Student wellbeing at the TU/e - an insight from recent reports

One of these plans consisted of developing and piloting our own wellbeing monitor, with the aim of getting some insight into how our students are doing on all dimensions of wellbeing. This along side with the TU/e specific report of the RIVM & Trimbos monitor on psychological health and substance use has given us a glimpse into the wellbeing of a portion of our TU/e students.

Both studies were conducted in the first half of 2023, with the RIVM monitor being administered in the month of April 2023, and the Wellbeing Monitor being administered in June 2023. The RIVM monitor had a response rate of 11,5% within the TU/e which amounts to a total of 1,470 of students. The wellbeing monitor has a response rate of 14%, however was only sent to a randomized group of 3000 students, and so this amounts to a total of 429 students. Both of these response rates are small, and thus we cannot use the results from these monitors as a generalization to the rest of our student population. However, we can use them as valuable insight into how a proportion of our students are feeling, and will use this insight in further discussions on how to best support our students wellbeing at the TU/e.

As a university we are committed to take actions to support our students wellbeing. Since 2021 we have already achieved a lot, including a student wellbeing policy, a new student wellbeing chain, the signing of an alcohol covenant, the development of a social safety plan, and countless initiatives and activities that fall under these. With the results of these monitors, we aim to reflect on the actions we are taking thus far, identify any possible gaps, and determine a more concrete multi-annual action plan for student wellbeing. We will do so together with our community via the representatives in the student wellbeing chain.

The TU/e is a place where people matter and the wellbeing of both students and staff is one of our top priorities. As a community we aim to support and look after one another. We take this very seriously in the follow-up of these reports, and hope you do so too in the way you look after yourself and others. For more information on the support available for students, check out our support landscape here. If in doubt, be sure to contact one of the academic advisors of your department for support.

Although these reports are about student wellbeing, staff wellbeing is important too! As a staff member you can find more information on the support we offer for staff here, and you can always talk to your manager about your concerns.

To share with you a snapshot of the results of these reports, we have summarized them below. If you would like to see the full reports, please contact Charlie Raiser via c.l.raiser@remove-this.tue.nl.