Set Apart, Together
BUILD Campus empowers students to confront grief, navigate loss, and reimagine how institutions respond to death.
What is BUILD Campus?
BUILD Campus is a chapter-based initiative empowering students to take bereavement seriously. Not just as an emotional experience, but as a civic and institutional reality.
A Meeting Place
Each chapter serves as a meeting place for students who have experienced personal loss, and for those who want to think more clearly about how death and grief are handled in campus life and beyond.
Flexible By Design
Chapters are flexible by design. Some may focus on peer dialogue. Others may host speakers, lead campus events, or advocate for better policies around bereavement. What unites them is a shared belief: that grief deserves structure, reflection, and a space within public life.
Not Therapy, But Structure
BUILD Campus is not a therapy group. It is a framework for leadership, inquiry, and cultural change—led by students, informed by loss, and grounded in the life of the university.
Why It Matters
60% of students will experience bereavement by the conclusion of their academic years.
— 2021 study, Journal of Research and Practice in College Teaching
Grief is universal. Yet most institutions are unprepared for it.
On college campuses, death is often treated as an outlier, as if students should simply “manage it” and move on. But over the course of an undergraduate degree, around 60% of students experience bereavement. Bereavement isn’t a detour from campus life. For many, it becomes a defining feature.
Students experiencing loss often find themselves navigating new academic challenges, strained relationships, and a lack of formal guidance—all while being expected to carry on as normal. Some find support. Most are left to improvise.
BUILD Campus exists because there is no common blueprint. There are no widely accepted norms. The structure is missing and that absence sends a message: that grief is too private to be integrated into public life.
We believe that message is wrong. And that students are capable of something better.
How It Works
BUILD Campus operates through student-led chapters, each shaped by the character of its school and the interests of its members.
Chapters may be started by one student or a small group. From there, students invite others to join and set the direction of their work, in collaboration with BUILDco.
Chapters are encouraged to use the unique resources of campus life—seminar rooms, guest speakers, faculty allies, research opportunities—to explore and elevate conversations around grief and death.
Each chapter is free to decide what it offers. Some may organize reading groups or public discussions. Others may host events on cross-cultural mourning, historical rituals, or institutional policy. Some may simply meet to reflect on personal experience in less structured settings.
BUILD Campus will also welcome chapters to contribute to BUILDco’s larger mission of improving how institutions support the bereaved.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Who is BUILD Campus for? Can anyone join?
A: BUILD Campus is open to any undergraduate who has experienced the death of someone personally significant to them—typically a family member, close friend, or mentor—at any point in their lives, including during their time as a student.
While many types of loss may be meaningful, BUILD Campus focuses on personal bereavement that carries lasting relational and institutional consequences. Our purpose is to support students navigating the complex terrain of deeply personal, human absence.
To that end, this does not include the loss of pets, public figures, or collective tragedies. Students experiencing distress over these events are encouraged to seek support through their university’s counseling services.
Q: Is this a support group or a place for therapy?
A: No. BUILD Campus is not a therapeutic group. It’s a space for reflection, conversation, and cultural inquiry. Some students may find it comforting, but its purpose is not counseling. Students seeking more formal therapy will be directed to their university’s counseling services.
Q: What does a chapter actually do?
A: That’s up to the students who lead it. But we envision chapters as cultural hubs for campus engagement with death and grief. Students may host seminars, lead discussions, or organize events exploring how grief is understood—not just in today’s America, but across cultures and time.
Some chapters may choose to operate more informally, focused on internal reflection without public-facing events.
Q: What kind of support does BUILDco provide its chapters?
A: In the early days of BUILD Campus, we may take a more hands-on approach with chapters. This won’t be to direct chapter missions, but to offer structure and guidance that helps build organizations capable of lasting impact.
Q: Can graduate students or faculty participate?
A: At this time formal participation is limited to undergraduate students. While graduate students may share the student label, the age range, life experience, and relational dynamics often differ in ways that can complicate the space.
At this time, faculty involvement will proceed through BUILDco’s formal dialogue with university officials. Students are welcome to nominate faculty members for consideration as informal supporters.
Want to start a BUILD Campus chapter at your university. Get in touch!
