Wayhaven in the Spotlight: The Wellness Octave Podcast

Wayhaven Co-Founder and Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Ashleigh Golden joined Dr. Kell Fujimoto, Senior Director of Wellness at San Francisco Bay University, on Episode 17 of The Wellness Octave, part of the EdUp Experience network, to talk about AI and the future of student wellness.

The two go back further than the mic: Dr. Golden completed an advanced practicum down the hall from Dr. Fujimoto at San José State University's counseling center.

Their conversation covered what separates campus-specific AI from the general-purpose chatbots that students are already using: roughly 1 in 4 college-age young adults have turned to AI chatbots for mental health advice, and about 2 in 3 told no one (McBain et al., 2026). Against that backdrop, they discussed what a fit-for-purpose tool requires: knowledge of the campus itself, evidence and clinicians behind the build, and robust guardrails designed for the quiet, everyday risks as well as the rare acute ones.

Dr. Golden described how Wayhaven sits upstream of clinical care, helping students manage everyday stressors, build and practice skills outside the app, and get connected to the counseling center, peer support, tutoring, and basic needs resources that already exist on their campus, and what counselors and campus leaders should ask of any AI tool before it reaches their students.

Her bottom line: students are already asking AI for directions at 1 a.m.; the question is whether the tool knows their campus well enough to walk them to the right door.

The Wellness Octave explores the eight dimensions of wellness with leaders across higher education. Watch Episode 17 here and follow the series for more conversations on health, higher ed, and student success.

Reference

McBain, R. K., Cantor, J. H., Breslau, J., Diliberti, M., Zhang, L. A., Zhang, F., Burnett, A., Kofner, A., Rader, B., Pataranutaporn, P., Stein, B. D., Mehrotra, A., & Yu, H. (2026). AI chatbot use and disclosure for mental health among US adolescents and young adults. JAMA Pediatrics, 180(8), 884–890. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2026.2015