For Faculty, By Faculty: Navigating Student Mental Health and Behavior

If you’re a Drexel University faculty member and you’ve noticed something is off about one of your students, what would you do?

Is the student suddenly showing disengagement? Or has there been a gradual decline? And if the student is showing concerning behavior — then what?

Maureen Tang, PhD, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering in the College of Engineering, created a faculty flowchart to help faculty in these situations. She hopes that professors, who are regularly and often the most in contact with students, can use it to better understand how to check in on these Dragons and connect them to Drexel resources. 

Tang is the creator of “A Faculty Flowchart for Student Disengagement and Mental Health,” which can be used to help Drexel professors and TAs when talking to students about both academic and non-academic issues. The finished guidance shows examples of warning signs, possible responses to different situations, suggested language, actionable next steps and ways to connect students with trained experts and available resources. It also links to faculty and staff resources at the Office of Counseling and Health as well as strategies for inclusive teaching provided by Drexel’s Teaching and Learning Center. 

“During the pandemic, I started paying more attention to non-academic factors affecting students, like experiences outside of school and motivation and fear of failure,” said Tang. “I, of course, was dealing with all of this myself during the pandemic, and I had to learn how to cope.”

A few years later, when Tang was named a 2023–2024 Fellow of Drexel’s Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering and Science (ELATES) program for national leadership development, she knew what she wanted to focus on.

Part of the ELATES curriculum involves completing a project to benefit the Fellow’s college or university at an institutional level, as well as interviewing Drexel leaders about leadership and strategy in higher education. Ultimately, while working on the project, Tang interviewed 40 faculty, professional staff and students from 12 academic departments and eight administrative units, including the Counseling Center, Student Life, Office of General Counsel, Office of the Provost, Department of Public Safety, Teaching and Learning Center, Academic Advising and University Marketing & Communications. She also received their input and advice when creating the flowchart.

Now, the six-page document lives online as a readable, clickable and easily downloadable PDF on the Teaching and Learning Center’s website. Users can follow a flowchart of scenarios, read about examples of different situations they might encounter and learn how to take action when responding.

“I wanted to sort of codify that knowledge that I learned in a way that someone like me could understand. Like, look, you haven’t been trained in these types of conflicts or scenarios, but here’s a tool you can use to look it up and connect with someone who has,” said Tang.