Our Story

THE NEED

For nearly a decade, Endeavor Foundation has engaged in deep conversation with small liberal arts colleges, listening closely to our shared challenges and supporting individual campus initiatives with generosity and vision. Pressures on these colleges have intensified, particularly in the years surrounding and post-pandemic, and it has become increasingly clear that the individual and isolated efforts of small liberal arts colleges are no longer sufficient. Students are facing mounting mental health challenges, high levels of loneliness and social isolation, and uncertainty about their place and purpose in a rapidly changing world. These realities are not only impacting individual well-being, but undercut the very heart of our educational mission.

“In the face of this growing crisis, we recognize that collaboration – not competition – is our greatest strength. Together, we imagine a new model: one that would reframe student and community well-being not as an ancillary service, but as central to the liberal arts experience.”
— Dr. Lori Collins-Hall

THE VISION

five members of the ELC collaborating around tables on a college campus

This vision gave rise to the Endeavor Lab Colleges (ELC) Collaborative, a collective of small residential liberal arts colleges from across the nation, formally launched in November 2023. With generous five-year support from Endeavor Foundation, this collaborative brings together faculty, staff, and administrators from some of the nation’s smallest liberal arts institutions to address what former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy (March 5, 2021 – January 20, 2025) has called "the defining health crisis of our time": the mental health and well-being of young people.

PHASE ONE: PILOT INITIATIVES

A liberal arts education asks us to think about the ways our lives are integrated into and impacted by the larger world. The ELC Collaborative was initially granted $3,275,000 from Endeavor Foundation (2023-2025), directed by Dr. Lori Collins-Hall and overseen by a rotating executive committee of ELC presidents. This grant – Enhancing Student Learning and Experience through Campus Wellness, Student Well-Being and Mental Health Initiative – allowed the Collaborative to develop and pilot initiatives with the remit to shift campus response from a siloed and distributive model that relegates mental health to reactive clinical services to a more proactive, holistic model that places belonging, well-being, and purpose at the center of the liberal arts academic enterprise and into the fabric of campus life.

PHASE TWO: OPERATIONALIZATION, COLLABORATION, TRANSFORMATION

In Summer 2025, Endeavor awarded the ELC Collaborative a second grant, Enhancing Student Learning through Belonging, Well-Being and Purpose: A Vision for Whole Person Education in the Liberal Arts, in the amount of $5,220,545 to continue this important work and weave the most promising models from the first phase of the work into the fabric of our institutions—from educational missions through to the day-to-day activities and interactions of campus life. This continued funding allows the ELC Collaborative an additional three-and-a-half years to focus on:

  • Embedding and operationalizing the initiatives;

  • Transforming institutional culture;

  • Deepening individual and cross-campus collaboration and partnerships;

  • Conducting on-going assessment; and

  • Building a sustainable infrastructure for the Collaborative.

We're excited to work across this Collaborative that understands the essential role colleges play in students’ lives. Our goal is to identify and implement strategies that support well-being in ways that are holistic and sustainable. By intentionally integrating a lens of human flourishing across curricular and co-curricular experiences through teaching, advising, and whole community care, we aspire not simply to improve mental health outcomes but to transform the way liberal arts colleges equip students with the cognitive flexibility, adaptability, empathy, persistence and resilience necessary to navigate an increasingly complex world.

Together, we are forging a paradigm shift, rooted in the values of the liberal arts, to meet the moment and shape a more compassionate, connected future to promote a ‘life well lived’ for our students and enable the flourishing of our communities.