Mental and Behavioral Health
Minnesota State University Moorhead is closing its clinic, pharmacy and medical lab next month, reopening as MSUM Counseling Services. Of the shift to only provide emotional and mental health services, Brenda Amenson-Hill, vice president of enrollment management and student affairs, writes, “We’re making this change to meet the increasing need for emotional/mental health services for our students, and to be good stewards of university financial resources.”
To help students maintain their mental health, the University of Virginia supports meditation and mindfulness through various resources on campus. The Contemplative Sciences Center, Counseling and Psychological Services and the School of Medicine each offer different courses and programs in these areas. CAPS provides weekly mindfulness group sessions and integrates mindfulness into several of its groups, such as Hoos Stress Less and Dialectical Behavior Theory-based skills group. The School of Medicine’s Mindfulness Center offers a number of classes and programs to help individuals develop a consistent meditation practice, such as the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) classes.
In the Chicago Maroon, Livia Miller representing Fair Budget UChicago (FBU), a campaign within UChicago Student Action, writes that the University of Chicago administration must provide better funding for student counseling services, especially at a school of such intense academic rigor. Miller writes that students often complain about months-long wait times and being refused long-term resources like therapy. According to Miller, the Student Counseling Service is understaffed and with overworked counselors in such demand, it’s clear more funding is necessary. According to Miller, FBU has been working to hold the university administration accountable in their construction and staffing of a new Student Wellness Center. Miller writes, “Fair Budget UChicago is calling on our administrators to publicly commit to broadening the staff of the counseling center, including specialists trained in trauma-informed practice, and with specific areas of expertise, along with establishing points of communication between administrators and the student body. In addition, FBU demands improvements to emergency protocols, and that wait times are lowered to a maximum of two weeks for all care.”
Diversity and Inclusion
The College Board‘s announcement of the new Environmental Context Dashboard, which includes an “adversity score” for each applicant who takes the SAT, was met with sharp criticism from the higher education community. Last week, the College Board hosted a webinar to clear up some misunderstandings about the tool. The Chronicle of Higher Education summarized the key takeaways, including the assertion that the term “adversity score” is problematic and misleading, and that the dashboard is not meant to be a revolutionary tool. The Chronicle also sought to give more context to the decision, noting that at least some participating colleges report that the dashboard has helped them admit more disadvantaged applicants. The New York Times reports that, “The decision to give students who take the SAT test a numerical rating that reflects the challenges they have overcome in life is the most telling sign yet that universities across the country are searching for ways to diversify their classes without considering race or ethnicity.”
According to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center, the number of low-income undergraduates has increased “dramatically” over the two decades from 1996 to 2016, and now makes up nearly a third of the overall student population. Using data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, Pew researchers found that community colleges and the least-selective four-year colleges have seen the greatest rise in poor and minority students. The most selective, private four-year institutions have not seen as much of an increase. The report also found that more nonwhite undergraduates are attending college across the board, and low-income students are just as likely to take out student loans as are other undergraduates. However, the Atlantic reported that new data released by the National Center for Education Statistics shows a 50-percentage-point gap in college-going rates between students who come from the highest-earning families and the lowest earning. Of students who entered ninth grade in 2009, 78 percent of those from the wealthiest 20 percent of families were enrolled in college seven years later (in 2016), whereas just 28 percent of students from the lowest quintile were.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
Under new legislation approved in Texas, college and university employees who learn about and fail to report complaints of sexual harassment, assault, dating violence, or stalking could face criminal charges. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Joan Huffman, a Republican from Houston, would also make it a crime to file a false report about such incidents. It would apply to employees at both public and private colleges. Employees could also be fired for failing to promptly report such incidents to their Title IX administrators. Texas is the latest state aiming to crack down on people who look the other way when incidents of sexual misconduct occur. The issue gained urgency and bipartisan support in recent years when Baylor University was rocked by scandal over complaints that it had turned a deaf ear to women’s reports of sexual assaults, many involving football players.
In an op-ed in the Daily Trojan, Sumaya Hussaini argues that the University of Southern California must proactively provide more sexual violence protection services, such as rape kits, and create a rape treatment center on campus. Now What, an organization created by five USC alumnae, started an online petition in early May requesting that the University hire a sexual assault nurse examiner and educate the student body on the available resources on campus. According to Hussaini, while the University has taken some steps in the right direction, it has not done nearly enough to adequately protect survivors of sexual violence or display its commitment to preventing sexual violence.
