New Quadcast: Expanding the Circle of Support for College Student Mental Health
In the fourth episode in a special series on Flourishing, we spoke with Dr. Zoe Ragouzeos, the Executive Director of Counseling and Wellness Services at New York University and president of the Mary Christie Foundation, and Dr. Sarah Lipson, assistant professor in the Department of Health Law Policy and Management at the Boston University School of Public Health and co-Principal Investigator of the national Healthy Minds Study. Drs. Ragouzeos and Lipson discuss the importance of expanding communities of support for college students, and the role that faculty can play in responding to student wellbeing concerns. This series is based on the report, “Creating Environments for Flourishing” released by the Mary Christie Foundation and Georgetown University. You can listen to the episode here or on your podcast app.
Mental and Behavioral Health
In the Michigan Daily, Annie Klusendorf, a student, wrote about the loss of the work/life boundary under the pandemic, and the emotional toll of being constantly working online. One student said, “Since almost everything is remote and online, that’s the most common medium of interaction with others, so I feel like there’s pressure to be online and available to keep our only corridor of communication open. We’re glued to our screens now more than ever.”
The Star Tribune reports that colleges in Minnesota have experienced less demand for campus mental health services this fall, contradicting expectations that the pandemic accelerate the growing campus mental health crisis. Yet, University of Minnesota and Minnesota State systems are bracing for the possibility that students might emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic with greater mental health troubles caused by unprecedented isolation and disruption. At a state-wide summit on student mental health last week, Minnesota State University Chancellor Devinder Malhotra said state colleges should share resources with one another to tackle the issue. University of Minnesota President Joan Gabel and Malhotra also discussed college curricula and whether it should evolve to accommodate students’ needs. “We have to ask ourselves the question that as institutions … are we ready for the students who are coming to us? And stop asking the question of if our students are ready for us,” Malhotra said. Gabel said that some faculty are already re-evaluating their teaching styles, weighing descriptions of classroom expectations and course assessment styles.
Two University of Pennsylvania students created the Penn AfroWellness Initiative to de-stigmatize conversations about mental health among African international students. Frida Aloo and Abenezer Mechale, from Kenya and Ethiopia respectively, launched the organization after witnessing their friends struggle with mental health while being unaware of the available resources. Aloo and Mechale facilitate bi-weekly meetings featuring open dialogue about the unique mental health challenges facing African international students.
The University of Colorado Boulder announced it has cancelled spring break, but has spread out several days off for students throughout the semester. To support mental health, the university is planning more student events and intramural sports.
The State Press reports on Arizona State University students’ feelings of loneliness, anxiety and depression while in quarantine or isolation for multiple days. “Being alone in here, there’s definitely some anxiety and depression that comes up,” one student said. Another student, who spent 65 hours in the isolation dorm recalled, ‘”It made me feel really alone. I couldn’t imagine doing the full 14 days in there.”
The Rice Thresher reports that, when students contact Rice University Student Health Services with symptoms seen in COVID-19 cases, they encounter one of three strategies to prevent infection spread: medical hold, quarantine, and isolation. All involve distancing to varying degrees, which can disrupt students’ lives. For example, students may unexpectedly receive a call from Student Health Services to quarantine after exposure to a feverish student or could be put on a medical hold for seeking assistance for a sinus infection. Students are arguing for clearer communication when it comes to the circumstances that result in a student required to practice distancing and isolation. One student worries that their peers will avoid seeking medical assistance for fear of being placed under the restrictions for an ailment unrelated to Covid.
The Berkeley Beacon explores the mental health toll the pandemic has taken on Emerson College students. “COVID-19 has greatly affected this country,” said Wrolanyo Mensah, Outreach Director for Hidden Lantern, an organization that focuses on students using art to express their experiences with mental health. “As youth, at the time of our lives we are supposed to be our most carefree, we have been forced to mature to save lives. This, of course, has taken a large mental toll on us. I feel like a lot of students feel isolated, lonely, and hopeless because of this situation.” The Beacon emphasized that students of color, international students, student athletes, first-year students, and seniors are most likely to be negatively impacted by the mental stresses of the pandemic. One international student from Venezuela said that not being able to return home due to travel restrictions has impacted her mental state. In December, it will be one year since she has seen her family. The article also highlighted the added disruption to student athletes. One student athlete shared, “It was just so sad to think about something you have done for your whole life competitively ending.”
