ABSTRACT
The urgent need for a clear focus on mental health and well-being on university and college campuses became clear, and approaches to address physical, mental, and emotional well-being on campus have become prominent topics in higher education publications such the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. For many participants, and certainly for those of us organizing, the conference community became a way to discover innovative ways to approach this new teaching and learning environment and to retain hope in our students, in ourselves, and in the potential power of writing to heal, build, and change. Calls to operationalize socioemotional learning's (SEL) strengths-based approaches have prompted some scholars to propose over the past two decades that there is a "socio-emotional health crisis" in the United States with estimates ranging from 25-50% of high school students engaging in high-risk behaviors. Charles McMartin, Eric A. House, and Thomas Miller describe how culturally-engaged approaches such as hip hop pedagogy can support students' personal well-being and collective wellness as they develop social resilience.