Mental and Behavioral Health
Iowa State University is the latest school to host the travelling Active Minds display “Send Silence Packing” that uses backpacks to represent the annual number of student suicides.
In an opinion piece for the Collegian, South Dakota State University’s student paper, Natalie Hilden encourages students to seek help when they feel depressed or stressed. “Getting yourself help can be a daunting task, but life is meant to be lived, and the cloud of depression hanging over your head doesn’t have to be there forever,” she writes.
The Ringer does a deep dive on improvements to student athlete mental health care – an area of support that has paled in comparison to the physical health and academic support they receive. The article features Athletes Connected, a University of Michigan-based initiative that the Mary Christie Quarterly profiled last year.
According to a new study out of Rutgers University, queer and transgender students experience depression and consider suicide at four times the rate of their heterosexual and cisgender peers. In what they say is the largest analysis of LGBTQ students ever conducted, researchers examined seven national student surveys, representing almost 90,000 LGBTQ students at more than 900 colleges and universities across the country.
With additional funding allotted to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wellness Initiative, students have been able to establish several new health and wellness organizations, including the peer support group Project Let’s Erase The Stigma. Read more about Project LETS in our Mary Christie Quarterly profile.
This month, the American College Health Association (ACHA) will host a symposium called “Crisis on Campus: Addressing the Rising Mental Health Demands of our Nation’s Students” at George Washington University. The symposium will bring together university leaders, mental health providers, public policy leaders, and students to begin a national dialogue on developing a concrete plan to address the mental health crisis on campus
Janet Dee Spoltore, Director of Student Counseling Services at Connecticut College responds to a letter to the editor in The College Voice, the student newspaper, claiming that her office does not provide satisfactory services. “SCS offers equal access to services for all students and works collaboratively and diligently to reduce any stigma attached to counseling, mental illness or to seeking mental health treatment,” she writes.
Diversity and Inclusion
The Daily Pennsylvanian examines the way that UPenn’s mental health services have evolved over 70 years, starting in 1955 with the establishment of the school’s Mental Health Clinic within Student Health Services.
Free Speech
In a hearing last week, the U.S. Senate’s education committee heard testimony about free speech on campuses. Republicans used the hearing to focus on censorship; testifying on this point were Allison Stanger, a professor at Middlebury College who was injured during a protest of an appearance by Charles A. Murray; and Robert Zimmer, the President of the University of Chicago who has decried the use of safe spaces and trigger warnings. At the hearing, Democrats focused on the rise of hate speech and violence on campus. Richard Cohen, the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, also testified at the hearing.
At UCLA, the Bruin Republicans are accusing the school of suppressing free speech. Their issue? The university may require them to pay for additional security for an upcoming event.
The Washington Post reports that the University of Michigan and the University of Cincinnati are considering requests to allow Richard Spencer, a white-nationalist from the National Policy Institute, to speak on their campuses. Several public universities have denied Spencer’s requests after he led the August torchlight march through the University of Virginia, precipitating several freedom of expression lawsuits. Now, schools are reluctantly granting Spencer a platform.
Disability
By 2023, 90 percent of Kenyon College’s campus will be accessible but many students with disabilities feel the school has shown little effort beyond making buildings ADA compliant. “Disabled students are … routinely asked to choose between success and happiness, between a sense of belonging and a sense of accomplishment but don’t all people want both of those things?,” said Justin Martin, a junior who has cerebral palsy.
Sexual Assault
Abby Honold, a sexual assault survivor and University of Minnesota graduate, aims to help other victims of sexual assault and rape through enhanced training for law enforcement
A student group at MIT dedicated to eliminating all forms of sexual violence through peer education, responds to the #MeToo campaign in The Tech, MIT’s student paper. PLEASURE@MIT worries that some survivors may feel pressured to share their private story in a public space like social media and that the movement does not include survivors who do not identify as women. “If we can include the experiences of more survivors of sexual violence, maintain high standards of physical and emotional safety for all of them, and follow up with institutional effort to transparently assess the causes, scope, and potential solutions to sexual violence in our community, then #MeToo will be a step forward in the fight against one of the most pressing problems of our time,” they write.
Project Callisto, a program for supporting sexual assault victims, has come to Loyola Marymount University.
Over the past six years, more students who believe they were falsely accused of sexual assault have started to sue colleges. According to a review of cases by United Educators, a risk-management and insurance firm, colleges end up paying $187,000 per case, usually through lawsuits or “demand letters”, another form of legal action.
Candice E. Jackson, acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the Department of Education, spoke to lawmakers last week about the office’s new philosophy on campus sexual assault, saying, “I don’t think that a presumption that you’re not going to be held responsible until you’re proven responsible in any way means that the system is set up unfairly against the person who came forward.”
Guns on Campus
The University Kansan Daily profiles a student who left the school after hearing about the new policy on campus carry. The student newspaper questions how many University of Kansas students have done the same. Not many, according to the Office of Institutional Research and Planning, which recently reported successful retention rates.
College Affordability
According to a report released last week by the think tank, New America, almost two-thirds of selective public universities have reduced, since the late 1990s, the share of students they enroll who come from families earning less than $37,000 a year. The report, which uses data from Stanford University’s Equality of Opportunity Project, also showed that nearly the same share of these schools have increased the percentage of students they enroll who come from families earning at least $110,000. The 381 selective public universities included in the dataset have reduced their share of low-income students by an average 4.6 percentage points.
Substance Use
As the New York Times reports, colleges and universities have not been able to avoid the national opioid crisis. Although little data exists on the prevalence of this problem among college students, colleges are starting to see increased instances of opioid overdoses. Last May, four students at Johns Hopkins University were hospitalized after overdosing on opioids during a fraternity party. A Furman University student died of a fentanyl overdose one day before his graduation last spring. Recovery programs are expanding to accommodate students who have struggled with dependence on prescription painkillers, and those who moved onto their cheaper cousins, fentanyl and heroin. The article cites, The Haven at College, a collegiate recovery organization that provides housing and recovery services at five colleges, four in California and one at Drexel University. The cost is $1,900 to $3,800 a month, which can be defrayed by financial aid, alumni funds earmarked for recovery and Haven work-study.
Last week, Ohio State Student Health Services held its second medication disposal event of the year. The goal of “Medication Disposal Day,” done in collaboration with University Police and Generation RX, Ohio State’s prescription-education program.is to eliminate leftover prescription pills from medicine cabinets and to increase awareness surrounding drug misuse. Over the past two years, the program has collected approximately 255 pounds of unused medication from students, faculty and staff.
An Arizona State University study examined how college students’ health decisions are guided by social influences like friend groups, parental roles, and the school environment.
Student Success
According to new data from the Department of Education on graduation rates at colleges, community colleges have emerged as much better performers than they were previously given credit for, in part, due to a more precise formula. At Berkshire Community College, in Massachusetts, graduation rates increased from 20 percent to 61 percent when calculated in a new way.
