Creating a Culture of Care
Creating a Culture of Care
Creating a culture of care is a shared responsibility, shaped by the everyday actions, connections, and experiences that help our community thrive. Across Dartmouth, students, faculty, and staff are finding meaningful ways to foster belonging, strengthen connections, and support mental health and well-being. Explore the stories below to see how this commitment is coming to life across our campus community.
Peer Support
Students often turn first to one another when they are navigating challenges, making peers an important source of connection, understanding, and support. Across Dartmouth, students are taking on a growing role in fostering well-being within their communities—from sharing their experiences through Finding Common Ground panels and listening circles to serving as mentors, wellness coaches, and health and wellness representatives. These opportunities are expanding across undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools, alongside bystander intervention efforts such as Mental Health First Aid and student-led alcohol-free programming. Regular meetings between the Chief Health and Wellness Officer and student leaders are helping strengthen these efforts by creating space for students to share what they are seeing and experiencing and shape approaches to well-being across campus.
Charlie Betts ’27, left, and Raghav Kanzaria ’27 are peer wellness coaches with the Student Wellness Center.
Geisel School of Medicine
Geisel School of Medicine is investing in a more integrated approach to supporting students throughout their medical and graduate education, with new and expanded resources that recognize well-being as an important part of their development. Staffing investments include dedicated disability and case management roles, while expanded access to Geisel Counseling is helping students across degree programs more readily connect with support. For medical students, the new Learning Collaboratives create small, consistent communities where mentorship, well-being, purpose, and professional development are woven throughout the medical school experience. Geisel has also piloted the Navigator program, offering students one-on-one professional coaching as they work through challenges, decisions, and questions about their personal and professional paths.
Geisel School of Medicine is expanding student well-being resources, mentorship opportunities, and individualized support to foster personal and professional growth.
Social Prescribing
Dartmouth is harnessing the rich arts and nature resources on campus and throughout the Upper Valley to create more opportunities for students to connect, recharge, and support their well-being. Research has shown that time in nature, and creative and reflective activities can contribute to improved mental health and overall well-being. Building on these benefits, Dartmouth is expanding social prescribing approaches that connect students with experiences such as outdoor activities, visual arts, live performances, and creative workshops as complements to existing health and wellness resources. The Arts and Nature Rx pilot brings together partners across campus to make these experiences easier for students to discover and access.
Through social prescribing efforts, Dartmouth is connecting students with the arts, nature, and community-based experiences to support mental health, well-being, and social connection.
Kind30 at Dartmouth
Dartmouth piloted Kind30 in spring 2026, inviting students, faculty, and staff to complete 30 intentional acts of kindness and reflect on the impact to themselves and others. More than 750 community members participated. Students played a central role in bringing the campaign to life through events, peer outreach, athletics, and student organizations across campus. The pilot explored how small, intentional acts of care can strengthen connection, belonging, and well-being and help make kindness a more visible part of campus culture. Findings and recommendations from the pilot are now informing plans for a second Kind30 campaign, with opportunities to build on what worked and strengthen the experience for participants. The next campaign will continue the work set in the Commitment to Care strategic plan to foster a culture in which connection, kindness, and care for others are embedded in the Dartmouth community.
Issa Allison ’29 and Mark Reed, chief health and wellness officer, hand out wristbands at a Kind30 event on campus. The wristbands signify participation in creating a culture of kindness.
Native American Program
At Commitment to Care: A Community Gathering for Student Mental Health, Native American Program Director Adria Brown, ’15 and Samantha Pehl ’27 reflected on the collective and ongoing responsibility to Dartmouth’s founding charter and the importance of holistic care for the entire community. Their keynote, “Returning and Recommitting: Reflections from the Native American Program,” underscored how NAP is embedding a culture of care, belonging, and well-being throughout its work. NAP will continue to deepen the integration of Indigenous values across its programs with items included in the 2026 Commitment to Care update. The program launched the Indigenous Academic Success Working Group to strengthen support for Indigenous students and better understand their use and experience of campus resources. Looking ahead to the renovated and expanded Native American House, NAP is also exploring how the space can further serve as a place of home, belonging, and support.
Adria Brown ’15, director of the Native American Program, gives the keynote address at Commitment to Care: A Community Gathering for Student Mental Health
Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning
DCAL is integrating mental health and well-being into its broader strategic priorities, extending the spirit of Commitment to Care throughout the academic experience. The Accessible Dartmouth Initiative, a partnership between DCAL, Student Accessibility Services, and Learning Design and Innovation that supports educators in making intentional choices—both small and structural—so more students can engage deeply in learning. Through resources such as the Universal Design for Learning Institute, DCAL is helping instructors develop skills and approaches that address accessibility and well-being as interconnected parts of effective teaching. DCAL programming builds on this work with sessions exploring neurodivergence, teaching students with autism and ADHD, the relationship between anxiety and learning, and ways to elevate joy in teaching and learning.
DCAL-sponsored panelists discuss the connections between teaching, learning, and student well-being at Commitment to Care: A Community Gathering for Student Mental Health.
Hazing Prevention
Dartmouth is advancing its approach to hazing prevention as part of a broader Commitment to Care effort to strengthen student well-being, safety, and belonging and reduce high-risk behaviors. In fall 2025, Dartmouth rejoined the national Hazing Prevention Consortium, a three-year, data-driven, research-informed program that helps institutions develop, implement, and evaluate comprehensive hazing prevention strategies. The Dartmouth Hazing Prevention Coalition brings together more than 16 departments and student organizations across the institution to develop a coordinated prevention plan, with efforts including a multi-part campus hazing assessment, new communication resources, and a pilot to expand prevention training to staff. This work is ongoing and is strengthened by the addition of a full-time hazing prevention project manager. These investments reflect the holistic approach in which hazing prevention is connected to Dartmouth's larger work to embed well-being and a culture of care throughout the student experience.
The Dartmouth Hazing Prevention Coalition is bringing together partners from across campus to develop and implement a coordinated approach to hazing prevention that strengthens student well-being, safety, and belonging.
Teevens Center and DP2 for All
The Kirsten and Eugene F. “Buddy” Teevens ’79 Center for Peak Performance is taking on a broader role in shaping how Dartmouth students develop the skills to perform and thrive. In fall 2026, administrative oversight of the undergraduate wellness education requirement shifted to the Teevens Center, expanding its role in wellness education at Dartmouth. The Center is building on the momentum of DP2 for All, which has delivered more than 24 sessions to over 500 nonvarsity students since fall 2025 with strong positive feedback. The Center is also extending its impact through partnerships across campus, bringing research-informed approaches to performance and well-being to students with a wide range of experiences and goals. This year, it also launched Research and Innovation Grants, an internal funding program supporting student, faculty, and staff-led projects that advance the science and practice of human performance, leadership, and well-being. Together, these efforts are creating new opportunities to translate research into practices that can support students during their time on campus and beyond.
Duncan Simpson, director of the Teevens Center, is leading the Center’s expanding reach through DP2 for All, which brings performance and well-being education to students across Dartmouth.