Mental Health NOW Project
For the last few years there has been growing support for creating accessible outdoor spaces that foster the wellbeing of our campus community through engagement with the natural environment.
The approved 2022 Master Plan supports a natural open space project with the intention to connect the campus community with the natural Monterey Bay environment to enhance the sense of place, and bring learning opportunities into nature.
In Spring 2019, CSUMB Professor Dr. Jennifer Lovell’s study on Ways to Improve Student Health and Wellness via Outdoor Spaces study found that:
“When asked how outdoor spaces could be therapeutic, five prominent themes emerged from the student and employee campus participants, including reduced stress, relaxation, connectedness to nature, places for socialization and seating, and mindfulness.”
The project concept was initially proposed by a Health and Wellness Services staff member, who anecdotally saw the effectiveness of time spent in open spaces reducing the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in troops returning from combat. The Suicide Prevention Specialist thought that the same approach could reduce stress and improve student mental health and approached the Planning Department with examples of open spaces throughout the world that might be created at CSUMB.
With this idea, a couple areas of the CSUMB campus are ideal locations for the Mental Health NOW (MH NOW) project, which intends to use ideas and research generated by the CSUMB community. Since 2020, Health and Wellness Services (HWS) and Campus Planning have been working together to gain broader campus support for developing the MH NOW project, with presentations made to Associated Students and the Academic Senate, who in Spring 2020 passed a Community Park Resolution.
CSUMB professor Dr. Jennifer Lovell’s Spring 2019 Clinical Psychology course collaboration with Health and Wellness Services set out to explore student, staff, and faculty perceptions and preferences for types of outdoor spaces, connectedness to nature, well-being and social support. The goal of the research was to inform efforts for the creation of outdoor nature parks, gardens, and wellness spaces on campus that would complement the University’s drafted Master Plan and help address concerns about student connectedness to campus and sense of belonging.
2023 - Conceptual Design Phase
March/April:
- Presentation to Mental Health Advisory Committee
- Presentation to Associated Students
- Design charrette with landscape architect and campus community
May:
- Ideas provided to landscape architects to prepare conceptual plans during summer months
September:
- Architects deliver concept designs
- Conceptual plans presented to Mental Health Advisory Committee
- Campus feedback solicitation at three Otter Thursdays and one meeting.
2024 - Project Costs and Fundraising Phase
- TBD: Feedback synthesized for landscape architects to complete a conceptual design by by mid Spring 2024 semester.
- TBD:
- A single plan will be presented to Campus Planning by Architects
- Campus Planning to seek estimate costs for aspects of plan
- HWS/Campus Planning to work with CSUMB Advancement on grant proposals and donor options
- Facilities Management and the Campus Planning office have contracted with an architecture firm.
- With a conceptual design, Campus Planning can begin to estimate the construction cost of the MH NOW project in order to respond to park grants and approach donors.
- The MH NOW concept is expected to be a multi-year project, with elements of the project being completed as funding is secured, likely to begin with accessible and safe paths, followed by the development of specific activity areas.
- In the conceptual design process, each design scenario incorporates accessible pathways as part of the overall site plan.
- To date the designs have focused on the desired functions and feel of the space, and have not yet studied the engineering or grading of the site.
- Universal design is a fundamental principle of this project and all projects on campus, and will include ADA and accessibility specialists input before breaking ground on any aspect of the project.
The following cultures will be acknowledged in the development of the MH NOW project.