Mental and Behavioral Health
Harvard hosted a day-long conference entitled “Young, Gifted and Well” to promote discussion about mental health and wellness among students of color. The University collaborated with the Graduate School of Education, the School of Public Health, and the Steve Fund, an organization devoted to supporting the emotional well-being of young people of color. Provost Alan M. Garber said, “It’s a particularly acute issue for students of color, and for students of marginalized groups of all kinds. We increasingly recognize that we need to develop solutions that will address the very needs of our students in our University.” The sessions included “Cultural and Social Determinants of Mental and Emotional Health,” “Intersectionality and Mental Health,” “Reflections,” and “Promising Practices: How to Foster Well-Being in Students of Color.”
A staff editorial in the Wellesley News argues that prospective students deserve an honest discussion about the school’s shortcomings during their visits to the school this spring. According to the editorial staff, students hosting “prospies” should not sugarcoat the Wellesley experience, and that avoiding the negative aspects of the college is doing a disservice to the potential incoming class. The op-ed asserts that Wellesley has a lot of room to grow in terms of equitable services to students, particularly low-income students and students of color, and that mental health services could be stronger in many areas, including how staff deals with students returning from leaves of absence. According to the article, there is also an intense stress culture, one that the college has made worse through the harmful grade deflation policy.
According to preliminary findings released by a team of UC Berkeley researchers, the number of 18- to 26-year-old students who report suffering from anxiety disorder has doubled since 2008, perhaps as a result of rising financial stress and increased time spent on digital devices. Rates of anxiety disorder grew at higher rates for students who identified as transgender, Latinx and black, and they increased the closer all students got to graduation. The study also showed that young adults who spend more than 20 hours of leisure time per week on digital devices were 53 percent more likely to have anxiety than young adults who spend fewer than 5 hours a week on digital devices. And young adults who come from families that have trouble paying bills are 2.7 times more likely to have anxiety than students who come from families without those challenges.
Enriching Community Health Outreach, a nonprofit organization that addresses health inequities, held Mental Health Matters Awareness Night at University of California Los Angeles to educate students about mental health. The event featured David Choi, a Korean-American musician, and a panel of speakers from the Westside Los Angeles branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
The Associated Students of the University of Arizona Senate, UA’s undergraduate student governance body, adopted a resolution in support of mental health awareness. The resolution calls on ASUA and the university to fight stigmatization, increase wellness events on campus and support students with increased resources and inclusivity.
An editorial in the Oklahoma Daily touts Public Health Discussions, a University of Oklahoma student consultancy and awareness group dedicated to identifying and addressing public health issues on campus. The group has recently announced its new mental health educational online module and presentation, which is expected to be implemented by fall 2019. According to PHD, while there are alcohol and sexual assault training sessions on campus, there are currently no training modules provided to OU students that would educate them about mental health, something that was flagged in a recent campus survey showing that 84.93 percent of students surveyed were interested in an educational module and 82.29 percent were interested in an online resource guide. The new online educational module and peer-led presentation will explain what mental illness is, some myths about mental illness, what some common mental illnesses and their symptoms are and how to respond to crises.
A new study by researchers at Binghamton, State University of New York suggests that the adoption of one harmful behavior, such as heavy alcohol use, can lead college students into a vicious cycle of poor lifestyle choices, lack of sleep, mental distress and poor grades. For the study, over 500 students from various U.S. colleges completed an anonymous survey on academic performance, daytime sleepiness, substance use and mental distress. The findings show that low mental distress in college students was linked to no substance abuse, a responsible attitude toward learning and good academic efforts, high GPA (above 3.0) and limited daytime sleepiness. Mild mental distress was correlated with borderline work neglect and with a marginal negative link to grade-point average, and severe mental distress was linked to substance abuse (including excessive alcohol drinking), extreme daytime sleepiness, poor academic attitude and low GPA. Lina Begdache, assistant professor of Health and Wellness Studies at Binghamton University said, “Interestingly, we identified potential cyclic behaviors that associate with severe mental distress that are linked to a change in brain chemistry that supports substance abuse, poor academic attitude and performance, poor sleep patterns, and neglect of family and work. The novelty of these findings is that we are proposing, based on the neuroscience of these behaviors, that one action may be leading to another until a vicious cycle sets in.” According to Begdache, positive behaviors are reflective of a brain chemistry profile that supports mood and maturation of the prefrontal cortex of the brain.
Break the Silence, an Asian and Asian-American mental health conference at the University of Chicago was organized by the Taiwanese American Student Association, the South Asian Students Association, Active Minds, and the PanAsia Solidarity Coalition. The conference featured a panel of five Asian-American graduate students discussing the effects of Asian cultures on their personal struggles with mental health. One student, James Zhang, said that the stereotype of Asian Americans as a “model minority” induced a tremendous amount of stress for him. “Among Asian Americans, there is such a pressure to always be productive and studious,” Zhang said, “and I have such a guilt complex when I am not studying.” The panelists said that many Asian Americans are reluctant to seek help for mental illness since it has been a taboo subject in Asian-American communities.
Diversity and Inclusion
The Chronicle of Higher Education explores privilege in college admissions, which despite the attention that the recent admissions scandal has received, seldom crosses into the realm of criminality. It typically lies in a gray area that includes preferences for the children of alumni, a good word from the president, unpaid internships with the right professor, or better scores on admissions tests associated with higher family incomes. According to Anthony P. Carnevale, a labor economist, for the most selective institutions, the business model demands a steady stream of high-achieving, high-income students. Admitting those students, and rejecting a lot of others, drives up national rankings and creates a product that wealthy families are willing to pay for through tuition dollars, test preparation, and high-priced consulting. Joseph A. Soares, a Wake Forest sociology professor who has written about family income in admissions, said, “The whole system is a pay-for-play system. But that’s America.”