Diverse Education reports that the role of campus police departments in interventions involving mental health is undergoing scrutiny nationwide. Stanford University announced that, in most cases, it will now rely on the Palo Alto Fire Department instead of campus police to transport students put in psychiatric holds to the emergency room. Laura Horne, chief program officer at Active Minds, a nonprofit focused on student mental health, said that university leaders need to make sure campus police participate in mental health interventions only “when necessary, in a limited manner and ideally with the student’s consent.”
This fall, colleges and universities have wrestled with the question of how to integrate freshmen into the community given the drastic disruptions to campus life. Schools have come up with a variety of solutions, many of which have elicited critical feedback. Worries that freshmen are struggling to develop key relationships and a sense of belonging and community are widespread, especially because these factors offer a buffer against mental health challenges and are predictive of student success. George Washington University welcomed freshmen on campus this fall and plans to have them study remotely for the spring term. One student argued in the GW Hatchet that the school is doing a disservice to freshmen since many students are drawn to GW for its location in DC and opportunities for internships in politics, government, and international affairs.
In an op-ed for the Cornell Sun, Andrew V. Lorenzen reacts to the school’s recent Mental Health Review, condemning the competitive culture of Cornell, which he says “permeates every facet of the student experience and encourages a race to push yourself to the brink more than everyone else, to strive further, to toxically break yourself down more because that somehow proves you are more successful.” He argues that the culture “drives stress, anxiety and a perpetual sense of isolation” and is not conducive to learning. Lorenzen argues that while significant improvements have been made to mental health resources at Cornell in recent years, “We can still do better than a university where 40 percent of students cannot function for at least a week every year due to stress, depression or anxiety.”
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Inside Higher Ed reports that students of color face racist incidents– subtle and overt, accidental and purposeful– that make maintaining strong mental health a challenge. According to the article, this is exacerbated by the fact that students involved in campus leadership and activism expend time and energy on their involvement, leaving them with less bandwidth for their social lives, performing academically, and developing healthy habits while living away from for the first time. A major source of stress, according to IHE, comes from institutions that commit to protecting hate speech under the First Amendment. The injury or trauma induced by this protected speech can leave impacted students feeling neglected, undervalued, and isolated. Experts, including those from the Steve Fund, argue that improving access,diversity of services,available clinicians in addition to addressing systemic racism within an institution are all necessary to supporting mental health for students from communities of color.
In a column in the Cavalier Daily, the student newspaper of the University of Virginia, Emma Keller expressed her dismay at the buildings on campus bearing the names of white slaveowners. She writes, “Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, Mr. Jefferson’s University still perpetuates Mr. Jefferson’s ideas.” Keller writes that the beliefs of the white men who shaped UVA still contribute to a narrative of who should feel welcome on campus. She calls for “the continual acknowledgement and unhindered discussion of the stained legacy the University is inextricably linked to” and the “amplification of the voices – the uplifting of the students – that are here at this University in spite of men like Jefferson.”
The Stanford American Indian Organization, which was begun to create a space for Indigenous students, celebrated its 50th year. The work of the SAIO includes: changing the mascot name from the “Stanford Indian” to the Tree in 1972; the establishment of the Native American Cultural Center in 1974 and the Native American-themed house in 1988; and the renaming of various campus buildings and landmarks. To celebrate the 50th anniversary, SAIO hosted the Indigenous ChangeMakers Panel to honor the community’s past, present, and future.
Calls to rename buildings on the University of South Carolina’s campus named for controversial figures during the Civil War and Civil Rights Era have continued to grow louder in recent months. At a virtual forum for the Presidential Commission on University History, USC students, faculty, and community members spoke about changes they want to see. A focus of the conversation was the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center, named for the longest-serving Republican in U.S. Senate history, who ran for president in 1948 on a platform opposing desegregation and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. One College of Education professor described returning to campus as an alumni, and his deep disappointment seeing that “such an impressive and important space centered on health and wellbeing did not champion the health and wellbeing of all people.” One student said, “Having the name of one of the most visited and commonly referred to [buildings] on campus be that of a segregationist does not align with the values of the student body.”
