Promoting Students’ Mental Health in Academia: an Investigation of Counselling Services Sections on British and American University Websites

Abstract

Mental health concerns among university populations are on the rise. Faculty and students report increasing levels of depression, stress, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Starting from this assumption, the study is a preliminary investigation aimed at exploring students’ well-being in a selection of the world’s top universities. In particular, counselling services sections devoted to the promotion of students’ mental health on a sample of websites of British and American universities included in the World University Rankings will be explored in order to investigate their commitment to improve students’ well-being. The methodology draws from studies on multimodality and social semiotics. The preliminary outcomes of this study seem to confirm a different multimodal perspective promoted by the UK and USA universities in terms of less or more proximity with which the counselling services engage with the students.