How Do You Build a Community of Care?
Ask ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó’s Care Team. They’re proactively ensuring students receive support—early and often.
Amber Godefroy ’26 likes structure and deadlines.
So, at first, her thesis felt daunting—a largely self-motivated project, dependent on her ability to manage her time. Last fall, she began to feel overwhelmed and worried about its direction.
But then she sought support from The Care Team, ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó’s interdisciplinary team that works proactively to address students’ support needs, whether they be academic, social, mental, or physical. Led by Director of Student Support Shania Siron, the team can help students directly, or refer them to people who can.
When Amber felt lost with her thesis, she met with Shania to brainstorm key questions to ask her adviser in order to help address her time management concerns. They met right before Amber went into a meeting with her adviser, which boosted her confidence going into the discussion.
“I felt way better about my thesis after that meeting,” Amber says. “I felt a lot more supported, and it all felt a lot less mystical and abstract. It felt a lot more concrete.”
It wasn’t the first time Amber received help from The Care Team. Earlier on in the fall semester, Amber got into a car accident and needed to take a couple days off from school. Shania helped her draft the email to her professors explaining her absence, which relieved a lot of Amber’s stress.
“Shania is a great resource in reassuring me that things are going on the right path, like, everything’s actually okay, and things aren’t as hard or as complicated, and I don’t have to do things alone if I don’t want to,” Amber says.
Amber’s experience is just a taste of the breadth of support The Care Team offers. Requesting Disability Access Resource accommodations, providing assistance during mental health crises, helping students dealing with perfectionism and imposter syndrome—these are all examples of the challenges they help students navigate.
For Taya Gu ’26, The Care Team provided a light during a dark time. During fall break last year, she stayed on campus to work, study, and practice for her junior qualifying exam. As a biology-dance major, she felt the weight of all the work. Reaching out to The Care Team helped her feel lighter.
Taya submitted a referral form for herself, something she remembered she could do from her time as a SHARE Night Owl. Not long later, a care package arrived at her dorm: full of snacks and other goodies, plus a heartfelt, handwritten note from Vice President for Student Life Karnell McConnell-Black.
“If I hadn’t gotten that support, I think I’d have been pretty down,” Taya says. “It was during fall break—no one was here, even though the weather was okay, I was still alone on campus, still working on-campus jobs and practicing for the qual. It was just a lot of stress. The care package from The Care Team really provided me with a light during that week.”
As a Housing Advisor for Chinese House, Taya now often submits care referrals for other students in need of support, inspired by her own experience with The Care Team.
As Shania points out, incoming ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó classes are becoming more and more diversified every year, meaning they have an ever-evolving set of needs.
“It’s our responsibility to continue to be proactively thinking about and building systems and processes into that changing landscape for them,” she says. “...The benefit of this resource is that we are these low-risk staff support members—we’re not grading you, we’re not counselors. We are these individuals who are available to offer support and space where they can process what’s going on and receive affirmation from us about their experience.”
ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó's Care Team is larger than average, with more than 25 staff from across every division of the college. Shania says this breadth of professional expertise and training allows the team to be available, individualized, and highly responsive to all student concerns.
Over the past year, The Care Team has responded to over 1,800 care referrals. In just the fall 2025 semester alone, it worked to support about 40% of the student body. The majority of reported concerns are considered low-level, meaning The Care Team is able to proactively work with students to offer resources before their challenges—whether health, relationship, or security related—become overwhelming.
Associate Dean of Students and Campus Life Claudia Ramírez Islas says she hopes the work The Care Team is doing inspires the rest of the community, too.
“Hopefully it sets up a level of awareness and also some level of people feeling empowered and emboldened to be part of a system of care, so that nobody falls between the cracks,” she says.
To help with that, The Care Team hosts an event called “The Care Chair” each Thursday. In the entrance-foyer of the Gray Campus Center from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., staff are available for drop-in care, encouragement, and support. This drop-in support can be especially helpful during stressful points of the semester—like when students receive their 4-week comments and 8-week grades, or are prepping for finals.
For ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó’s support resources, The Care Team acts as a guide for students to access them.
“[The Care Team] really makes campus available for support and resources,” Taya says. “I think they’re amazing human beings.”