Abstract
This thesis explores how current Brandeis University undergraduate students 18 years or older respond to available resources and how they envision strengthening or changing them to better fit their needs. At Brandeis, this research begins to fill in a student perspective gap, as there was no university-approved way to collect sensitive data on students’ feelings about resources for academics, mental health, and assault prior to this project. Data was gathered through four focus groups with a total of 12 participants in order to get a better understanding of which on-campus or off-campus resources students utilize and their reasoning behind these preferences. Participants responded to fake scenarios where they were asked to identify and explain why they would offer specific resources to students in distressing situations. The key finding is that students vocalized how important it is to both modify and revolutionize the resources Brandeis currently provides. Brandeis students have varying degrees of knowledge, trust, and usage of campus resources and a more robust and diverse data set is needed to identify explicit patterns and trends as these findings have the potential to help inform future Brandeis policies. This research sheds light on the need to center the student perspective when it comes to how campus resources are created and managed.