In light of the growing “student mental health crisis” and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the field of Computer Science (CS) must address student mental health concerns as it seeks to become more welcoming and accessible to students of all identities and abilities. As these concerns are often related to CS courses, it is necessary to get a sense of instructors’ current perspectives before we can understand how to address them: do CS instructors feel responsible for supporting student mental health? do they actually consider it when designing their courses? how do these answers vary depending on instructor demographics?

To answer these questions, we conducted a nationwide survey in which 69 CS faculty members shared their perspectives on student mental health. Although a majority of respondents are concerned about student mental health and feel responsible for supporting it, only around half actually do consider it when designing their courses. Further analysis reveals that instructors who identify as living with a mental health condition, women, and faculty members with less than 10 years of experience feel more responsible for supporting student mental health, indicating that there may be significant variations in faculty perspectives on this topic.