The Roommate Lottery
For the latest issue of the Mary Christie Quarterly, our cover story explores how colleges approach pairing first-year roommates and the impact their strategies have on student wellbeing. While some schools give students the option to select their own roommate, others have changed their policies in recent years to assign every student a roommate—often at random. “The Roommate Lottery” probes whether assigning first-year roommates leads to better outcomes compared to letting students choose for themselves. More than that, it considers whether schools can or should be responsible for ensuring these conflict-free experiences in the first place. “When it comes to first-year residential life,” we ask, “can any one approach offer students the social-emotional growth they may need without risking potentially more harmful outcomes they don’t?”
Mental and Behavioral Health
Main Stories
The Catalyst, the student newspaper for Colorado College, discusses the fallout on campus after yet another student death—the third in just six months. While the cause of this most recent tragedy is unknown, The Gazette reveals, the first two were the result of suicide. Student leaders are coming together to propose several demands, including the establishment of mental health days, to improve the culture of wellness at CC. During Family Week last weekend, students distributed fliers to call attention to the community’s outstanding mental health problems.
More universities are hiring crisis response teams to work in partnership with campus police, The Chronicle reports. At Oregon State University, professionals trained in de-escalation can now report to the scene of non-violent emergencies, including addiction or mental health crises. In part, these collaborative approaches are responding to community and nation-wide demands to disband campus police departments. They recognize that some students, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds, have had negative encounters with law enforcement and may respond more positively to crisis responders or counselors.
Other News
The Editorial Board of The Harvard Crimson writes this week about a new set of mental health initiatives on campus, stressing the need for a larger cultural shift to address the ongoing campus crisis.
For The Daily Pennsylvanian, the University of Pennsylvania student newspaper, one columnist suggests a poorly communicated merger of the school’s counseling and health services departments reflects the dysfunctional relationship between counseling services and the student body.
Pitt News, the University of Pittsburgh student newspaper, reports on the challenges of fielding the mental health needs of students at a university of its size (i.e., nearly 20,000 undergraduates).
According to The Bowdoin Orient, Bowdoin College’s student newspaper, the former Division I volleyball player and social media mogul, Victoria Garrick Browne, visited campus to speak about mental health concerns for college athletes.
A Middlebury College student argues in The Middlebury Campus that the administration has not made substantive changes to the school’s mental health infrastructure since a student died as a result of suicide last fall.
In an op-ed for The Tulane Hullabaloo, the Tulane University student newspaper, one writer urges administrators and professors to institute new measures in the interest of student mental health: mental health days, thoughtful exam scheduling, outside classes.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports Temple University gave students the day-off last Friday, becoming one of the latest colleges to grant a wellness day intended to provide students a stress-free break from their normal routines.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Inside Higher Ed announces the release of two new reports from Common Application which aim to provide a more nuanced understanding of diversity among college applicants of the same race. In findings that help refute sweeping racial stereotypes, researchers found significant differences between applicants of the same race in terms of individual resources, college readiness, and application behavior.
According to The New York Times, Stanford University released a new report this week attesting to the fact that the school limited the admission of Jewish students throughout the 1950s. The university is one of many, including Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth, to uphold these antisemetic practices. Up until now, the university has denied its part in them.
For trans college students, the fear of being “deadnamed,” or referred to by a birth name they have since changed, can impede personal and academic success. Those who have not yet changed their name legally—a potentially lengthy process—risk being misnamed in their “school portal” or on their school I.D. The Washington Post highlights different measures schools are taking to ease these concerns.
The Chronicle suggests that more colleges are instituting programs in the interest of supporting students with autism, although only around 100, mostly four-year colleges offer these programs to date. Of the almost 50,000 annual high school graduates with autism, less than a third may matriculate to higher education, as of 2015. But as autism becomes better understood, more colleges are willing and prepared to accommodate the needs of students with the disorder.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
The New York Times reveals that Michigan State president Samuel Stanley Jr has resigned after barely three years in office. His departure comes at the request of university board members, who accused him of wrongly dismissing a business school dean for not reporting an instance of sexual misconduct. According to The Chronicle, the Michigan State case illustrates the tensions that continue—without signs of stopping—to dominate the relationships between university administrations and their boards.
