Dr Elliott Spaeth, editor of Embedding Wellbeing into the Curriculum: A Global Compendium of Good Practice, touches on some of the themes running through this new collection of case studies such as connection, empathy and compassion.
When we talk about wellbeing in higher education, it can be hard to know what people mean. Often, it seems that people associate wellbeing and mental health with visible student crisis and see it as a concern of student support services.
It might, then, feel that wellbeing is unrelated to the curriculum, other than within the context of identifying those students and signposting support.
However, to me, the curriculum - ie how we facilitate student learning - is an area where we can have huge impacts on student wellbeing, in ways that we might not even realise. Through the curriculum, we show students whether we have taken people like them into account when we have designed our modules, and whether we are open to learning about what this means for our students. In short, we show students whether they matter, and whether they can trust us to believe them when they share their experiences. Whether they truly belong, or whether they should suppress their concerns rather than risk upsetting us by raising these concerns.
