Proactive, systemic approach for faculty/staff support of (graduate) student wellbeing

Psychological distress is becoming more frequent and severe in the college student population in the United States, including graduate students. To provide (graduate) education that proactively emphasizes wellbeing, higher education leaders must examine (graduate) students’ needs and skills. One of the skills used to cope with life circumstances is emotional intelligence (EI). In this non-experimental, quantitative study, participants completed a survey, which included assessments of psychological wellbeing and EI and demographic and background characteristics. Results revealed a statistically significant relationship between psychological wellbeing and EI within the graduate student population. In addition, graduate students’ demographics and background characteristics were significantly related to psychological wellbeing, particularly race, age, credits completed, graduate assistantship status, employment, and COVID-19 effects. Higher education leaders must utilize a proactive wellbeing approach as part of an institution-wide effort to provide the resources needed for (graduate) students to be holistically successful.