At the start of this semester, Tulane University introduced Stella, a chatbot designed to support student well-being, to the entire student population. Last year, Stella was first rolled out to just first-year students. 

When students open Canvas, an internal window pops up prompting them to respond to a series of questions about their mental health. Stella, the chatbot asking the questions, then provides students with Tulane resources, like Success Coaching or Campus Health, based on their answers. 

“We brought Stella to Tulane in alignment with Wave of Support’s mission which is to just help every Tulane student better care for themselves and for each other,” Program Manager Samantha Bruce said. “And one key component of that is kind of redefining how we ask the question, how are you?”

Recently, Stella was updated to check in with students once every two weeks. When Stella checks in with a student, it asks two questions. Specifically, “How are you?” and, “What makes you feel that way?”

Students can choose to reach out to support staff through the Stella chatbot. If students choose to do so, then they will be asked to consent to sharing their information. In that case, a member of the support staff will reach out to the student.

“Our support team is a team of trained staff members,” Bruce said. “From success coaches to advisors to program managers.”

If a student indicates that they are feeling poorly three weeks in a row then one of the trained staff members will reach out to the student. When this occurs, the support staff does not have identifying information. Students can choose to consent to share their information when this occurs. However, it’s completely up to the student.

“I’ve had good interactions with students who have reached out and I really take that part of my job seriously to support our students,” Bruce said. “So if anyone has feedback please, we want to make this better.”

Students also have the option to snooze Stella for one, 12 or 24 hours. The chatbot would disappear for the selected amount of time before checking back in with the student. 

“With Wave of Support, we take a holistic approach to student support through the eight dimensions of wellness,” Bruce said. “So we have everything from the [Academic Tutoring and Learning Center] to Success [Coaching] to Campus Health. It just depends on how the student responds.”

Stella, a product of GydEd.me, was founded by Sebastian Thomas along with his co-founder, Simon Norrman straight after college. Thomas said he saw the stigma around seeking mental health support and that students may not know how to use the resources their university provides.

“We wanted to kind of fix a problem that we saw during our studies, which is that students, a lot of them, feel really badly, despite putting on a brave face,” Thomas said.