Professor Mays Imad awarded $250k grant to launch groundbreaking project on student mental health and learning

Connecticut College Associate Professor of Biology Mays Imad is leading a newly funded project titled “Toward an Equity-Minded and Trauma-Informed Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.” The project aims to create an open educational resource (OER) course for educators across disciplines and institutions, focusing on the neurobiology of learning and stress, self-regulation approaches and resilience strategies. 

“This project is a vital step toward addressing the mental health crisis among students in higher education,” said Imad. “It empowers both educators and learners with the knowledge and resources they need for a more equitable and trauma-informed approach to teaching and learning.” 

Imad, together with the project team, including Assistant Director of Student Counseling Services Bryana White, Director of the Joy Shechtman Mankoff Center for Teaching and Learning Michael Reder, and Assistant Professors of Psychology Hyun Joon Park and Nakia Hamlett, aims to equip higher education faculty and staff with tools to support students’ holistic well-being. The project’s goals involve promoting equity and justice, understanding the stress-learning-brain connection and designing culturally grounded mental health resources for students. This project is being funded with a grant of $249,398 from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The openly licensed products developed by the team will be made available on the project website and shared on prominent Higher Education platforms including Inside Higher Education, the Chronicle for Higher Education, Times Higher Ed and Liberal Education. Imad’s commitment to improving student learning and well-being is reflected in her contributions to open access journals and widely-read higher education publications.