Student Voices: The Time We Wish We Had
In a new op-ed, Harvard senior, Mollie Ames, writes about returning to college after nearly two years of studying remotely. She narrates a common experience being shared by many seniors across the country this fall: reflection from living at home, the pandemic’s reel of relative uncertainties, and the gap seniors are coming to terms with from not having been able to truly discover their passions during their middle college years.
“Like many current seniors, I spent my junior year learning from home, disconnected from my best friends and favorite professors but also perhaps less affected by some of the anxieties that tend to preoccupy upperclassmen nearing the end of college. Still, just as having space from those concerns may have been liberating in the moment, returning to campus and coming to terms with them as a senior has, at times, left me feeling overwhelmed and underprepared.”
Mental and Behavioral Health
Main Stories
Inside Higher Ed reports on the expansion of virtual mental health services being offered to college students as institutions return to in-person operations. The pandemic has left many students struggling with their mental health with heightened levels of stress, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion. New digital telehealth, virtual counseling, and self-guided tools, online journaling, progress trackers, and interactive modules are helping to mitigate the college student mental health crisis. For students living out-of-state or off campus, university counseling directors discuss the benefits of confidentiality, accessibility, and more.
An editorial for The Boston Globe advocates for schools to meet students’ mental health needs as they return to in-person learning. Speaking primarily of K-12, the article states: “School officials have an equally difficult yet crucial task for which failure cannot be an option: providing effective mental health services in every school to give students care they need more than ever after nearly two years of upheaval caused by the pandemic.” Chief executive officer at the Brookline Center for Community Mental Health said, “We know for a fact that one of the primary drivers of absenteeism in schools is mental illness. And we know that high absenteeism leads to poorer outcomes.”
Other News
Valley News interviews student athletes at Dartmouth College on their mental health struggles and having to juggle academics at an elite level, especially after a challenging year.
Researchers at the University of Michigan published a new study on graduate student mental health. The study, which was co-authored by Daniel Eisenberg from the Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, and co-Principal Investigator of the Healthy Minds Network, includes changes that can be made to alleviate mental health stress for academic scientists.
The Daily Gazette covers the rise in mental health concerns as students return to school. School staff members at Schenectady Central School District are focusing on building a sense of community through relationship building.
A 19-year-old in long-term substance abuse recovery is hoping to “pay it forward” to deter other teens from substance abuse. Gavin Nelson shares his story and path to recovery with other teens in efforts to “hopefully save one person’s life.”
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
In an op-ed for The Hechinger Report, President of Loyola University New Orleans, Tania Tetlow, J.D., writes about the gender imbalance occurring at many college campuses, citing that 59% of college students are female. To create a balance, Tetlow argues to “start the pipeline earlier by teaching boys it’s cool to do well in school” and counter gender norms. “We encourage resilience in boys, but possibly by teaching them not to reach out when they need help. And by entertaining them with tales of violence rather than stories of navigating relationships, we hobble their ability to navigate the world,” says Tetlow.
In an op-ed for Diverse Education, journalist Emil Guillermo writes about telling his own diversity story for Harvard alumni of color for the upcoming Unity weekend, which will celebrate and connect younger generations of color with older alums. He shares his story by saying, “Less than ten years after the Civil Rights Act, I was a Filipino American, the son of an immigrant, an Asian American with an Hispanic last name. Race, however, was all Black and white. Harvard didn’t know what to do with me.”
Sexual Assault and Title IX
The New York Times reports that San Jose State University is to pay a settlement of $1.6 million to 13 students in a sexual assault case. Investigations conducted by the Justice Department found that former athletic trainer Scott Shaw had inappropriately touched 23 student-athletes. The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department confirmed that the university failed to respond sufficiently to reports against the trainer for more than a decade, and that despite repeated allegations, the students continued experiencing further sexual harassment. Additionally, the department found that the university had retaliated against two employees in the athletic department who reported Shaw’s misconduct.
The Chronicle reports that on Monday and Tuesday, thousands of people protested outside of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Kansas after a student was sexually assaulted this past weekend. Students demanded that the organization be permanently banned. An online petition on Change.org has gathered over 18,000 signatures, and states, “We are trying to make our Greek system and University of Kansas a safer place.”
Student Success
Higher Ed Dive examines the role the SAT and ACT will play in college admissions after the newly published U.S. News and World Report’s Best Colleges rankings. Nearly three-quarters of bachelor’s degree-granting schools are continuing with test-optional practices for the Fall 2022 admissions cycle. Critics of standardized testing say such practices favor privileged students and removing test scores from the admissions process would increase diversity efforts for college campuses.
A new Student Voice survey from College Pulse shows that the pandemic has had a role in changing students’ career plans. The study, which surveyed 2000 college sophomores, juniors, and seniors, found that one in four students reported that the pandemic has led them to change what they want to do after graduation as well as the time in which they complete their degree. Respondents wrote about how the pandemic made them either want to pursue or turn away from medical and education fields. One student wrote, “After seeing the hardships and dismissal of their professional opinion that physicians faced during the pandemic, I decided that was not the role I wanted to play in health care after all.” About 65% of students said they were satisfied with their career centers.
College Affordability
New data from the latest “College Scorecard” shows ratings of specific college programs and their recent graduates’ returns on their investments. According to federal data, nearly 43 million students owe $1.6 trillion in student debt. The study asks students to consider their tuition debt in two categories: a “highly worthwhile educational investment” versus a “financially hazardous malinvestment.” “You can identify poor-performing programs at good institutions and exempt good-performing programs at poor institutions,” said Andrew Gillen, senior policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Policy and Politics
A new Texas law may impose restrictions on student voting. Senate Bill 1 will change accessibility measures by banning “unsolicited distribution of mail-in ballot applications,” as well as 24-hour and drive-thru voting. The Republican-led legislation will go into effect prior to next year’s state elections. Texas law already prevents mail-in voting from people over the age of 65, anyone out of the county on Election Day, and from those with a disability or illness that prevents them from voting in person. Critics say the new voting law may disproportionately affect students, low-income populations, and marginalized identities.
Basic Needs
The Chronicle features how Amarillo College has doubled its graduation rate by asking students about their basic needs. Every semester, the community college sends an email that surveys students on their access to food, secure housing, transportation, and childcare to better accommodate resources. Amarillo College’s Vice President for Strategic Initiatives, Cara Crowley, says the college administers the surveys in-house. As a result, the college has received a return on its investment.
Coronavirus: Safety and Reopening
Inside Higher Ed reports on the growing dilemma college campuses are facing in whether they can, and to what degree, police religious exemption requests for the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Last week, students at Creighton University in Nebraska filed a lawsuit against the school for refusing religious exemptions to the vaccination mandate. Other colleges are navigating similar issues and questions on the boundaries of their legal territory. Law professor Dorit Rubinstein Reiss says, “Policing religious exemptions easily gets caught into the business of policing conscience and governing the way people practice religion, and that’s a really dangerous area for universities to step into.”
In light of inclining vaccination mandates, colleges are remaining hopeful as vaccine compliance steadily increases at larger universities. Earlier in the summer, administrators, such as those at Stockton University in New Jersey, worried about achieving an adequate percentage of vaccine compliance from their institutions’ student body population. Some schools placed stricter consequences, including disenrolling students who failed to upload proof of their vaccination cards, while others placed penalty fees in policy guidelines, or administrative withdrawal for noncompliance to surveillance testing.
