
“It will be a long-term process, especially to see full effects, but incremental effects will definitely be seen throughout the process,” Reid said. “They’re assessing right now and will be making recommendations soon, so we’ll start to see some of that.”
Reid said the presence of The Jed Foundation on campus is necessary to further the mission of housing a better system to address the mental and emotional needs of students.
“JED is just perfect for what we need right now,” Reid said. “Coming off of last year and considering the mental health crisis, we just needed an outside perspective, and JED is giving us just that.”
Along with JED, NC State is currently engaging in other initiatives to improve mental health on campus and follow recommendations set forth by the Student Mental Health Task Force.
“One of the advantages of being at such a big university like NC State is the access to resources and support on campus, and I’m really proud of the work we’ve done in terms of expanding counseling services,” Reid said. “We now have over 50 counselors available and assigned to specific schools, which is a great improvement.”
More information about recommendations made by the Student Mental Health Task Force can be found on the Wolfpack Wellness website.
