10/23 – 10/29

Mental and Behavioral Health

In Inside Higher Ed, Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, and Suzanne Ortega, the president of the Council of Graduate Schools, argue that mental health should not be solely the responsibility of campus counseling centers. They write that administration, faculty and staff all have a role to play in ensuring student wellbeing. According to Mitchell and Ortega, “The goal of campus leaders should be to put in place an effective and innovative campus-wide network of friends, mentors, advisers and services that is equipped to teach, reach, support and assist students with their personal and academic success.”

In Psychology Today, Marcia Morris M.D., a psychiatrist at the University of Florida and author of The Campus Cure: A Parent’s Guide to Mental Health and Wellness for College Students, looked at the results of the Mary Christie Foundation’s recent survey on college student parents’ perspectives on mental health.  Based on the survey results, she recommended that college student parents review with their child how to access mental health resources on campus, stay in touch with a child who seeks treatment until they have established care with a therapist and/or psychiatric provider, encourage them to sign a HIPAA release of information form if they are being seen by a mental health professional, and ask them to sign a FERPA release of information form that allows parents to see semester grades. She writes, “This research demonstrating parents’ efforts to promote college wellness and mental health gives me hope. I encourage parents to continue advocacy for their children’s safety and well-being and develop strategies to work around the roadblocks in the system.”

In an episode of Harvard EdCast, a weekly podcast featuring conversations with education leaders and innovative thinkers, Dr. Stephanie Pinder-Amaker, the founding director of McLean Hospital’s College Mental Health Program in Massachusetts, discusses the factors leading to mental distress on campus, how colleges can create better responses, and how awareness of and supports for mental health issues should begin long before students get to college. She says, “We want to think about how do we connect with students early, get students more aware at the earlier stages of what some warning signs may be to look for, and then how do we direct resources that maybe aren’t as expensive or as intensive as direct services psychotherapy.”

In Education Dive‘s President Speaks series, Ithaca College President Shirley Collado writes of the need to invest more and creatively in addressing students’ well-being. According to Collado, “The cultivation of student wellness must be one of our greatest, most urgent priorities.” Collado argues that schools must take an “institution-wide approach to student wellness,” integrating support every step of the way and giving students the tools to thrive on their own. Ithaca College has invested across campus, bringing on new counselors and case managers, expanded mental health services to provide counselor access 24/7, and created the ICare Team, which receives and reviews reports of students in distress to determine what support is needed.

The suicide of Boston College student Alexander Urtula is the latest incident to highlight the growing mental health crisis on college campuses. Urtula died in May, just hours before he was scheduled to receive his diploma. Earlier this week Boston prosecutors charged Inyoung You, a 21-year-old from South Korea, with involuntary manslaughter in Urtula’s death, alleging that she subjected him to psychological torture and encouraged him to kill himself. The story of Urtula, a son of Filipino immigrants, highlights the particular challenge of reaching students of color, who are less likely to seek mental health help. Some of the disparity may be due to a fear that students will be misunderstood by counselors who don’t understand their cultural issues. Along with hiring more counselors of color, colleges are trying to retain more faculty and staff of color. “I think colleges are doing what they think is best,” Alfiee Breland-Noble, the executive director AAKOMA Project, which works on mental health issues among African-American youth said. “But there are spaces in which we need colleges need to do a lot more.”

Students at Harrisburg Area Community College held sit-ins in response to the announcement that on-campus mental health resources will be cut due to funding. HACC President John Sygielski said when the college eliminates the 20 on-campus counselor positions next year, they will refer students seeking mental health services to a third-party off-campus resource. He says the off-campus counselors will be able to provide more comprehensive round-the-clock care at low to no cost to students.

At the University of Virginia, students are sharing their struggles with mental health publicly to help erase the stigma that comes with anxiety and depression. In 2016, graduate student Alexandra Pentel founded If You’re Reading This – an interactive, online forum addressing mental health issues. Having an online forum helps reduce a lot of barriers. The site is free. Students can access it anytime, from the privacy of their dorm or apartment. The concept has grown over time, with a professor posting an essay, eventually followed by UVA President Jim Ryan, Dean of Students Allen Groves and men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett. “It’s awesome because I think what that shows students is that we’re all people, and even the people you think have it together or are really winning, like with Tony Bennett and the NCAA championship … we all struggle with things,” Pentel said. “It’s OK to admit that and we kind of have to lean on each other.”

Stanford is continuing to strengthen its framework of support for student mental health and well-being by piloting a new resource called the Stanford Red Folder, which serves as a guide to help faculty and staff respond to and assist students in distress. According to John Austin, special assistant for mental health and well-being at Vaden Health Center, the folder was created after some university employees expressed concern about how to properly respond to a student showing signs of personal hardship. “We heard from faculty and staff that sometimes they are just not sure what to say or what is appropriate or inappropriate because no one wants to further traumatize someone in distress,” he said. “So we came up with a process to help them.”

