Mental and Behavioral Health
Main Stories
The Chronicle features one approach to mental health support gaining popularity at universities around the country: having counselors work and live in residence halls alongside students. At Virginia Tech, these therapists, called “embedded counselors,” offer students easier access to services, as well as lighten the load for resident advisors, who might otherwise confront the full weight of students’ emotional challenges, especially during off-hours. Because embedded counselors are available after traditional counseling centers close, students can seek help during the evenings, including through impromptu drop-ins. “Often, students just want someone to talk to at a moment’s notice, to hear them out and help them problem-solve.”
Other News
Inside Higher Ed highlights Next Step, the outpatient program that allows Rutgers University students with complex emotional needs to receive intensive treatment without taking a leave of absence.
NPR spotlights the latest book from psychologist Jean Twenge, Generations, which discusses the relationship between increasing social media use among teens and their declining mental health.
For Higher Ed Dive, Scott Bass, professor and executive director of the Center for University Excellence at American University, offers several tips for how to improve the student experience, including by attending to their mental health.
Fast Company calls attention to how students themselves are leading the charge to address student mental health needs, from classes that mimic group therapy to more traditional peer support services.
In The Hill, Vermont Congresswoman Becca Balint advocates for The Peer Education and Emergency Response (PEER) for Mental Health Act, which would support mental health first aid training for teachers, parents, students, and more.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Debate over the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion in public higher education continues to surge around the country. In Florida, The Washington Post reports two bills that would “starve” these programs of funds are one step closer to fruition, having passed through state House and Senate committees. In Texas, The Texas Tribune finds that the Senate similarly passed a bill that would obstruct diversity training, statements, and funding. In Ohio, The Chronicle reveals a committee hearing for similar legislation attracted hundreds of detractors, including students, faculty, and staff.
The Chronicle profiles a number of college DEI leaders as they contend with impending legislation that threatens the very existence of their work. In an op-ed for Inside Higher Ed, Shaya Gregory Poku, the vice president for equity and social justice at Emerson College, describes how anti-DEI legislation is destructive to both the learning and overall wellbeing of all students, including but not limited to students with marginalized identities.
The College Board found itself embroiled in controversy earlier this year when it released a revised version of the curriculum for its Advanced Placement class in African American studies that omitted certain topics deemed concerning by prominent conservatives. Yet this week, The Washington Post reveals, the College Board released a new statement, “conceding missteps” and announcing plans to revise the course once again.
Academic Freedom
For The New York Times, the President of Brown University, Christina Paxton, decries state-led efforts spurred by concerns about “woke” indoctrination to restrict what students can learn in the classroom. “The ironic truth is that laws that prohibit the teaching of ‘divisive concepts’ are themselves attempts to indoctrinate students into seeing the world through one lens,” Paxton writes. “This is exactly the opposite of what colleges and universities should do.”
Student Buzz
The Yale Daily News explores the challenging decision some Yale applicants face regarding whether to disclose their histories with mental health challenges in their applications—and potentially risk rejection as a result.
The Yale Daily News also dives into the challenge of mental health care for Yale medical students, including how a peer advocacy program at the medical school aims to help by offering 24/7 support.
The Daily Princetonian considers the evolution of mental health care at the university over the last 100 years, since it was the first college to offer a “mental health-specific service” in 1910, to the pandemic’s recent impact.
The Editorial Board for The Daily Campus encourages University of Connecticut students to prioritize their mental health during final exams, while questioning the wider American higher education system for “exhaust[ing] all the resources a student has” and then putting the onus on them to care for themselves.
The Badger Herald considers how students are leading efforts to reform mental health supports on their University of Wisconsin-Madison campus after two recent student deaths.
Reproductive Justice
Higher Ed Dive reviews the results of a recent poll from the Lumina Foundation and Gallup, revealing the importance of access to reproductive care for students deciding where to attend college. Nearly 75% of current students and 60% of prospective students indicated state access to reproductive care to be important in their decision to remain enrolled or attend in the first place, respectively.
Student Success
Diverse Education features a new study from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, suggesting that the number of students who stopped out of college before receiving any degree or credential is on the rise. Specifically, by July, 2021, the number of these students reached 40.4 million students in the U.S., increasing by 3.6% since the previous year.
In the last year, several elite law and medical schools announced they would no longer participate in the U.S. News & World Report rankings due to concerns with the publication’s evaluation process. In response, U.S. News announced it would update its approach, although The Washington Post now finds “an unprecedented number of inquiries” about the system have delayed release of the rankings.
College Affordability
Parents are developing new data-informed resources for themselves and others to cut through the lack of pricing transparency and gain insight into how much their children’s college tuition will cost, The New York Times finds. In an attempt to manage costs, some families have taken to negotiating directly with colleges and their financial aid offices, The Wall Street Journal adds.
GBH sheds light on the challenge that many students from two-year colleges face when they seek to matriculate to four-year institutions: their credits don’t transfer. Indeed, certain four-year universities will accept few to zero credits from community colleges, leaving these transfer students feeling like they wasted significant time and money.
Campus Safety
Earlier this month, Harvard police officers responded to hoax claims that a woman was being attacked, arriving at a dorm room of four sleeping Black students and ordering them into the hallway at gunpoint. The Boston Globe covers the fallout, as dozens of Black student groups speak out against the university’s failure to address the severity of the event’s impact on Black students and their wellbeing. According to Inside Higher Ed, more than 20 instances of this type of “swatting” attack—a false crime report intending to incite SWAT team interference—have occurred on college campuses nationwide in recent weeks.
