Mental and Emotional Health
STAT News reports on colleges’ struggles to keep up with the increasing demand for mental health services on campus. After surveying 50 schools, they found that wait times of over two weeks were common.
University of Alabama Student Government Association President Lillian Roth emphasized expanding mental health services and sexual assault prevention in her State of the School address. She promised to urge campus administration to include information on both topics on all syllabi and called for an increase in funds for the Women and Gender Resource Center, Title IX, and the Counseling Center.
Ursinus College in Pennsylvania opened a Relaxation Station on the third floor of the school’s library. The room, a collaboration between the wellness center and student government, will be a way for students to access a space for self care beyond traditional therapy.
Priya Sridhar, a freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill, founded the school’s first peer mental health ambassadors program. She hopes it will be an organization that brings together other mental health-focused groups on campus and presents to various clubs on campus. At Kansas State University, the school’s counseling center and student leaders are teaming up to create Peer Advocates for Mental Wellness and Success. The program, launched last week, will give presentations on mental wellness to groups around campus.
A survey of Williams College students found that 30 percent don’t know where to go for help if they have mental health issues during the semester. In the school’s paper, the Williams Record, the editorial board calls on the Dean’s Office to send an all-campus email outlining mental health resources and the accommodations available when a mental health issue arises.
Two counselors from North Carolina State University’s Counseling Center interviewed students about their experiences with suicide and created an eight-minute documentary called “#StopTheStigma.” “In America, we tend not to talk about death and we especially tend not to talk about suicide,” Daniel Goldstein, one of the filmmaking counselors, said. “There’s a lot of shame associated with it.”
At Indiana University, students can access counseling services in Spanish thanks to the school’s Unidos team, which is made up of Spanish-speaking doctoral students who are interested in Latino
mental health. “Everybody needs mental health services that value who they are, that value their cultural background, that aim to understand that,” said Dr. Ellen Vaughan, who helped create the team.
Diversity and Inclusion
University of Michigan Computer Science and Engineering undergraduate students received multiple racist emails last week from school email addresses. An anti-Semitic email was signed J. Alex Halderman, who is a professor of computer science and engineering and has been involved in research on election integrity and cybersecurity. In clarifying that the emails were not from him, Halderman wrote, “This appears to be a cowardly action by someone who is unhappy about the research that Matt and I do in support of electoral integrity. One of the emails ended with ”Heil Trump!!!!”
In a New York Times op-ed, Bard College President Leon Botstein joins others in higher ed who view the rhetoric and policies of the Trump administration as as a threat to American university’s core values. “The cause is not partisan,” he writes. “The cause is a democracy where citizens of the entire world are welcome, minorities are protected and dissent respected. Such a democracy is the only context in which research and learning and the pursuit of knowledge can thrive. The time to act together is upon us. The world must have no doubt about where the American university stands.”
As the Trump administration enters its third week, calls for universities to become sanctuary campuses have continued and in some cases become more urgent. Michael Roth, President of Wesleyan University, one of the first schools to define itself as a sanctuary campus, said, “The rhetoric of the Trump campaign was filled with threats of mass deportation and so a natural response to that was trying to find a way of expressing a refusal to cooperate with what was then described as a new deportation force.”
A program to provide small-dollar grants to help low-income students complete their degrees is being piloted at several public universities. The five year pilot project will use nearly $4 million in grant money from the Education Department to examine and develop completion aid programs.
Since President Trump signed the controversial executive order restricting immigration, interest from foreign students wishing to study in Massachusetts is down 17%, according to Dutch company StudyPortals, which operates websites for students looking at global options for college.
The Washington Post reported that at Central Michigan University, an anti-semitic Valentine’s Day card was handed out at a College Republicans Valentine’s Day party. School leaders say that the person responsible was not a student.
Yale President Peter Salovey announced on Saturday that the university would change the name of a residential college commemorating John C. Calhoun who is remembered as a white supremacist and slavery advocate. The college will be renamed for Grace Murray Hopper, a pioneering mathematician and computer scientist who helped transform the way people use technology.
The Trump administration decided not to challenge a nationwide injunction that has kept transgender students from using school bathrooms and other facilities that correspond with their gender identity.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
Although Columbia has a policy against students recording gender-based misconduct adjudication processes, the Columbia Spectator reports that it has not been strictly enforced. The anti-sexual assault activist group “No Red Tape” has been advocating for the school to eliminate the policy.
At Northwestern University, four female students claimed they were given a date-rape drug at a fraternity party last month; two of them believe they were sexually assaulted. Another incident involving date-rape drugs was reported this month.
Hours after Betsy DeVos was confirmed as Secretary of Education, anti-sexual assault advocacy groups at Harvard started preparing a public response. DeVos has donated thousands of dollars to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, an advocacy organization seeking to make it more difficult to punish college students accused of sexual assault. During her confirmation hearing, she indicated that enforcement of Title IX would change on her watch.
In an op-ed for the Daily Emerald, University of Oregon student Logan Marks writes on sexual assault within the LGBTQ+ community.
Three Michigan State University football players and one football team staff member were suspended because of a pending sexual assault investigation.
Hunger and Homelessness
Students at Ohio State University launched “Best Food Forward,” a food co-op that will sell fresh, affordable produce. The founders hope it will help alleviate the food insecurity that approximately 15 percent of OSU studs experience.
