Marquette University has received an $8 million gift from an anonymous donor to boost the pipeline of mental health providers in Wisconsin.
The gift will be directed toward scholarships for graduate students in mental health fields. It will also endow a distinguished professor in psychology, as well as provide funding for doctoral student training and graduate fellowships in mental health majors.
President Michael Lovell announced the gift this week during his annual presidential address.
Lovell said the university will also increase its focus on student wellness. In the short-term, Marquette plans to increase staffing in its on-campus counseling center, add support staff for case management in the office of student development and provide outreach, programming and training to address mental health and wellness awareness.
Lovell has been actively involved in examining the community’s mental health needs as part of Scaling Wellness in Milwaukee, a coalition he helped found to address the adverse effects of trauma on the region.
In the future, the university plans to create a facility to “holistically serve students’ minds, bodies and spirits” and co-locate wellness and health services in a high-traffic area of campus, Lovell said.
The university will consider whether an existing space on campus could be used for the wellness facility as it takes inventory of its buildings during a campus space optimization study.
