Student wellbeing touches every office, but the campus was not seeing it as one system
Mohawk Valley Community College serves roughly 3,000 students across Utica, New York, as part of the SUNY system. Like most colleges, student wellbeing touches multiple offices: mental health counseling, career coaching, and student advising, each with its own read on how a given student is doing.
Without a shared way to compare what those offices were each seeing, there was no way to differentiate which students needed which kind of support, detect when a student's state was shifting over time, or identify patterns across campus as a whole rather than office by office.
"We are committed to helping everyone, students, faculty and staff, to thrive at MVCC. So, we are really excited to be a National Launch Partner for this breakthrough approach to wellbeing."
— Dr. Randall VanWagoner, President, Mohawk Valley Community CollegeThe support network existed; the shared view did not
Before MVCC adopted inspo, powered by AgileBrain, counseling, career coaching, and advising were each working within their own office-specific processes. That created a broad support network, but not a single frame for understanding student wellbeing across the institution.
In other words, the college already had multiple mechanisms for helping students. What it did not yet have was a common way to compare those signals, connect them over time, and identify patterns that would only become visible when the campus viewed the data together.
AgileBrain helped MVCC see the intensity of need across the whole student population
MVCC rolled out inspo, powered by AgileBrain, as a multiple-touchpoint strategy across mental health counseling, career coaching, and student advising, aggregating student data into a dashboard administrators could use to spot issues and track progress campus-wide.
What that revealed was substantial. Health Center intakes — meaning new students flagged for counseling — showed the highest emotional intensity of any group on campus, with negative valence outweighing positive. In this population, 65% reported feeling unsafe or anxious, 63% felt bored or unable to focus, and 72% felt scorned. The data pointed to five specific motivational need gaps wider than the general student population: autonomy, immersion, success, caring, and justice.
A shared dashboard gave leaders a single operating picture
With emotional and motivational data aggregated across touchpoints, administrators gained a dashboard view into wellbeing across the full campus, not just within a single office. That gave them a way to spot specific issues and track progress over time.
The key difference was not simply more information. It was the ability to compare signals across offices and use the same language to describe what students were experiencing, rather than relying on isolated interpretations from individual teams.
Outcome evidence is still needed from the client team
"The mental health crisis on college campuses demands innovative solutions. Inspo, powered by AgileBrain, presents a promising approach with its engaging, gamified assessment method and personalized feedback. Both students and clinicians have reported positive experiences with inspo, appreciating its quick and insightful evaluations. Evidence supports its effectiveness, as seen in its initial launch and implementation at MVCC. As more institutions adopt inspo, we can anticipate improved detection and management of student distress, fostering more effective solutions and healthier and more supportive campus environments."
— Excerpt from Trustee Quarterly, Fall 2024, by Randy VanWagoner and Tony Colón, Trustee Chair