Mental and Behavioral Health
The Kansas University Student Senate plans to review the language around mental health in the student code of conduct in an effort to recognize the multitude of mental health problems that could lead to student misbehavior.
The Wellesley News features Wellesley College’s five peer health educator groups on campus — the Mental Health Educators (MHEs), Sexual Health Educators (SHEs) and Balance Health Educators (BHEs) — as well as the students involved in Sexual Assault Awareness For Everyone (SAAFE) and the Alcohol and Drug Education Peer Team (ADEPT). For many students, talking to a peer can be a judgement-free space to broach sensitive topics.
In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jonathan Zimmerman argues that colleges can reduce student anxiety if they made efforts to reduce the hypercompetitiveness on college campuses and suggests focusing on admissions processes, club and organization initiations and on-campus career recruitment. Zimmerman, a professor of education and history at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Campus Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know writes, “We made these children into the anxious young adults they have become. It’s up to us to teach them a healthier way to live.” Read more about Zimmerman’s approach in our Mary Christie Quarterly’s Q&A.
Ohio State was the latest campus to host Active Minds’ “Send Silence Packing” display, which includes over 1,000 backpacks representing the number of students who die by suicide each year.
The University of Iowa’s Student Government hosted a town hall on mental health to hear what students think about the services currently offered on campus and what could be expanded or changed. Topics included how to reach off-campus students, more training for friends, staff, and faculty, as well as raising awareness for students to be able to identify their own mental health problems.
Diversity and Inclusion
Two signs supporting white supremacy appeared on Boston College’s campus before a “Silence is Still Violence” march protesting multiple racist incidents at the school.
With incidents of racial discrimination on the rise at colleges across the country, The Atlantic asks, to what degree will racist acts — and colleges’ responses to them — adversely affect black student enrollment?
The Princeton Hidden Minority Council is a student group that provides a a voice for low-income and first generation students at the prestigious college. Demographics are rapidly shifting at Princeton, where the percent of Pell-eligible freshmen has tripled to 22 percent, over the past 13 years.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
The Daily Orange explores the discrepancy between the number of sex offences reported by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the school’s Department of Public Safety explaining that a student can respond about a sexual assault on a questionnaires, like the ones issued by the DOJ, without ever reporting it to the school’s DPS. “We know that sexual assault on the whole, from inappropriate touching all the way up to nonconsensual sexual intercourse, is underreported,” said W. Scott Lewis, a partner at NCHERM, a law and consulting firm that specializes in risk management for educational institutions. “The fact that the survey number is higher than the reported number is not stunning at all.”
Rape cases on George Washington University’s Mount Vernon campus rose from a single case in 2013 to seven in 2016, while reported cases on the school’s main Foggy Bottom campus held steady. Some campus leaders think an increase in mental health resources on the Mount Vernon campus has led to an increase in reporting.
Three Massachusetts women joined Los Angeles-based women’s rights group, Equal Means Equal, a, and in filing a lawsuit challenging Betsy DeVos’s removal of former federal guidelines around Title IX and sexual assault. The lawsuit claims the new guidance is discriminatory and violates civil rights laws.
The New York Times profiles Families Advocating for Campus Equality, or FACE, which began in 2013 by several mothers of students accused of sexual assault. The group, which testifies on proposed legislation and policy, and tracks lawsuits filed by men who say they have been wrongly accused, has grown to hundreds of families. Many of them met with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in July to tell their stories. The group FACE recently testified against a bill in the California Legislature that would have enshrined the Obama-era regulations into state law. The law, which passed both houses was vetoed this month by Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, who cited concerns that “federal and state actions to prevent and redress sexual harassment and assault—well-intentioned as they are—have also unintentionally resulted in some colleges’ failure to uphold due process for accused students.”
Free Speech
The Chronicle examines the different ways that colleges approach student hecklers at speeches on campus, and how state legislators have become more involved in disciplining these students.
In a New York Times op-ed, Michael H. Schill, President of the University of Oregon, discusses how he was shouted down at his state-of-the-university address, and argeus that “the tactic of silencing, which has been deployed repeatedly at universities around the country, only hurts these activists’ cause.”
In another sign that the Trump administration will enter the fray of free-speech issues on college campuses, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest on Tuesday in a lawsuit filed against Pierce College, a community college in California. The statement supports Kevin Shaw, a student who says administrators there violated his free-speech rights by stopping him from passing out copies of the U.S. Constitution because he was not in the campus’ “free speech zone.”
In anticipation of the speech by white nationalist Richard Spencer on the University of Florida campus last Thursday, students protested, marched, and asked for classes to be cancelled. Some demanded that he not be allowed to speak, while others planned to avoid the campus entirely. The day of Spencer’s speech, hundreds of counter protesters gathered outside the venue. Spencer’s talk was drowned out by protesters chanting.
About 90 minutes after Spencer’s speech, three men who were later identified as white nationalists, threatened a group of protesters on their way home, making Nazi salutes and shouting chants about Hitler. When one protester in the group hit their car with a baton, one of the men Tyler Tenbrink, 28, jumped out with a gun, as his companions Colton Fears, 28, and William Fears, 30, encouraged him to shoot, yelling, “Kill them” and “Shoot them.” The man Tenbrink fired a single shot, missing the group. All three men have been charged with attempted homicide.
Substance Use
With marijuana recently legalized in Massachusetts, the Tufts Daily reports on how the school is handling medical marijuana delivery services. Deliveries can technically be made to the campus, but the school must abide by the federal law’s view of marijuana as a Schedule I drug. “We are currently exploring the best approach to proactively reach out to dispensary delivery services, advising them that we are a drug free school zone and that it is incumbent upon anyone visiting our university to fully abide by university regulations,” said Deputy Director of Public Safety Leon Romprey.
Sexual Health
In the Daily Bruin, Erin Nguyen argues that UCLA’s sexual health products vending machine should be located in a 24-hour accessible building and carry more inclusive products. Currently, the machine is in a building that is only accessible on weekdays until 11 p.m. He writes, “UCLA needs to be mindful of not prioritizing certain bodies over others.”
Greek Life and Hazing
The Chronicle interviewed Caitlin Flanagan about her article in November’s Atlantic magazine examined the hazing death of Timothy Piazza at Pennsylvania State University
Student Financial Support
Some U.S universities are offering assistance to students in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean that were affected by Hurricane Maria. While some schools have waived tuition entirely, others are offering reduced tuition by granting in-state status.
The Washington Post analyzed the Pell Grant shares at U.S. News & World Report’s top 100 national universities and top 50 liberal arts colleges from 2010 and 2015. The Post provided a sortable chart of the analysis. Out of the roughly 150 nationally ranked schools studied, only 39 had Pell shares of at least 20 percent in their freshmen classes in 2015.