Confidential records released this week show decades of warnings to the University of Southern California about Dr. George Tyndall, the longtime campus gynecologist accused of sexually abusing hundreds of students. The documents span the entirety of Tyndall’s career at USC, including a handwritten complaint in 1990 about a “rude” exam and a lengthy expert analysis in 2016 that posited the gynecologist had “underlying psychopathy.” Among the revelations is that USC was told in that expert report that Tyndall appeared to be targeting international students from Asian countries. This has been a particularly sensitive issue for USC, which has aggressively courted Chinese students and donors.
This month at Princeton University, hundreds of student protesters participated in a campaign to change how their institution handles cases of sexual misconduct. According to The Atlantic, the protestors illustrate an underappreciated tension in the approach of today’s student activists who simultaneously express outrage at certain actions of their administrative bureaucracies while fighting to expand their size and power.
Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights
Protests erupted at the University of Chicago earlier this week after a member of the student council proposed a resolution prohibiting the use of a college fund for abortion care. The resolution stated that none of the funds allocated by the College Council could go toward abortion except in instances of rape or incest, or in the event that a physician certifies that continuing the pregnancy would put the person’s health or life at risk. It was introduced by Brett Barbin, the president of the school’s chapter of College Republicans and a senior representative on the council. “Students should not be financially compelled to violate their sincerely held moral beliefs,” reads the bill text. The language of the resolution-and the measures it outlines-parallels the Trump administration’s attempts to place restrictions on abortion funding and strengthen religious protections.
College Affordability
Student debt in the United States has climbed to $1.5 trillion. The New York Timesasked people around the world what they paid for their higher education and how they financed it. Their stories, from countries including Denmark, Taiwan, New Zealand, Philippines, Turkey, and Canada, show how government policies in some countries can shape the personal and professional choices that young adults make as they begin their careers.
Student Success
“The College Dropout Crisis,” a report released on Friday by The New York Times, raises questions about the role that colleges play in their students’ success. By comparing a college’s actual graduation rate to the one that would be expected, based on an average among colleges with similar kinds of students, the story asks why some colleges punch above their weight while others struggle to catch up. The Chronicletalked to Matthew Chingos, who directs the Center on Education Data and Policy at the Urban Institute, which helped conduct the analysis, about the project’s approach and the responsibility colleges play in student success.
When President Barack Obama issued a challenge to community colleges in 2009 to produce an additional 5 million graduates by the year 2020, Harper Collegedetermined that to meet its share of this goal, it would need to produce an additional 10,604 degrees and certificates. The campus community embraced 10,604 as a rallying cry. “I thought it was a way of getting everybody on the same page. Even if they didn’t know what the page meant, they knew it was important,” President Ender said. “It became an artifact for student success, a way to build momentum around the work we’re doing.” Harper surpassed its goal in 2017, three years early, but the momentum to propel students to the finish line hasn’t waned.
Physical Health
The family of an 18-year-old University of Maryland freshman who died of adenovirus in the fall has filed a notice of claim against the college, setting the stage for a possible lawsuit. Ian Paregol said the death of his daughter, Olivia Shea Paregol, could have been prevented had the university disclosed that the virus was spreading through the College Park campus.
Nearly one year after University of Maryland football player Jordan McNair suffered fatal heat stroke at a team workout, the university announced an overhauled model for athlete health care that would be independent of the university’s athletic department. The changes, announced by Athletic Director Damon Evans last week, will begin with a national search for a head physician, who will be tasked with overseeing athletic trainers and sports medicine staff. The selection process will be directed by the university rather than the athletic department. Under the new model, the head physician will report to the director of the University Health Center, whose chain of command continues through the vice president for student affairs and then the university president. Personnel decisions, including hiring and firing, will be made through the new reporting structure. The changes are the last of 20 recommendations given to Maryland officials last year following an external investigation into allegations of an abusive culture within the football program.
Education Policy
Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Julián Castro have introduced comprehensive plans to tackle the $1.5 trillion student debt load, pushing the party beyond its focus on free college to the equally controversial idea of loan forgiveness. The proposals share similarities and have some stark differences. Warren is proposing the cancellation of up to $50,000 in student debt for people with annual incomes of less than $100,000. For borrowers with higher incomes, debt forgiveness would decline by $1 for every $3 in income above $100,000. Castro, former San Antonio mayor and housing secretary under President Barack Obama, would offer partial loan forgiveness for people who receive public assistance benefits for three years within a five-year period. That would include borrowers enrolled in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or Medicaid.
The attorneys general of 51 states and territories on Friday asked Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to stop requiring that disabled veterans fill out paperwork to become eligible for federal student loan forgiveness. Instead, they want DeVos to exercise her power to automatically cancel the debt. Veterans who are “totally and permanently” disabled are entitled under federal law to have their student loans canceled, but the Trump administration’s current process for doing so is “inadequate,” the bipartisan group of attorneys general wrote in a letter to DeVos.
