Reckoning with Mental Health and Neurodiversity in Higher Education

Please join us for an engaging wellness and well-being presentation and discussion on mental health and neurodiversity in higher education.

Katie Rose Guest Pryal, J.D., Ph.D., is a bipolar-autistic author, speaker, lawyer, and law professor. With a law degree and a doctorate in rhetoric, she is an expert in public discourse and how it influences policy. Katie Rose has spent nearly two decades researching neurodiversity and how to make the world more accessible to all people.

She is the author of more than fifteen books on neurodiversity and mental health. Her latest book is A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education (University Press of Kansas, 2024). She is also the book author of Life of the Mind Interrupted: Essays on Mental Health and Disability in Higher Education (Blue Crow, 2017).

Dr. Pryal is a frequent speaker, writer, and media guest for venues such as The New York Times, Slate, Al-Jazeera, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She publishes research on neurodiversity and mental health. An avid equestrian, she founded NeuroEq, an organization dedicated to the inclusion of neurodiversity in the equestrian community. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Higher education communities are facing a mental health crisis that has been a long time coming—but Dr. Pryal, an expert in mental health and neurodiversity in higher education communities, has answers. In this talk, she helps audiences understand neurodiversity, how stigma harms neurodivergent students and faculty in higher education communities, and how to bring neurodivergent community members into the fold.

In partnership with CISE

Presented by Dr. Katie Rose Guest Pryal

1:30 - 3:00 PM

Faculty Wellness Check-Ins

Join the CFI for Wellness Check-ins during Faculty Wellness and Well-being Week. Faculty can stop by to collect wellness information, select a piece of CFI Swag, and discuss with their peers strategies they use to support their wellness.

10:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Faculty Wellness Check-Ins

Join the CFI for Wellness Check-ins during Faculty Wellness and Well-being Week. Faculty can stop by to collect wellness information, select a piece of CFI Swag, and discuss with their peers strategies they use to support their wellness.

1:00 - 3:00 PM

Faculty Wellness and Well-Being Roundtable

Join the CFI during Wellness and Well-being Week for a wellness roundtable. This is a chance to engage in interactive, authentic conversations with peers about wellness and well-being on campus and beyond. Facilitators will offer some perspectives and resources and create space to explore faculty needs and what kinds of resources and advocacy might support faculty in addressing those needs.

Facilitated by Daisy Breneman (CFI & CAL), Karla Kale (Counseling Center), Joe LeBlanc (CHBS & CFI), Eric Magrum (CHBS & CFI), Mollie Stambler (CAL)

1:45 - 2:45 PM

AUH Wellness and Well-Being Roundtable

Are you an AUH interested in connecting with fellow AUHs about wellness and well-being on campus? Join the CFI during Wellness and Well-being Week for a wellness roundtable designed exclusively for AUHs.  Academic Unit Heads are interested in supporting faculty and student wellness—but also have wellness and well-being needs and challenges of their own!

This will be a chance to engage in interactive, authentic conversations with peers about wellness and well-being on campus and beyond. The facilitator will offer some perspectives and resources, and create space to explore AUH and faculty needs, as well as what kinds of resources and advocacy might be needed to address those needs.

Note: There will be a concurrent roundtable for faculty, offered at the same time, but with a different Zoom link.

Facilitated by Robin Anderson (CHBS), Joe LeBlanc (CHBS & CFI)

1:45 - 2:45 PM

Faculty Wellness Check-Ins

Join the CFI for Wellness Check-ins during Faculty Wellness and Well-being Week. Faculty can stop by to collect wellness information, select a piece of CFI Swag, and discuss with their peers strategies they use to support their wellness.

9:00 - 11:00 AM

Focusing on Faculty Wellness Luncheon

Faculty are cordially invited to a CFI-hosted luncheon focusing on faculty wellness and well-being. Please join us for a chance to engage in interactive, authentic conversations with peers about wellness and well-being on campus and beyond. This will be a space to explore faculty wellness and well-being needs and what kinds of existing or potential resources and advocacy might support faculty in addressing those needs. This is an opportunity to build connections and community around wellness and well-being with other faculty across campus.

12:00 - 2:00 PM

Faculty Wellness Check-Ins

Join the CFI for Wellness Check-ins during Faculty Wellness and Well-being Week. Faculty can stop by to collect wellness information, select a piece of CFI Swag, and discuss with their peers strategies they use to support their wellness.

12:00 - 2:00 PM

Certification in Mental Health First Aid

Students’ experiences with mental health challenges and crises can often show up in the classroom or advising meetings. Faculty and advisers understandably may not know how to respond and could benefit from additional resources to support a response.

As part of the Center for Faculty Innovation’s (CFI) Wellness and Well-being Week, we want to help equip faculty with the knowledge and skills to address students’ mental health challenges and crises. Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training allows any adult to respond to others experiencing mental health challenges or crises, just as CPR provides skills to intervene in a cardiac episode. Through a partnership among the CFI, the Counseling Center, and Balanced Dukes, two MHFA trainers (faculty and staff at JMU) offer MHFA training to interested faculty.

The training will consist of a 2-hour asynchronous module covering topics related to mental health (examples include trauma, depression and anxiety, and substance use) and a full one-day in-person training. Participants will leave the training with MHFA certification. View testimonials about the utility of MHFA at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Partnered with the Counseling Center and Balanced Dukes

Facilitated by Joe LeBlanc (CHBS & CFI), Karla Kale (Counseling Center)

9:00 AM - 4:30 PM

• Balanced Dukes
• CommonHealth
• Counseling Center
• Talent Development

Duke2Duke

Please consider taking a moment to express gratitude to a colleague through Duke2Duke, a peer recognition program offered by Balanced Dukes. Gratitude can be a valuable tool for promoting wellness and well-being, including on college campuses. 

Care is important to wellness and well-being, but how do we operationalize it? We are working to create a CFI Faculty Community to explore that question and center mutual care. We want to create space for authentic conversations about our needs, explore scholarship and evidence-based strategies for care and well-being, and provide opportunities to build meaningful collaborations.

Now more than ever, we must prioritize extending care for ourselves and our communities—including our university community.

Save the Date: May Symposium - Wednesday, May 21, 2025 

Join us for a planned session during May Symposium 2025 to discuss and launch the faculty community. In the meantime, please reach out to Daisy Breneman (CFI), Elaine Kaye (JMU Libraries), or Nicole Wilson (JMU Libraries) with questions, thoughts, or ideas!