THRIVE at IC, a new program at Ithaca College, held its first wellness workshop with the aim of offering tips to students on how to balance the social, emotional and physical aspects of their lives. THRIVE workshops are drop-in sessions, designed to be more accessible to students. Kristen Lind, health promotion specialist in the Office of Counseling and Wellness, said the program works with a “Resilience Pyramid” that focuses on the needs of students at the college. The pyramid, which was adapted from a similar model used at Cornell University, organizes basic needs like maintaining a balanced diet, getting enough sleep and allowing time for self-reflection and a social life. The pyramid functions as a guide for students to find ways to balance these sectors in their own lives. She said the goal of the program is to find actionable and realistic ways to help students create better habits.

META, the creators of a teletherapy smartphone app for college students, released the results of a survey of college students about the availability of mental health services and support on campus. According to the report, “Barriers to Accessing Mental Health Services and Support on Campus,” 80% of college students do not feel completely comfortable with on-campus counseling centers. Even though most students (74%) have access to an on-campus counseling center, 40% believe the delivery options for those services are lacking. When asked if they feel comfortable utilizing the on-campus resources offered to them, only 20% of students responded with either “very comfortable” or “extremely comfortable.” When asked about barriers to accessing mental health services and support on campus, students replied that “busy schedules” (57%), “stigma” (49%), “lack of information” (36%), and “hours of service” (35%) most commonly stand in the way. By way of response times, 68% of students say it takes a week or longer to receive support from an on-campus counseling center, which isn’t as fast as they would like. 80% would like help in one week or less. According to META’s survey, 81% of students suffer from some form of mental health condition, most commonly anxiety (66%), depression (55%) or suicidal thoughts (38%). These results differ from other nationally reported statistics.

The Daily Trojan, University of Southern California’s student newspaper, reported on the Undergraduate Student Government’s town hall for mental health and well-being, where university staff told a small audience that mental health is a community issue. Kelly Greco, USC Student Health’s assistant director of outreach and prevention services, discussed some mental health resources the University currently offers, including anonymous counseling services and the Healthy Minds survey, which will be taken again in the spring. Ilene Rosenstein, associate vice provost for campus wellbeing and education, presented a video about a new artificial intelligence tool dubbed “Ask Ari,” which will launch next month as a tool for students to “reflect on the issues that they’re having.” It includes an interactive chat service for students to discuss their emotional well-being and learn about campus support resources.  One student at the town hall said she and others have experienced frustration with the 30-minute phone consultation system that students are required to take part in before scheduling an appointment. She said the system often requires students to go through the process twice. Counseling and Mental Health Director Broderick Leaks responded that, “The reason why we switched to that model was because years ago … we had so much demand and so many students seeking services that students were waiting a month before they even talked to us the first time.” She said that under the new system, most students can schedule appointments within a few days.

In an op-ed in the Columbia Spectator, Anna Gergen writes about her experience applying to colleges using an essay that described her mental health issues. Gergen believes she was rejected by schools because she was viewed as a “liability.” When Gergen changed her essay to remove mentions of her struggle with mental health, she was accepted to Columbia University. Gergen writes, “There is important work being done on campus related to student mental health, yes. But so many people are still not participating in the dialogue, especially many in admissions offices across the country. Additionally, we need resources that can help students address their mental illness throughout the admissions process as they move on to graduate school or their professions.”

Dylan Firsick, a USC clinical and sports psychologist told USC Annenberg Media that the destigmatization of mental health is allowing more college athletes to open up about their struggles. Firsick, who has seen a rise in college athletes seeking mental health resources, points to nation-wide efforts underway. In 2013, Chief Medical Director for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Brian Hainline developed guidelines for schools to follow regarding college athletes who suffered from mental health issues. “Student-athlete mental health is an under-recognized health issue, and if managed improperly, leads to poor performance in sport and the classroom, and can potentially lead to life-threatening emergencies,” Hainline said in an interview with an NCAA reporter. His efforts with the NCAA resulted in a shift toward educating coaches, administration and athletes about mental health.

This summer, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature passed a $214 billion budget that includes $5.3 million earmarked for improving mental health services in the University of California system. In an op-ed in Cal Matters, Emily Estus, a graduate student at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and School of Public Health, who researches mental health outcomes with the Berkeley Institute for Young Americans and Well Being Trust, writes that this funding is a temporary stopgap, forestalling a serious and still growing funding crunch for mental health at the University of California. According to Estus, to really improve services and get students the help they need, California must break the cycle of perpetually underfunding student health and counseling by changing how we think about providing and funding care.

