Stevens Receives Nearly $500,000 Federal Grant to Expand Student Mental Health Support

A team of faculty and staff at Stevens Institute of Technology have been awarded a four-year federal grant of $498,611 to expand mental health education, substance use prevention, suicide prevention, early identification and pathways to care for students. 

The grant, awarded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention Grant program, will fund a multifaceted program to train faculty to recognize signs of student distress and connect students with professional help before a crisis develops, while also strengthening existing student-centered programs. 

Faculty trained to spot early signs of struggle can help students obtain help sooner. “Faculty members are at the front line of interacting with students,” said David Zeng, senior vice provost of academic innovation and faculty affairs. "We want to equip faculty members with the knowledge of how to identify students and help them to seek professional help.” 

Zeng reported that the number of students in need of accommodation for challenges related to mental health, including stress and anxiety, has grown exponentially over the years. 

Faculty involvement in identifying and referring students in distress presents an important opportunity to increase the safety nets to help prevent suicide on higher education campuses. The grant will fund ongoing faculty training, giving faculty members the knowledge and confidence to recognize students may be struggling and help connect students with available professional resources at Stevens. 

The JED Foundation, which Stevens has been in partnership with since 2012, identifies faculty intervention as a best practice in identifying students in need early; noting early intervention can positively impact student success.

“We strive to create a caring community and student-centered culture at Stevens — this program is one piece of that,” said Eric Rose, assistant vice president for student affairs. “Our work in creating a vehicle to help faculty feel competent and confident in their role could ideally become a model for other schools.” 

Strengthening a community of student-centered support 

The team's work also reflects the range of challenges students may encounter in college, including those related to neurodivergence, access to testing and accommodations and the pressures of navigating a new environment. 

Stevens’ Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), which offers comprehensive counseling and support services to students, is running a pilot program to expand access to ADHD testing to students with financial barriers. Students may arrive at Stevens without a diagnosis, only to find that the demands of college make previously unrecognized challenges more difficult to manage. Private testing can be prohibitively expensive, leaving students without a clear understanding of their needs or access to appropriate support. 

“We were very proud at CAPS to expand this service to financially limited students who otherwise may not ever be able to be tested and diagnosed,” said Ying Xiong, director of CAPS. 

The grant coincides with the launch of Sip Smart, a Stevens-developed alcohol awareness program directed towards first-year students in residence halls. Through resident assistant training and peer-led curriculum, students learn about making informed choices surrounding alcohol consumption and the connections between alcohol, stress and mental health. 

Enhancements to the core curriculum for first-year and transfer students are made possible through the grant. A lesson on positive mental health, substance abuse prevention and the importance of help-seeking will be developed and piloted to become a part of the First-Year Experience course starting in Fall 2027. The course encourages students to seek help and access resources early, especially when facing academic or mental health challenges. “I'm really optimistic about the type of education and capacity building we can accomplish within the course through the support of this grant,” said Chris Shemanski, director of First-Year Experience. 

Collectively, the team hopes its work will reinforce a culture in which students feel comfortable speaking up, faculty and staff know how to respond and campus partners work together to help students thrive. 

“Asking for help is a sign of strength,” said Eve Riskin, dean of undergraduate education, professor of electrical and computer engineering and principal investigator of the grant. "Stevens is building new ways to hear and respond to the cries for help.” 

Stevens has been nationally recognized for its commitment to student well-being, mental health and success. The Princeton Review named Stevens to its 2027 Mental Health Services Honor Roll and ranked the university No. 2 in the nation for Best Student Support and Counseling Services. Stevens also earned the 2026 Campus Prevention Network (CPN) Seal of Prevention™, awarded by Vector Solutions to institutions demonstrating a commitment to evidence-based programming that supports student success and well-being. In addition, Stevens received the Active Minds Healthy Campus Award in 2024, one of only five schools in the nation to receive the distinction that year. 

This “Engaging Faculty, Staff and Students to Promote Positive Mental Health and Reduce Suicide Risk at Stevens Institute of Technology” was developed [in part] under a grant number SM092234 from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The views, policies and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of SAMHSA or HHS.