After a female student was attacked at the University of Pittsburgh, a petition to increase campus security circulated online, drawing 6,000 signatures and 100 bodies to an in-person protest. Backlash ensured, however, when the university granted those measures, and students criticized the expansion of policing on campus. The Chronicle suggests the situation reflects “the challenges of social-media fueled campus activism,” whose ability to spread quickly can make it effective but also lead to rash decisions.
Student Success
In what it calls the latest indicator of pandemic-induced educational setbacks, The Associated Press reports that this year’s ACT scores were lower than they have been in over three decades. The average score for 2022 graduates was 19.8 out of 36, falling below 20 for the first time since 1991. And while concerns persist that standardized tests particularly negatively impact low-income and minority students, The Hechinger Report calls attention to the challenges for admissions offices at newly test-optional schools to make decisions without scores.
Inside Higher Ed suggests higher ed leaders are anxiously awaiting the latest data on enrollment trends, after contending with widespread decline throughout the pandemic. While some are hopeful that numbers are back on the rise, they remain uncertain whether they can return to pre-pandemic levels. For the Pennsylvania State System, which officially merged several institutions in July, Higher Ed Dive reveals overall enrollment continues to trend down, while first-year enrollment went up this fall.
For The Chronicle, Leslie Berntsen, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Southern California, looks back on her experience as a student of Maitland Jones Jr, the NYU professor The New York Times reported was fired because students were performing poorly in his class. Berntsen then shares several tips for faculty interested in promoting student success, encouraging them to “break the cycle” of traditional teaching methods and recognize that a more forgiving style can still be rigorous.
College Affordability
A new report from Morning Consult reveals that 77% of Americans believe it would be difficult to pay college tuition “for someone like them.” 82% of women compared to 73% of men called college unaffordable, while 80% of Black, 78% of Hispanic, and 77% of white respondents said college was unaffordable. Higher Ed Dive discusses how these results might reflect a wider lack of faith in the worthwhileness of college.
According to The Washington Post, starting this week, borrowers can apply for student debt relief through a “beta test” of the website for Biden’s relief program. The Education Department will then begin processing applications after the website’s official launch later this month. At the same time, The Post covers continuing efforts in Republican-led states to pursue lawsuits and prevent Biden’s relief plan from coming to fruition.
In an op-ed for The Chronicle, professors Jason Houle and Fenaba Addo write about the racial disparities present in student loan debt, arguing that Black borrowers are disproportionately impacted. “We found that, by age 25, Black college-going young adults reported nearly double the amount of debt of their white counterparts. Put in dollar values, if the average white debtor owed $22,000, we would expect a comparable Black young adult to owe $43,516,” state Houle and Addo, from their forthcoming book A Dream Defaulted: The Student Loan Crisis Among Black Borrowers.
Basic Needs
Diverse Education reports on how the New Jersey state legislation may be able to help address campus food insecurity. The state’s senate has proposed a bill that would eliminate the 20-hour work requirement for college students that are recipients of the New Jersey Education Opportunity Fund and are seeking SNAP benefits. The bill is awaiting approval from The General Assembly Human Services Committee. Some students argue that the bill’s language should include all college students that need financial aid. According to a 2020 study from the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice at Temple University, 29% of students are food insecure.
Physical Health
Inside Higher Ed reports on Fordham University’s COVID-19 booster requirement drawing backlash. The university is requiring students to have proof of the bivalent booster by November 1st. A group of parents are protesting the mandate and have gathered close to 1,200 signatures in a petition addressed to the college president.
Campus Safety
Inside Higher Ed reports on a professor’s murder by a former student, raising concerns on campus safety. Last week, professor and chair of hydrology and atmospheric sciences Thomas Meixner was killed in an office building at the University of Arizona. While the former graduate student had a record of concerning behavior leading to his expulsion, officials warn that the accessibility and openness of university campuses can make spaces vulnerable to dangerous events.
