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The Mary Christie Quarterly provides thought leaders with news, information, and commentary on the issues facing administrators and policymakers regarding student health and higher education policy.

Liberal Education and Everything Everywhere All at Once

On March 13 and 14, over a hundred higher ed leaders, faculty members, and students gathered at Arizona State University for the annual conference of the Coalition for Life Transformative Education (CLTE). One of the highlights of the event was a keynote address by Lynn Pasquerella, President of the American…

MCQ.
03/16/2023
Mental and Behavioral Health

Real World Anxiety: Young professionals report poor mental health/burnout

Young professionals who graduated in the last six years have come of age in an anxious and uncertain time. From the proliferation of social media, to political and cultural divisiveness, to the epic changes brought on by the global pandemic, these young people saw the norms of human behavior rewritten…

MCQ. Issue 28
01/17/2023
Mental and Behavioral Health

The Stress You Hand Down: How Parent’s Anxiety Impacts Their Grown Children

Phone calls with her father lately were starting to leave Paige, a college junior in Texas, feeling stressed and confused. His questions about her grades had expanded to include concern about her progress on internships and jobs, with an undercurrent of tension about finances. She was starting to worry about…

MCQ. Issue 28
01/17/2023
Mental and Behavioral Health

More Than A Friend (Group)

When Laurie Burstein-Maxwell’s son Dan told her he felt like something was wrong, she understood why he seemed to be distancing from his friends. Before his depression, his mom said, the high school senior spent all his free time out and about in Radnor, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. In…

MCQ. Issue 28
01/17/2023
Mental and Behavioral Health

Understanding and Promoting Resilience among College Students

The Making Sense of Science column is a partnership with the University of Maryland School of Public Health, Department of Behavioral and Community Health, Center on Young Adult Health and Development. Stress during college is inevitable. College administrators, faced with unprecedented levels of student distress, sometimes feel pressure to take the…

MCQ. Issue 28
01/17/2023
Sexual Assault and Title IX, Mental and Behavioral Health

Students in Strict Abortion States Face Multiple Obstacles After Dobbs Decision

Fighting uncertainty with information, student advocacy prevails, even in the states where reproductive rights have been most attacked. When Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMUCC) graduate student Cheyenne Sanchez was growing up in McAllen — the largest city Hidalgo County, Texas — students were not required to take any form of…

MCQ. Issue 28
01/17/2023
Mental and Behavioral Health

With Elis for Rachael, Yale alumni use their power to influence mental health policy

Alicia Floyd is still on the clock when she sits down to record. Leaning forward, she films herself from the shoulders up, dressed in a black scrub top, with the pale, empty walls of a hospital call room behind her. “Briefly,” she recounts, “my story is that I matriculated in…

MCQ. Issue 28
12/07/2022
Mental and Behavioral Health

Q&A with Dr. Judi Alperin King: Supporting students without a safety net during the holidays

In 2014, Dr. Judi Alperin King, PhD, founded the Boston area’s first organization dedicated to supporting students who would otherwise need to navigate college on their own: the Wily Network. Eight years later, Dr. King and her team work with 75 students, called Wily Scholars, across ten campuses. For their…

MCQ. Issue 28
11/30/2022
Mental and Behavioral Health

What I learned from Rachael Lau

It was 10pm in Kathmandu when Rachael began to tell her story.  I know some things about her. She is a disaster engineer, a Fulbright awardee, and PhD candidate at Duke University.  She went to Duke on an academic scholarship, was a Division 1 athlete, and was a “grand challenge”…

MCQ. Issue 28
01/17/2023
Mental and Behavioral Health

Questions and Answers with Brett Scofield, Executive Director of the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) at Penn State University

The state of college student mental health came sharply into focus around 2006 when a group of counseling center staff from centers across the nation, in collaboration with the newly-formed Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH), created a standardized data set that could be used by counseling centers throughout the…

MCQ. Issue 28
01/17/2023
Mental and Behavioral Health, Student Success

Taking risks, saving lives: MCI report examines peer support in the college setting

Amanda Fowler had been trying to do college the right way. During her first months at the University at Albany in 2019, the 18-year-old threw herself into parties that reminded her of those she’d seen on social media—ones that promised to secure her the most desirable college experience. As she…

MCQ. Issue 28
01/17/2023
Mental and Behavioral Health

Research on pandemic’s influence on identity development in first-year college students

In a study published in Emerging Adulthood in October 2022, Pasupathi et al detail the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on college students’ mental health, identity development, and academic resilience. According to College, Interrupted: Profiles in First-Year College Students Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic Across One Year, all three were…

MCQ. Issue 28
01/17/2023
Mental and Behavioral Health, Student Success

Application Angst: Just Thinking About Grad School Can be Stressful

As a college senior, while engrossed in my final year of school, my mind is also increasingly focused on the question, “What’s next?” My field of study, psychology, generally requires at least a master’s degree to practice. But in my experience, the process of applying to graduate school is very…

MCQ. Issue 28
01/17/2023
Mental and Behavioral Health, Student Success

Big Thinking at Bennington College

Laura Walker did not set out to be a college president though the decades she spent in public media may have prepared her well for the job.  The former president and CEO of New York Public Radio says her primary mission has always been in alignment with the one she…

MCQ. Issue 27
10/13/2022
Mental and Behavioral Health

From the Quadcast: A Conversation with Dr. Eric Wood, Counseling Center Director at Texas Christian University on TCU’s Comprehensive Collaborative Care Model

MM: Dr. Wood is well-known as a change agent in the college mental health community. He is the architect of the TCU Comprehensive Collaborative Care Model, which to me, sounds like a counseling center without walls. What are some of the drivers of that very interesting approach? EW: The drivers…

MCQ. Issue 27
10/13/2022
Opinion

ESAs and College Students

Many college students grow up with pets in their homes. When they go off to college, in addition to all the adjustments to college life, they also have to adjust to life without their constant companion. My second half of my first year and the first semester of my sophomore…

MCQ. Issue 27
10/12/2022
Mary Christie Quarterly provides news, information and commentary on the policy issues that impact the health and wellness of young adults.

The McFeed is a weekly roundup of news and research on the health and wellness of college students.