Next week, California will vote on a ballot measure to overturn the decades-old ban on affirmative action in the state. The measure, which would once again allow the consideration of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public-university admissions, as well as public employment and contracting, is trailing in the polls, despite Califonria’s strong liberal tilt. According to a survey conducted earlier this month by the Public Policy Institute of California, Proposition 16 is supported by 37% of likely voters, while half of those polled oppose it and 12% were undecided. “When you get down to the brass tacks of particular policies that really would level the playing field and make up for historical injustices, there’s just a lot of conflict,” said Taeku Lee, a University of California, Berkeley political-science professor who studies racial and ethnic politics and supports Proposition 16.
The Chicago Tribune reports that environmental scientist and ecologist Bala Chaudhary’s recent paper, “Ten simple rules for building an antiracist lab,” (co-authored with Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, a University of California at Merced professor of soil biogeochemistry) has been viewed over 13,000 times and downloaded more than 7,000 times. Chaudhary said, “So many people have said that they used our paper to guide the first conversations that they organized in their lab surrounding anti-racism and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). I’m used to bringing up anti-racism in science spaces and getting silence and some cringes and some blank stares. And it really feels different this time, and I’m hopeful that the energy surrounding it will sustain.” Their rules to help labs develop anti-racists policies and promote racial and ethnic diversity, equity and inclusion are: “Lead informed discussions about anti-racism in your lab regularly; Address racism in your lab and field safety guidelines; Publish papers and write grants with Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) colleagues; Evaluate your lab’s mentoring practices; Amplify voices of BIPOC scientists in your field; Support BIPOC scientists in their efforts to organize; Intentionally recruit BIPOC students and staff; Adopt a dynamic research agenda; Advocate for racially diverse leadership in science; Hold the powerful accountable, and don’t expect gratitude.”
In an open letter to President Sylvia Burwell, American University student Gaspard Delaoustre expressed the struggle international students are facing with distance learning with many taking classes that have a six- or 12-hour time difference. The letter was co-signed by many of Delaoustre’s fellow international students. “I am speaking for the international community when I say that this adds additional stress to our lives, on a professional, social and personal scale,’ writes Gaspard Delaoustre. “A few weeks through the fall 2020 semester, I’ve experienced multiple anxiety attacks, and I’ve felt increasingly isolated from my peers.”
A group of colleges and employers filed a lawsuit against the Department of Labor’s new H-1B visa rules, which demand a steep increase in employee compensation – increases anywhere from 35-200%. The plaintiffs argue the new rules limit the number of graduate school options for international students for whom graduate research or teaching assistant positions make their education possible, in addition to limiting opportunities for employment just after graduation.
Paul Quinn College’s Stacia Alexander wrote in Diverse Education about a number of the unique challenges facing HBCU students amid the pandemic, from family expectations regarding responsibilities at home, including contributing financially, to studying remotely full time. Additionally, the racial unrest and recession-related concerns and impacts appear to disproportionately impact students at HBCUs in comparison to their White peers. Initiatives at Paul Quinn College to combat the effects of these challenges are focused on fostering connections between students.
Sexual Assault, Misconduct and Title IX
A federal judge dismissed an ACLU-backed lawsuit that sought to void the U.S. Department of Education’s new Title IX rule governing campus sexual violence. The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of four activist groups, arguing that certain provisions of the regulation, such as the inability to review certain off-campus cases, were unlawful.
Coronavirus: Safety and Campus Reopenings
The University of Dayton announced Friday that Michael Lang, an 18-year-old freshman had died on Thursday, reportedly of COVID-19-related complications. According to Inside Higher Ed, students moved into University of Dayton residences over two weeks starting Aug. 8.
Due to a spike in cases at the University of Michigan, students were put under “stay-in-place” orders last week. Exceptions to the order, which extends to November 3, include allowing those without symptoms to attend in-person class, play varsity sports, receive medical care, access university dining, and exercise outdoors in pairs. Some blame students for spreading the illness through irresponsible parties; others point fingers at failures within the University of Michigan’s reopening plan.
Results from a University of Southern California Student Health antibody testing study conducted in May show that the vast majority of students remained vulnerable to the coronavirus. The cross-sectional study aimed to determine how much of the USC student population had contracted the virus. According to the study, of the nearly 800 students who answered a questionnaire and had their blood drawn at Student Health, only 4% – 31 students – developed antibodies, indicating prior infection.