After more than three decades, University of North Carolina women’s basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell has resigned from the program. Her resignation followed an external review that found she made “racially insensitive” remarks, exercised “undue influence” on athletes to play while injured and lacked a connection with her players. An investigation was initiated after players and parents raised concerns about the women’s experiences and overall culture of the program. The review, which included interviews with 28 current players and personnel, determined that the 67-year-old “is not viewed as a racist, but her comments and subsequent response caused many in the program to believe she lacked awareness and appreciation for the effect her remarks had on those who heard them.” According to a report by The Washington Post, Hatchell was accused of making alarming references to lynching, telling players they could be “hanged from trees with nooses” if they performed poorly at an upcoming game.
Students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham gathered for a rally against hate last week after discovering that Michael B. Williams, who teaches microbiology lab courses as a teaching assistant, is (or was, as he claims) a member of the white-supremacist group Identity Evropa. Williams, in an interview with The Chronicle, said he had been pulled from the classroom for two weeks while the university investigated him for any possible criminal acts or violations of its code of conduct. But Williams, who denied being a white supremacist, said he had been cleared by investigators and allowed to resume teaching his courses. Williams told The Chronicle he had been a member of Identity Evropa for a year and a half, but he left the group recently to focus on his own life. Williams said he had never let his personal beliefs influence how he grades students. Students have expressed frustration not only with Williams’s views but with what some considered a muted response from university leaders. “He’s not the only one, so we can’t sit here and say this student is the issue,” said Arianna Villanueva, a student who was one of the event organizers. “The acceptance of this ideology is the issue, the lack of condemnation is the issue.”
Yale Law School announced this year that it will give financial support only for public-interest fellowships with employers that do not discriminate based on gender or sexual orientation in hiring. The announcement clarified the school’s long-standing nondiscrimination policy. The policy sparked a heated controversy, with some condemning the rule as discriminating against Christian groups while others praise it for protecting the school’s gay and transgender students. But it followed a contentious event on campus with a conservative Christian legal nonprofit, Alliance Defending Freedom, that had recently won a high-profile U.S. Supreme Court case in which a baker refused to make a cake for a gay couple’s wedding. The nondiscrimination policy elicited a national response: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) accused the school of trying to “blacklist Christian organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom and to punish Yale students whose values or religious faith lead them to work there.” He announced a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee would investigate the school’s policies on distributing grants.
Days after the Pentagon began carrying out its new policy barring transgender people from serving in the military, a transgender student at the University of Texas at Austin lost a scholarship he had received from the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Map Pesqueira, a first-year student, told The Daily Texan, the student newspaper, that his scholarship for the next three years was withdrawn because of the new policy. National media picked up the news, and prominent politicians began to protest. But officials at the U.S. Department of Defense say the student’s gender identity had nothing to do with the decision.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told a House panel that she is “not familiar” with affirmative action guidance for schools that the Trump administration rescinded last summer or with a major Supreme Court ruling on which portions of the guidance were based. In July, the administration rescinded several guidance documents issued by the Education and Justice departments under the Obama administration that called on colleges to consider race when diversifying their campuses.
Substance Use
A new study by the American Addictions Centers suggests that college students who use alcohol and other substances as a coping method for stress are at risk for addiction in the future.
Scripps College is ending its substance-free housing program for the 2019-20 academic year. Director of Campus Life Brenda Ice wrote in the email that “elements of the community will be incorporated into the wellness community,” a new residential community Scripps is launching next school year. Assistant dean of students Adriana Di Bartolo said via email, “The new option of a wellness [learning community] will be providing programming with a holistic wellness approach in which all students are encouraged to participate. We believe this will build a strong culture of wellness that can better support students who choose to be [substance]-free.” For the wellness community, Scripps is “seeking students who prioritize wellness in their daily lives,” but not specifically students who want a substance-free living environment, according to an email Ice sent to Scripps students.
College Affordability
Nearly 20 states are trying a new legislative tack to lure recent college graduates: paying off their student loans. The programs, many of which were adopted in the past four years, offer debt forgiveness as a perk of relocating. Many specifically tie loan payments to a given profession, aiming to address workforce shortages in fields ranging from nursing to teaching. The proliferation of student-loan repayment as a benefit or incentive reflects growing public anxiety that a generation of Americans are facing debt burdens that threaten their overall economic prospects.
On Monday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a 2020 Democratic candidate for President, released a comprehensive college-affordability plan that she believes could fix a fundamentally flawed system of paying for college. Warren criticized the government’s hands-off approach as affordable access to America’s universities declined. In a post on Medium, Warren wrote, “Rather than stepping in to hold states accountable, or to pick up more of the tab and keep costs reasonable, the federal government went with a third option: pushing families that can’t afford to pay the outrageous costs of higher education towards taking out loans.” To remedy this, she is calling for a series of ambitious proposals, including the cancellation of student debt, universal free public college, and greater support for minority and low-income students. Warren’s plan would eliminate almost all student loan debt for 42 million Americans, canceling $50,000 in debt for each person with household income under $100,000. The debt cancellation proposal would create a one-time cost to the federal government of $640 billion. According to Warren, the “entire cost” of the plans would be covered by her proposed 2 percent annual tax on families with $50 million or more, which she calls the “ultra-millionaire tax.”