Diversity and Inclusion

According to a newly released report from the Partnership for College Completion, a regional group that works to help more students complete college in the Chicago area, Illinois students who are the most disadvantaged – typically those from low-income households or underrepresented minority groups – are not being adequately served, The report, “Priced Out: Black Students,” shows that black families in Illinois spend 44 percent of their income, on average, to attend public institutions, while white families spend 31 percent. For private colleges and universities, black families on average spend 51 percent of their income while white families spend 35 percent. And, according to the report, when black students leave college in Illinois, it’s often with higher debt than their white peers. About 38 percent of black graduates owed more than $15,000 while just 23 percent of white students owed this much. Kyle Westbrook, executive director for the Partnership for College Completion, says that the state’s overall investment in higher education has increased in recent years, but Illinois has failed to allot enough money for student aid. He said, “Tuition is going up at the time that the state’s need-based aid has remained flat.”

A new report by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the TIAA Institute, showed that the three top priorities of private foundations that give to higher education include helping low-income and first-generation students get to college and achieve academic success, supporting career-readiness programs, and backing public institutions, especially community colleges. 92 percent of foundations included in the report support access and success efforts for low-income and first-generation students.

In an op-ed in the Daily Texan, UT Austin students Kateri David and Julia Zaksek argue that while the university has significantly increased its resources for LGBTQ+ students, gender identity and expression is often still overlooked. They point to the fact that struggles of members of the community that identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual often receive more consideration than those that identify as genderqueer, transgender, nonbinary, intersex and other genders. According the David and Zaksek,  UT must provide resources and accommodations for students of all gender identities.

The Steve Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to improving mental health for students of color, is hosting a series of on-campus, daylong conferences called “Young, Gifted and @Risk.” Each conference will bring faculty, administration, students and mental health experts together for in-depth discussions on the emotional well-being of minority students. The first conference in the series took place at the University of Michigan, and two more will convene at Georgetown University and the City University of New York (CUNY), on Nov. 1 and Nov. 15 respectively. University of Michigan’s conference “Young, Gifted, @Risk & Resilient” focused on how campus climate impacts mental health for students of color. At Georgetown University, the “Young, Gifted and Advancing” conference will emphasize how students’ mental health and emotional wellbeing affect persistence rates among students of color. The third conference in the series, which includes participants from multiple CUNY campuses, will focus on the mental health needs of nontraditional students on community college campuses.

According to the Hechinger Report, the number of women in college around the globe has overtaken the number of men. In Iceland, there are now two women in college for every man – the biggest imbalance in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECDD. The reasons for this, its implications and the difficulty in addressing it,  has made the nation a laboratory for the countries heading in the same direction – including the United States. “It’s a crazy cycle,” said Adrian Huerta, an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California who focuses on college access and gender. “We know that when you have a college education, there are good outcomes with health. You’re more likely to live longer. It matters for employment stability and civic engagement. You’re less likely to rely on social services.”

Utah State University’s program for students with intellectual disabilities, Aggies Elevated aims to prepare students — with IQ’s of 70 or less – for meaningful work and independent living. It is one of 274 other postsecondary programs for students with cognitive disabilities across the country.  The employment rate for adults with cognitive disabilities is just 19 percent, according to recent estimates. According to the article, those who do work make half of what adults without disabilities earn. Results so far are encouraging. Close to two-thirds of students who completed one of 25 federally funded programs between 2015 and 2017 found paid work within a year, according to a recent survey. Ninety percent of Utah State’s 19 graduates are currently employed, and three-quarters are living on their own, according to program researchers.

Sexual Assault and Title IX

The recent study by the Association of American Universities reaffirmed their 2015 finding that one in four undergraduate women experience a form of nonconsensual sexual contact while they’re in college. The 33 colleges that participated in the survey are releasing the results specific to their campuses, and other facts are beginning to emerge. For example, few undergraduates believe that campus officials conduct fair investigations into reports of sexual misconduct. Many students indicated that they believed a report of sexual misconduct would not be taken seriously by officials on their campus. At the University of Southern California, only 38.6 percent of female undergraduates and 23.5 percent of trans, genderqueer, nonbinary, or questioning undergraduates were sure that a report of sexual misconduct would be taken seriously by officials, and only 27.7 percent of female undergraduates believed an investigation would be fair. Overall, only 15 percent of what the report refers to as victims said they had taken advantage of a program or resources such as counseling or the Title IX office after an incident. Those statistics were alarming but not surprising to advocates who work with college students. Michele Landis Dauber, a professor at the Stanford Law School said, “There have been decades of institutional betrayal at many of these schools. Students speak to each other about the difficulty of going through a Title IX process.”

