Kognito Implementation at Harvey Mudd College Featured in Forbes

Anna Gonzalez, the Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students at Harvey Mudd College, recently sat down with Forbes to discuss how colleges and universities can nurture student well-being on campus. In the interview, she discusses how Kognito fits into Harvey Mudd’s comprehensive approach to supporting student mental health:

At Harvey Mudd, we are approaching teaching these skills from multiple angles. We offer a six-week course on emotional intelligence every semester, which is getting great feedback from students. We are using technology, specifically a program called Kognito, to help students identify their stressors, understand when they are going into distress, and what resources are available. Kognito is an avatar-based app that we made available and promoted this past year to all students, and we hope to extend to families, faculty, and staff in the coming year. It not only teaches students how to be more self-aware but also how to be more aware of their environment in terms of friends, peers and classmates. They learn to recognize the symptoms of distress in themselves or someone else, and they learn what interventions they could pursue before they reach a high level of distress. Whether it’s just, “Oh, maybe I should tell a faculty member this student seems really in distress,” or learning, “Oh, wow, this is a high stressor for me, what do I need to do to get myself out of this situation?”

Another important piece is actually learning what the resources are both on campus and in the community, including the use of insurance. We’ve implemented a program and have had really good success at teaching students what insurance is, how and where to use it, and how to advocate for yourself. The students who have gone through the workshops are more able to find good, specialized wellness resources in the community.

To learn more about how Harvey Mudd is addressing issues of student wellness, read the full interview here.