Students can sometimes use a bit of extra help with their studies and personal development. Here you can read about how you as a lecturer, study adviser, mentor or other student-facing staff member can support students’ well-being.

To find out more about student well-being, check out the information below.

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Student well-being is more important than ever and is high on Leiden University’s agenda. There are many recent new initiatives, such as Well-Being Week and POPcorner The Hague. To streamline all these new initiatives and create new student well-being activities, a Student Well-Being Officer has recently…

Are you OK? This question aims to help make unwelcome behaviour easier to talk about. Student rowing club Pelargos made a personal variant on the national campaign, which won them Leiden University’s Well-being Award.

A growing number of student organisations are focusing attention on the mental, social and physical well-being of their members. This year, the first Student Well-being Award was therefore presented at the annual reception for new student association board members (’omgekeerde constitutieborrel’) in…

Leiden University and four other parties have signed a declaration in which they agree to improve the well-being of students in Leiden. They signed this Declaration on Student Well-Being on 5 April at the Leidsch Besturendiner, a dinner for student associations, universities, local government and bu…

The Covid pandemic has had a considerable impact on academics’ work and well-being. They have had much less time to spend on their research. The Young Academy and the Dutch Network of Women Professors have conducted research into how the situation has been for academics. The two organisations have recommendations…

At the annual reversed constitution reception (omgekeerde constitutieborrel), the Executive Board presents an award to a student organization that has made an inspiring and impactful contribution to the well-being and social safety of its members. This year, ESN Leiden won for its program ‘Together…

Queen Máxima visited University of Applied Sciences Leiden last week. She spoke to students, managers and policymakers about initiatives and opportunities in the field of student well-being. We called student assistant Nienke Jongejan, who got to join one of the discussions with the Queen.

Over 200 staff from Leiden University discussed student well-being with one another and students at the Staff Symposium on Student Well-being. In various workshops and lectures, lecturers, student advisers, student counsellors and other staff members discussed how they could contribute to our students’…

How can we work together to create a safe study and learning environment and offer students the support that they need? The Vision on Student Well-Being outlines the University’s plans to promote student well-being in the coming years.

How do we offer students a helping hand without losing sight of our own well-being? This was the question that study advisers, lecturers, deans and student support staff tried to answer at the Staff Symposium on Student Well-being.

How do we create connection? And how can we build student resilience? These were just some of the questions explored by study advisers, teaching staff and student counsellors during the Staff Symposium on Student Well-being.

Lecture, Food for Thought

Knowledge Festival

The brief removal of Rein Dool’s ‘cigar-smoking white men’ painting generated a storm of reactions last November. Students, staff and alumni reflected on this at a symposium on Friday 26 May.

The first staff symposium on Student Wellbeing – from abstract idea to practical tips – will take place on 15 March 2022. Why have we chosen a practical approach and what can you expect? Sonja Wagenaar (SEA) is project manager and she tells us more about it.

Supporting our students’ well-being is a priority for the University. Last week was our Student Well-Being Week, and throughout the year our students have access to mental health support such as buddy programmes, student support groups and study skills workshops. Each faculty is to have its own well-being…

The city of Leiden is enriched by a dense infrastructure of knowledge institutes, with a uniquely strong focus on health and well-being. This gives Leiden "an extremely good starting position to become the healthiest city in the Netherlands," according to Fleur Spijker (Alderman for Economy, Knowledge,…

Students face increasing pressure during their studies. How can we embed student well-being in our teaching? What role do prevention, knowledge and expertise play? And should we see student well-being as an aspect of innovation in teaching and learning? This is what policymakers and teaching staff from…

‘There’s so much knowledge, research and experience in the field of student well-being. Let’s put this topic on the agenda, work together to promote it, and learn from each other.’ This was the message of the two-day virtual symposium on Good Practices for Student Well-Being.

How can staff help create a healthy and inclusive learning environment? How do today’s students differ from previous generations? And what does this mean for how we guide and support them? These questions were the focus of the ‘Today’s Students’ symposium on 25 March.

How can we help our students build resilience and prevent unnecessary stress? And how do we break the taboo on failure? These and other questions are what study advisers, lecturers, deans and student support staff discussed at the staff symposium on student well-being at PLNT.

Education

How can social scientists contribute to a healthier society? That question was central to the Healthy Society Event on 9 June 2022, which successfully marked the start of a more conscious and intensive collaboration between the five Institutes of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences on education…

Not all students spend the holidays with family and friends. The Leiden University Winter Weeks gives these students the opportunity to take part in a range of fun and free activities. The student well-being team worked again with student organisations from Leiden and The Hague to organise this year’s…

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What are the main trends in family life today? Three stand out: young adults living with their parents for longer, people delaying parenthood and widening inequality between families. How did these trends emerge, and what are their consequences? Leiden experts explain.

Not all students spend the holiday season with family or friends. That is why the university is organising the fifth edition of the Winter Weeks this year. The goal remains unchanged: to offer both international and Dutch students who stay in Leiden or The Hague during the Christmas break a warm and…

You might not have gone to medical school but you can still help someone with suicidal thoughts. This is what three staff members who took training from 113 Suicide Prevention Foundation are keen to emphasise. ‘I’ve got a better idea of what warning signs to look for and how to refer students to the…

The announcement was made shortly before the summer break: from 1 September the annual Performance & Development (P&D) interview will have a new format and also a new name. The P&D interview will be changing to GROW (Gesprekken over Resultaat, Ontwikkeling en Welzijn): Conversations on Performance,…

EUniWell, the alliance of seven European universities committed to developing teaching and research relating to well-being, is celebrating its first anniversary. Law student Fenna van Haeften has been involved as a student representative right from the start. This October she went to Florence, where…

‘Shouldn’t you get out of bed for once?’ Critical or controlling behaviour from parents, however well intentioned, can worsen the symptoms of young people with depression. That is the conclusion of PhD research by psychologist Wilma Wentholt. But warmth and emotional support can, in fact, have a protective…

For the health of the staff and the whole organisation, it is important to have an open and honest conversation about work pressure – and to do something about it. New websites offer faculties and staff tips and tricks on how to reduce work pressure.

Staff development is an important key to promoting staff and student well-being at Leiden University. By following training courses and workshop, you can gain knowledge outside your own field of expertise.

Lecture, Food for Thought

GROW: Conversations on Performance, Development and Well-being (Gesprekken over Resultaat, Ontwikkeling en Welzijn). The new GROW interviews offer an opportunity to speak openly with each other about your work, development and well-being.

How do you know if your idea has succeeded? The Queen coming to call a year and a half later might just be a clue. This happened to the Leiden student foundation ‘Door Het Geluid’, which promotes student well-being.