Five years ago, student leaders at Utah’s public colleges and university petitioned the then-Utah Board of Regents to confront what students described as a mental health crisis on state-supported campuses.
The board formed a working group that implemented a wide variety of supports, ranging from a SafeUT smartphone app for college students to adding more university programs to train mental health professionals, as well as initiatives to improve access to care.
A historic gift of $150 million from the Huntsman family in 2019 to establish the Huntsman Mental Health Institute, support research, access to mental health, train more providers and serve psychiatric patients also provided opportunities for the state’s higher education system to better serve students’ needs.
