May 2026

Project support for the Endeavor Lab Collaborative is moving from Sterling College to Randolph College.

Beginning June 1, 2026, all emails and other communications, including the newsletter, will come from:

lcollinshall@randolphcollege.edu

AND

elc@randolphcollege.edu

To Avoid Missing Important Grant Communications, PLEASE be sure these are in your contacts.

◇ We want to express our deepest gratitude to Sterling College and its leadership for serving as the founding home of the Endeavor Lab Colleges project. Your unmatched faith in the power of this collaboration has laid the groundwork for everything we do today.

Starting this month we have renamed the blog section of our website to Praxis to better reflect the ways you and your campuses are bringing theory to practice in your well-being work.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed this year. We look forward to continuing to share all of your insights and innovations!

Read Jeffry’s Praxis in action post:
Cultivating Occupational Wellness at College of the Atlantic

Jeffry Neuhouser is the Director of Career Development at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, where they serve as a member of the core instructional team and oversee the college’s career education curriculum, internship program, employer relations, community service, fellowships, and pre-professional advising. For three years, Jeffry has also served on the Purposeful Life and Work group. As an innovative and student-centered leader in the field, Jeffry brings over a decade of experience in higher education.

Jeffry believes institutions need to adopt a “Career Ecology” framework of career education, weaving developmental touch points and skill building throughout student experience—from their first semester through life as alumni—to build purposeful lives and careers. You can find out more about this framework in Jeffry’s TED talk on "The power of authentic human ecosystems." Jeffry also has experience building and implementing career curriculum through a Design Thinking framework and is a certified Global Strengths Coach through Gallup. Jeffry has served as the President of the College Career Center Consortium of Indiana and as the Director of Professional Development and Education for the Career Development Professionals of Indiana, where they were the host of the Career Champions podcast and oversaw the development of the “Fostering Diversity, Equity, and Belonging through Career Development” certificate program.

New in Praxis see Daniel and Arlo’s post: Create Space: Blackburn’s Artistic Outlet for Students to Pursue Self-Expression, Wellness, and Community Building

Daniel Lanctot started at Blackburn College in April 2024 and works as a College Counselor. His practice emphasizes a strengths-based approach that includes traditional talk therapy and art therapy. Last Year, Daniel served on the Endeavor Lab Colleges’ Place-Based Experiential Education work group. He currently serves on the Nature Rx working group, where he regularly supports the integration of creative expression and nature-based programming together to enhance student experience and support well-being.

Daniel initiated the Art Rx program “Create Space” at Blackburn College in the fall semester of 2025. Daniel has more than ten years professional experience as a therapist and, previous to that, worked as a documentary filmmaker and participatory video facilitator in Cambodia for four years. Creative expression is central to the support Daniel provides students.

Arlo Ward, class of 2026, co-authored this piece with Daniel Lanctot. Arlo is a graduating senior in graphic design at Blackburn College. Over his time at Blackburn—a nationally recognized work college—Arlo has worked for the college's office of marketing and public relations, archives department, writing center, and as a student assistant to the provost. He enjoys photography, listening to music, and creative writing in his free time. Over the past year Arlo has participated in and supported "Create Space" at Blackburn. As he moves to graduation Arlo reflects on that experience: "Working on Create Space was a rewarding way to help my classmates by giving them a place they could go to relax and engage in their artistic side. It meant a lot that Daniel wanted student input on the project and that I was able to help contribute to making Create Space into something students could look forward to every semester."

See how Grant engages “play” in Praxis:
Free Play: Cultivating Student Engagement Through Improvisation and Contemplative Practice

Grant Kittrell is the Director of the Academic Services Center and the Writing Program at Randolph College. In this role, he applies a holistic approach to student support that includes wellness, mindfulness, and nature-based practices and collaborations. Grant works closely with Randolph’s Thrive program and has served on the Nature Rx work group since January 2026. Beyond his work at the college, Grant is a writer, visual artist, musician, and author of the poetry collection Let’s Sit Down, Figure This Out. His work has appeared in a range of publications, including Terrain.org, Salt Hill, The Common, The Carolina Quarterly, Split Rock Review, The Normal School, and Gigantic Sequins. His poetry was also recently included in Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology.

