Mental and Behavioral Health
A new program at Marquette University called Student Health Allies and Peer Educators (SHAPE), focuses on raising awareness of mental health issues among student athletes. Alex Gambacorta, a Marquette alumni and former lacrosse player, said of the program, “The point of it is to connect our peers to resources on campus. We’re not experts, we’re not here to solve anything. We’re just trying to point people in the right direction, if they’re in crisis or feel like they need to talk to someone.”
Duke University is one of seven campuses nationwide to receive the Healthy Campus Award from the nonprofit organization Active Minds. The honor is given to colleges that provide resources for all types of student health and give equal priority and investment to mental health as to physical health. The award comes after the construction of the new 72,000-square-foot Student Wellness Center on West Campus, which houses Student Health, Counseling and Psychological Services, DuWell, a pharmacy, a mindfulness garden, meditation classes and even a piano.
Oregon athletes are trying to normalize mental health conversations in athletics through a campaign called “Duck The Stigma.” The idea for the campaign was borne from an Oregon Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) mental health panel this spring where five student-athletes shared their battles with mental health in front of 70 Oregon student-athletes.
Data from a recent study suggest that sleep paralysis and dream-like hallucinations as you are falling asleep or waking up are widespread among student athletes, and are independently associated with symptoms of depression. This study is the first to examine the relationship between these sleep symptoms and mental health in student athletes.
University of Wisconsin-Madison student Conlin Bass founded the Bandana Project to raise awareness about mental health resources. Bass handed out more than 3,000 bright green bandanas in just a few years. Each of those bandanas comes with resource cards, listing places to call if someone is struggling and ways to talk someone through a difficult situation. The bandanas signify that a person not only has the resource cards, but also is there to support their peers. Bass hopes the project will normalize the conversation around mental health.
Diversity and Inclusion
Amarillo College, a community college on the Texas Panhandle, has made poverty among its students a key priority. The college runs a food pantry and an emergency fund that is used to cover bills, such as a car-repair or water bill, that might otherwise cause students to drop classes or out of school completely. The school runs a legal-aid clinic, offers free mental-health counseling (unusual in the community-college world), and has social workers on staff to counsel students through financial crises. Last fall it debuted a low-cost day-care center. Administrators are now working on an alert system that flags incoming students who are at high risk of struggling academically, and assigns professors to reach out to them before trouble hits. College leaders across r the country are watching to see how these efforts are impacting students of poverty.
After 11 years as Harvard University’s president, Drew Gilpin Faust, is stepping down this summer. During her tenure, the university undertook a major expansion of financial aid for middle-income families and eliminated loans from aid packages, enabling the university to recruit students from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. “It’s more open and diverse,” Faust said of the school. “That’s a real demographic shift, with implications for how we teach.” According to Faust, there is still more work to be done in this area. She says the school must help underprivileged students take fullest advantage of the opportunities at Harvard, and make them feel they are truly part of campus life.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said last week that he will donate $375 million to a variety of education initiatives nationwide over the next five years, with the broad goal of better preparing students to enter college or the workforce. Bloomberg Philanthropies is a main backer of the American Talent Initiative, a group of 100 top colleges and universities aiming to increase the number of low-income students they admit and graduate. It also supports CollegePoint, a virtual advising service that helps low-income students navigate the college admissions and financial aid process.
Santa Clara County community college is considering proposed affordable housing that would be placed on community college campuses for students and extremely-low income locals alike. SCC Supervisor Cindy Chavez said that she met with presidents and chancellors of every community college district in the county recently about their biggest obstacles and the resounding issue was affordable housing. As housing prices in the area continue to rise, Chavez is proposing a partnership between the county and interested districts to put reasonably-priced units on the colleges’ land.
Nolan L. Cabrera, an associate professor in the University of Arizona’s Center for the Study of Higher Education is working on a book called White Guys on Campus based on more than 100 interviews with college men. In an interview in the Chronicle, Cabrera discussed his finding that white male students often refrain from commenting on matters of race publicly, but are eager express their opinions about affirmative action, racially themed jokes, and perceived racism against white people in a research setting. Cabrera told the Chronicle, “For social progress to occur, it’s not absolutely necessary for every white guy on campus to change, to have a racial awakening. We offer them opportunities to participate in a larger anti-racist program. If they’re wholly resistant, that’s fine. We will make social progress with or without them.”
Two recent reports provide a view in the experience of Pell Grant recipients, a group that make up about a third of all undergraduate students in the U.S. The new data showed that Pell Grants are covering a decreasing proportion of college costs. In the 1980s, the maximum Pell Grant would provide about two-thirds of average college costs. In 2016-17, it covered only 25 percent. Additionally, the data show a major wealth gap when it comes to higher education in America. For-profit colleges, community colleges and two-year public programs often have higher percentages of Pell-eligible students. Four-year institutions with competitive admissions, have a much lower percentage of Pell-eligible students. Additionally, the data show a gap between Pell and non-Pell students. Nationally, Pell students graduate at a rate of 18 percentage points less than their peers, 49 percent vs. 67 percent. Meanwhile, in the Washington Post, Andrew Howard Nichols, senior director of higher education research and data analytics for the Education Trust and J. Oliver Schak, a senior research analyst for higher education at the Education Trust, argue that more data on Pell Grants could help bridge the graduation gap by identifying what is working and what needs improvement.
Walmart announced this week that it would offer associate and bachelor’s-degree programs in business and supply-chain management at three colleges to 1.4 million of its employees based in the United States. The employees’ cost would be $1 a day.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
Los Angeles police said on Tuesday that they had launched a criminal investigation into accusations that a gynecologist at the University of Southern California engaged in sexually inappropriate conduct with students over a 26-year period.
Sexual Health
In a presentation at the American College Health Association annual meeting, David Reitman, medical director of the student health center at American University, discussed the HIV prevention drug PrEP and its use on college campuses. According to Reitman, university health centers have begun serving as a more frequent dispenser of this sometimes controversial drug, which is 99% effective if taken every day. However, colleges and universities often don’t prescribe it because they don’t know about it, or are misinformed. Reitman stresses many students should be considered for the drug.
A program at the University of Michigan gives students who say they’ve been sexually assaulted a rape kit rather than sending them to the local hospital, which administrators say makes survivors feel more comfortable and shows a commitment to these kinds of issues. At the annual American College Health Association conference, representatives from Michigan walked through the benefits of offering sexual assault nurse examiners, or SANE, at the campus clinic. The nurses are specially trained to conduct sensitive exams after a sexual assault, and to do it in a way that makes the survivor feel comfortable.
Greek Life
In a joint op-ed in the Washington Post, Eric Barron, the president of Pennsylvania State University and Jim Piazza, the father of Timothy Piazza, who died after a fraternity bid party at Penn State in 2017, call for the creation of a national database to put a spotlight on what’s really happening inside many Greek-letter organizations.
Student Success
The Chronicle detailed five of the most popular programs and initiatives to improve first-year retention – some well-established and some relatively new. The article indicated high attrition rates among freshmen are due to a variety of factors. First-year students drop out because they aren’t prepared for college-level work, because they’re working long hours to cover tuition, because they face a family crisis or because they don’t feel that they fit in. While institutions traditionally relied on a single program to promote success and prevent dropout among freshman students, they’re now taking a holistic approach to retention, stitching together multiple solutions.
San Francisco State University and City College of San Francisco are helping recent high school graduates who are not considered academically ready for higher education to graduate college on time. The Metro College Success Program combines student services with a curriculum that emphasizes social justice as a way to improve student retention and completion.