Safety
The New York Times and the Chronicle report that the state of Utah has agreed to pay more than $10 million to the family of Lauren McCluskey, a University of Utah student who was murdered in 2018 on campus, and whose nude photographs were shared by a campus police officer from whom she had sought help. According to the agreement, the university “acknowledges that the murder of Lauren McCluskey was a brutal, senseless and preventable tragedy.” McCluskey was shot to death on campus by Melvin Shawn Rowland, a man she briefly dated who was not a student. In the weeks leading up to her killing, Lauren McCluskey repeatedly reported to the campus police that she was being harassed and extorted by Rowland, who threatened to release compromising photographs of her. But police officers missed the warning signs that McCluskey was experiencing escalating intimate-partner violence, and one of the officers on McCluskey’s case showed off the compromising photos of McCluskey to at least three of his male co-workers. Jill and Matthew McCluskey previously filed two lawsuits alleging that the university could have done more to protect their daughter.
College Affordability and Free College
According to a new report from The Education Trust, few statewide free college programs cover non-tuition expenses and are available to nontraditional students. The authors noted that adult students, generally considered 25 or older, are ineligible for 14 of the 23 programs analyzed. Thirteen of the programs exclude students who want to enroll part-time, 11 don’t allow undocumented students to enroll and 14 don’t cover any living costs. Students with criminal records are also left out of many programs. The increase in free college programs “shows that state leaders are taking affordability seriously,” said co-author Jaime Ramirez-Mendoza, a higher education policy analyst at The Education Trust. “Unfortunately though, states still have a long way to go when it comes to creating equitable free college programs. A lot of programs do not benefit those with the highest needs [or] cover expenses beyond tuition and exclude a lot of today’s college students.”
A new study funded by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) found a correlation between public community college promise programs and an increase in enrollment among female and underrepresented students. According to Diverse Education, the study, “Promise for Whom? ‘Free-College’ Programs and Enrollments by Race and Gender Classifications at Public, 2-Year Colleges,” analyzed the impact of 33 promise programs at 32 community colleges during the years 2000-2001 and 2014-2015. There was a 23% increase in enrollment at community colleges with promise programs compared to those without.
Education Dive reports that 2U, an educational technology company, is partnering with Netflix to launch three tuition-free online technology boot camps for students and recent alumni of Norfolk State University, a historically Black institution in Virginia. Up to 130 people will be able to enroll, and will also receive one-on-one mentorships with Netflix employees and career advising from 2U.
Work-study jobs normally provide nearly $1.2 billion in help for college for more than 612,000 students across the country, but many of those jobs were on campuses that have gone completely or mostly online during the pandemic. A national survey conducted by an institute at the University of California, Berkeley, showed that 53 percent of low-income and working-class students said they had lost wages from on-campus jobs. “The loss of this important form of financial aid can be devastating,” the U.S. Department of Education said in an advisory about Covid-related interruptions in work-study jobs.
Student Success
A new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows the number of students transferring from community colleges to four-year institutions rose 2.6% year-over-year this fall. This new data is contradictory to predictions that the pandemic would cause students at four-year universities to transfer to community colleges. So-called “reverse transfers,” where four-year college students transfer to 2-year colleges, dropped steeply according to the report. And stark disparities remained in upward transfers, from the 18.7 percent increase for Asian students to the 0.2 percent decrease for Black students. Experts are concerned about the implications for equity. “Community-college funding is largely predicated on enrollment, and if that goes down, state funding will probably also go down,” said Thomas Brock, director and research professor at the Community College Research Center, part of Columbia University’s Teachers College.
Political Engagement
The Chronicle reports the students are showing deep interest in the 2020 election with polling showing that participation among 18-to-24 year olds could break records this year. However, voter suppression tactics, coupled with the pandemic and resulting chaos, are threatening to complicate voting for this group and disenfranchise many potential first-time voters. Some states have diminished students’ influence through redistricting, or shuttered temporary early-voting sites on campuses because of new laws mandating they be kept open for the full early-voting period. Last year, a Republican-backed law in New Hampshire began requiring that new voters who drive must obtain an in-state driver’s license and automobile registration – which can cost hundreds of dollars annually. The roadblocks have forced colleges to devise new tactics to help their students vote. In Ohio, many colleges provide a “zero balance” utility bill for students who live in the dorm which serves no functional purpose but the document can be used to satisfy Ohio’s proof-of-residency requirements. In Wisconsin, state lawmakers passed a rule in 2011 stipulating that any voter ID must expire within two years. A standard college ID is valid for only four years. The University of Wisconsin at Madison responded by creating a second student ID for the sole purpose of providing a pathway for students to vote.
