Students bring lots with them when they come to college. Along with furnishings for their dorm rooms and dreams for the future, they also bring concerns, expectations, and past experiences that often challenge their well-being and threatens their academic success. If students try to manage these stressors with alcohol or other substance use, they may develop a cycle of unhealthy habits or addictions that follows them home and later into the workplace. Sometimes these issues may even follow their families for generations.
At the University of Mississippi (UM), the William Magee Institute for Student Wellbeing seeks to understand how best to prevent or break that cycle of unhealthy habits and addictions. Established in 2019 to serve Mississippi and beyond, the Institute honors the memory of William Magee, a UM honor student and SEC track athlete who lost his life to a drug overdose less than two years after graduation.