Mental and Behavioral Health
A new study has built on existing research showing that excessive “helicopter” parenting makes children more fragile and unable to cope with the pressures of adulthood. The study, published this week, determined that helicopter parenting increased college students’ risk of depression and anxiety, and that developmentally appropriate parenting can increase wellbeing and independence.
A recent graduate details the many obstacles students can face when seeking help for mental health issues.
A new study suggests that the grueling nature of graduate programs can lead to a slow deterioration of mental health over the long term.
A recent study suggests that race and class discrimination can affect a patient’s access to mental health care, citing therapists who were less likely to accept new patients who were black or working class. The study comes after a year marked by protests calling for diversity among campus mental health counselors; later in the article, a University of Missouri student discusses the ongoing diversity efforts at the MU Student Health Center.
Diversity and Inclusion
University of Northern Colorado President Kay Norton acknowledged that the school’s bias-response team, which handles bias-related incidents, responded to a number of complaints in ways that violated free-speech rights. Norton said, “I think, perhaps, free expression was not considered as much as it should have been, and we’re going to attend to that.”
Marybeth Gasman, a professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions, spoke with the Chronicle about how majority-white institutions can design pathways for success for their students of all cultures and encourage them to explore and take hold of their identity.
Princeton’s Freshman Scholars Institute invites first-generation and low-income students to campus for an academic and social introduction prior to freshman orientation. The goals of the program are to “empower first-generation students to make Princeton work for them, and make the university more welcoming to students from diverse backgrounds.”
Is all diversity the same? Not so, according to two Dartmouth professors who conducted a study on the kinds of diversity students were most interested in seeing on campus. The researchers asked students to choose between two candidates for admission or for a faculty position. The candidates had a range of characteristics, including race, gender, academic record, and disciplinary interests. Given candidates who were otherwise equal, the students would choose a black, Native American and Latino applicant over white or Asian applicants, and women applicants over men. In general, the students “strongly preferred” disadvantaged students over “the affluent.”
A Gallup poll found that nearly two thirds of adult Americans oppose the recent Supreme Court decision supporting affirmative action in college admissions. Public support is higher for considerations such as athletic ability or legacy status than it is for race.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville will pay $2.48 million to settle a lawsuit brought by eight women who claimed the university showed bias towards athletes faced with sexual assault allegations. According to the settlement, six new positions will be added to address Title IX issues,and UT system President Joe DiPietro will appoint an independent commission to review the sexual-assault prevention programs and Title IX compliance system-wide.
As defamation lawsuits move forward on the Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus,” court documents reveal more about the retracted story including details of how the author took as fact deferred to her source’s account without having interviewed others involved.
In an attempt to avoid federal regulations like Title IX and those governing discrimination, some religious colleges and universities are forgoing federal funding altogether, despite the fact it prohibits their students from receiving federal financial aid in the form of Title IV.
Gun Violence
Three professors at the University of Texas at Austin filed a lawsuit against the school and the state on Wednesday, asking a federal judge to block the state’s “campus carry” law before students return to the school. The lawsuit claims that the new law forces the school to impose “overly-solicitous, dangerously-experimental gun policies” that violate the First Amendment by posing a threat to free speech; as well as the Second Amendment which calls for the ‘imposition of proper discipline and training,” something the “campus carry” policy does not include.