College Affordability

A. Wayne Johnson, a high-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Education who resigned his position to seek appointment to a soon-vacant U.S. Senate seat from Georgia, put forth a campaign proposal to forgive up to $50,000 per person in federal student-loan debt. The proposal would also award a grant of that amount to future students to pay for various kinds of postsecondary education. The proposal coming from Johnson, a republican, was a surprise, aligning him with Democratic presidential candidates such as Sen. Elizabeth A. Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders. In an interview, however, Johnson said that his plan is far different from the Democrats’. It would include an end to the federal student-loan program and shift the market for loans entirely to private lenders, a long-term goal of conservative politicians seeking to limit or eliminate the federal government’s spending on higher education. “He is saying the government should not be in the business of giving loans; that’s not going to work,” said Justin Draeger, president and chief executive of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, or Nasfaa. “There’s a clear market failure if we expect private lenders to give unsecured assets to people who have no credit.”

Last week, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell warned members of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee that student-loan debt has reached such formidable levels that it could hold back economic growth. America’s student-debt burden currently sits at $1.38 trillion, according to a Fed analysis from last quarter. Nearly 11 percent of that debt is more than 90 days delinquent, compared with 4.7 percent for all types of debt. Researchers for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that slight increases in student-loan borrowing in a county correlated to fewer small-business firms there. Additionally, analysis for the Federal Reserve of New York found that attending college is associated with a greater ability to own a home, but those with student debt owned homes at a lesser rate than those with no debt.

A new proposal by U.S. House Democrats would expand Child Care Access Means Parents in School, or CCAMPIS, which helps student parents get child care and avoid dropping out. According to a recent government report, about 1 in 5 college students in the U.S. are raising children, amounting to more than 4 million people. The proposed expansion would quadruple CCAMPIS funding, upping it to $200 million “This isn’t just about quality care for kids,” says Rep. Katherine Clark, a Democrat from Massachusetts who’s leading the effort to expand CCAMPIS. “This is the workforce. If you want to recruit and retain talent, if you want people to get an education to fill those jobs that you need in your business, then we need to invest in childcare.” In 2018, Congress more than tripled CCAMPIS funding – from $15 million to $50 million. Even with that increase, estimates show the program only serves about 11,000 student parents.

Substance Use

Michigan State University’s newspaper, The State News, reports on the recent vaping ban in Michigan, implemented by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Sept. 4. Michigan also issued a public health emergency in regard to vaping. Under the rule, any store that continued to sell flavored vape products after the ban could be charged with a misdemeanor punishable by a $200 fine and/or six months in prison. Earlier this month, a state court halted the flavored vape ban. According to The State News, some students also have doubts about the effectiveness of the ban. Student Elizabeth Becker doesn’t think prohibiting flavor cartridges will stop anyone from vaping. “I think it’s kind of unnecessary,” she said. “People are still gonna vape anyway, it’s more about the nicotine buzz.”

ABC News reports that colleges are becoming a battleground in the conflict between federal and state marijuana laws, as students who use medical marijuana challenge decades-old campus drug policies. In states where medical marijuana is legal, students disciplined for using it are taking their schools to court. College officials argue they could lose federal funding for failing to follow federal law that labels cannabis an illegal drug with no accepted medical use.  Sheida Assar said she was expelled from GateWay Community College in Phoenix last month for violating the school’s drug policy after she tested positive for marijuana, which she uses to treat chronic pain from polycystic ovary syndrome. “They yanked me out of class in the middle of the school day,” said Assar, 31. “It’s discrimination, and it also violates my rights under the Arizona medical marijuana law.” The legal challenges are coming from students studying nursing and other medical specialties who, under school policies, must undergo drug testing.

Greek Life

Pennsylvania State University has suspended a fraternity after a teenager died at an off-campus house over the weekend where members of the fraternity were believed to be present. The university said in a statement that it had temporarily suspended the Alpha Delta Chapter of the Chi Phi fraternity while the State College Police Department and the university investigated the 17-year-old’s death.

Safety

A gunman opened fire at an off-campus Texas A&M University-Commerce party, leaving two people dead and 14 injured before he escaped in the ensuing chaos. Authorities were working under the theory that the shooter may have been targeting just one person at the party of about 750 people in Greenville, 15 miles southwest of the Commerce campus and that others were just randomly shot. Texas authorities have no solid information on the gunman. Hunt County Sheriff Randy Meeks said that attendees of the Greenville-area gathering have not been cooperating with investigators. At a news conference, he said, “It appalls me that, as many folks that were there, [they] have not been able to give us a better description of this shooter.”