Samosa and chai with faculty at hostel, leisure events making student-residents to engage with each other beyond a regular scope of interactions and everyday stalls for animal, art or yoga therapy on campus — these will be some of the new activities by the Student Wellness Centre (SWC) at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay for mental well-being of students. As opposed to the current structure of the SWC which is focused at catering to counselling needs of students, the institute plans to bring a more proactive approach by making such activities regular on campus. The administration has also approved a new post of co-chairperson to SWC who will be responsible to dedicatedly look at finding ways of proactively helping students deal with pressure of any kind and allow more opportunities for them to socialise. Director of the institute, Prof. Shireesh Kedare, said, “At present, the SWC with professional psychologists on-board is working for counselling needs of students. We want to go beyond this and take up a proactive approach.” Talking about various activities that …