August 5, 2025
National recognition honors institutions committed to campus-wide integration of mental health initiatives
Today, St. Mary’s University received the 2025 Excellence in Mental Health and Well-Being Award from Insight Into Academia magazine, the largest and oldest diversity and inclusion publication in higher education. The Excellence in Mental Health and Well-Being Award is a measure of an institution’s individual programs and initiatives that significantly advance the core values of inclusive excellence and belonging through programs, initiatives, and many other campus priorities deserving of this national recognition.
St. Mary’s University will be featured, along with 70 other recipients, in the September 2025 issue of Insight Into Academia magazine.
“St. Mary’s University has invested additional resources and personnel to enhance the health and well-being of our student community,” said Vanessa A. Peña, Ph.D., Executive Director of Student Health and Wellness Programs at St. Mary’s. “Receiving this recognition will help St. Mary’s, a Hispanic-Serving Institution, further promote wellness among our students and ideally help to normalize care for oneself through campus resource utilization. As we continue to make great progress in this area, we believe this recognition will bolster attention and focus to well-being.”
Student Health and Wellness Programs at St. Mary’s have championed the importance of holistic wellness by implementing a variety of improvements, Peña said. For example, the Student Counseling Center changed its model to a short-term scope of practice to increase students’ access to mental health services, including eliminating wait times. The Student Health Center began using mental health screeners during appointments to identify and refer students who may need counseling support. The center launched Peer Health Educators to support student programming on holistic wellness and used data from our National College Health Assessment results to enhance students’ wellness initiatives. The center also launched Wellfest, an annual event offering students, faculty and staff resource information for on- and off-campus wellness resources.
“We know that institutions are not always recognized for their dedication to their mental health and well-being services and support for their students and employees,” said Lenore Pearlstein, owner and publisher of Insight Into Academia magazine. “We are proud to honor these colleges and universities as role models for other institutions of higher education.”