If you know someone or a program at your institution that you would like to be highlighted, please contact ELC@randolphcollege.edu. 

Special Training Sponsored by the ELC

Building a Shared Language for Resilience on Our Campuses Through the Community Resilience Model (CRM)

Monday, June 8, 2026 | 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM ET

The Community Resiliency Model (CRM) has been implemented across more than 70 countries and 40 states, offering accessible, non-clinical strategies that help individuals regulate their nervous systems and return to a state of balance—what CRM refers to as the “well-being zone.” It is rooted in neuroscience, yet intentionally simple, designed to be used by anyone, anywhere, especially in moments that feel overwhelming or uncertain.

We are pleased to share an opportunity to participate in a full-day, practice-rich CRM workshop designed specifically with higher education in mind.

Throughout the day, participants will:

• Learn simple, adaptable skills to regulate stress responses (fight, flight, freeze, and tend/befriend)

• Build a shared language for resilience that can be used across students, faculty, and staff

• Engage in hands-on practice of tools that can be immediately integrated into daily interactions and campus environments

• Participate in afternoon breakout sessions focused on translating these skills into your existing work, programs, and institutional structures

The workshop will be led by:

Erica Coates, LCSW, who led CRM implementation at Virginia Tech, reaching over 13,000 individuals across campus

Jackie Rangel, PhD, an expert in culturally responsive pedagogy with decades of experience in education

For more information email elc@randolphcollege.edu

Peer Mental Health Coaching: Create a Comprehensive Model that Fosters the

Health, Wellness & Resilience of Students

Thursday, June 4, 2026 | 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM ET

Fostering health, wellness & resilience through peer support programs are emerging as one of the most effective and scalable solutions to the campus mental health crisis. When trained student ambassadors serve as the first point of connection, they provide a low-barrier, stigma-reducing pathway to support—freeing up counseling centers to focus on higher-acuity clinical needs. Two expert practitioners share how they built AWARE (Awareness Wellness Ambassadors Reaching Everyone), a transformative peer mental health coaching program.

The working groups are wrapping up their work for the year and finalizing their annual reports for the Endeavor Foundation. They recently presented their project implementation updates to the ELC Presidents during our Endeavor Lab Colleges’ Dialogues meeting at Randolph College (April 20–22, 2026).

Below, you can review their year-end updates in the attached presentation.

Featured Resource

AI companions, chatbots, and apps designed to feel like a friend or emotional support are now part of everyday life for many teens and young adults. Some students are finding comfort in them. But there's a critical gap between what these tools feel like and what they actually are, and we need to help students understand how to thoughtfully use AI tools.

Here's language you can use with students today:

"Even if it feels real, an AI companion doesn't have emotions, values, or a true understanding of your life. It can say 'I'm here for you' or 'I understand completely' — but it doesn't actually know you, and it has no responsibility to keep you safe. The staff here do care about you and want to get to know you better, and it's part of our job to look out for you."

This kind of honest framing helps young people engage with AI tools more intentionally so that AI doesn’t replace the human connection that protects mental health.

To support those conversations, JED has published an AI companion guide, a resource written directly for young people who are already using these tools.

Read JED’s guide for youth AI Companions use.

Awareness: Living the Questions - The Heart of Higher Education 2026

Join the Center for Courage & Renewal for a three-day virtual retreat focused on listening, learning, and finding community amidst the complexities of higher education and life.

○ Dates: Wednesday, June 10 – Friday, June 12, 2026
○ Time: 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM CT daily
○ Location: Online
○ Cost: $195 - this event is not supported by ELC funding
○ Registration Deadline: June 1, 2026

About the event: Designed for higher education professionals and anyone seeking meaningful reflection, this gathering invites you to "live into the questions" that challenge and inspire us. Each day begins with an hour-long conversation featuring renowned author and educator Parker J. Palmer. Following this, participants will break out into small, deep-listening "Circle of Trust" groups based on a pre-selected theme of their choice. Theme options include finding resilience in the academy, navigating brokenness and beauty, exploring writing as connection, and more.

It is a wonderful opportunity to recharge, reflect, and build relational trust alongside a supportive community.

Learn More and Register Here

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Highlight your practice, pedagogy, and reflections on your wellness work in Praxis or News story shared with ELC@randolphcollege.edu.

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