Mental and Behavioral Health
Stanford University will change its leave of absence policies to better accommodate students who are facing mental illness crises. The decision, which goes into effect next year, is the result of a settlement agreement with a group of students who claimed to have been pushed by administrators to leave campus. The coalition of Stanford students sued the university last year, arguing that the involuntary leave of absence policy barred students from the university after incidents where they were deemed to present a risk to themselves or others, instead of providing solutions to keep them in classes, according to the complaint. In the lawsuit, students recalled that they were treated like a “liability” to the university and felt discouraged from reaching out to Stanford’s counseling and psychological services in times of crisis. In a message to students, Susie Brubaker-Cole, Stanford‘s vice provost for student affairs, wrote that the new policy will more closely determine “whether modifications or reasonable accommodations exist that could help the student remain on campus and/or in class.” Students with mental health disabilities soon will be able to petition to remain in campus housing during their involuntary leave, as students with medical disabilities currently can. The university also will hire additional staff and provide more training to assist students with their mental health issues. The Chronicle reports that experts are hailing the new policy as a model and quoted Karen Bower, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who specializes in cases concerning discrimination against college students with mental illness. Bower called the new policy “very comprehensive and transparent” and said that it “gives other universities a lot to think about” in examining their own policies.
Northwestern University‘s Associated Student Government is working with the University to implement policies that would allow students registered with AccessibleNU to take excused absences for mental health reasons. If implemented, AccessibleNU students can take “mental health sick days” with no questions asked. Currently, these students can receive accommodations if they communicate with AccessibleNU and their professors, but some students find the process uncomfortable and extensive. For Communication senior Shane Eichstaedt, taking a day off from class to focus on their mental well-being has been an intimidating process. “The amount of times that I have had to email professors mid-panic, or at the lowest lows of a moment of depression, in a true moment of suicidal ideation, to email them saying, ‘I can’t come to class brings intense feelings of failure,” Eichstaedt said.
Boston University’s audio series, Wellness Wednesday, featured Liliana Torres, a student health ambassador, who shared her experiences with depression including when and why she decided to seek help.
ABC News reports on the rising suicide rates on college campuses citing that suicide it is second-most among college-aged students. In an interview with ABC, Dr. Victor Schwartz, chief medical officer of the Jed Foundation, said, “We are facing a national mental health crisis, and college campuses are reflecting what’s going on in society at large.” Dr. Doreen Marshall, vice president of programs at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said, “We hear from college and university counseling centers, they are seeing more students coming in reporting that they have some current or past suicidal ideation, which is a signal that this is a time that students are really struggling.” The article reports that, as educational institutions, colleges are not always equipped to provide extensive mental health counseling. Dr. Anitha Iyer, chief clinical officer and vice president of Vibrant Emotional Health, the organization that runs the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, emphasized that the most important step is to create “spaces and opportunities for students to connect with one another” and to engage students and parents in an ongoing and active dialogue around mental health. On college campuses, that means taking a more comprehensive approach and fostering a culture of wellness that originates from the highest administrative level and equipping professors and students alike with the skills to support and empower one another so that the responsibility for student mental health goes beyond the counseling center.
The University of Illinois Counseling Center recently implemented a same-day appointment policy, which, according to its associate director and licensed clinical psychologist Deidre Ann Weathersby, has made the no-show rate almost negligible. There has been some pushback from students, however, Weathersby said, “A lot of times students don’t understand why we do that. Why do I have to get up and call and make (it the) same day?” “We know that when we catch students in their moment of need that same day, they’re going to show up.”
In a speech at Northwest Missouri State University, former ESPN reporter, Kate Fagan, emphasized the importance of collegiate athletes attending to their mental health. Fagan is well known for her work on ESPN, but has recently turned to raising awareness for mental health among collegiate athletes. Freshman George Smith said Fagan’s words encouraged him to take action in his own life and make mental health his first priority. “I thought she was very intimate and passionate about mental health and it spoke to me personally,” Smith said. “I am not happy here on campus and I haven’t voiced that enough, but after hearing her talk about (Madison Holleran’s) story, I think I need to change that.”
For World Mental Health Day, The Cornell Sun reviewed the reforms that have been made to the school’s mental health system, and those left to be addressed. Cornell Health has long faced criticisms from students on the long wait times for appointments and sometimes difficult access to psychiatry services, as well as a lack of diversity among CAPS counselors. In response to these obstacles, CAPS launched a new model for mental health services in hopes of “providing more rapid access to care and flexibility in follow-up options.” Notable policy changes include same-day, 25-minute appointments, increased flexibility in choosing which counselor they see and the planning of future steps as well as immediate needs. “One goal of our new model has been to provide students with support and resources early on – before a concern escalates to the level of a crisis,” said Robin Hamlisch, interim director of CAPS. ”
In The Hoya, Georgetown student Kenna Chick urges students to sign a petition to encourage the university to fund the Student Mental Health Fund, an off-campus therapy stipend to subsidize the cost of off-campus mental health treatment for students with financial difficulties. In 2017, Chick helped launch the fund, with the university committing $10,000 to seed it. Last year, University President John. J. DeGioia and the board of directors agreed to fund it with an additional $10,000. According to Chick, the fund is now rapidly depleting, and CAPS and Health Education Services can only do so much with extremely limited resources. Chick asks students to sign the petition as a statement of support for the fund’s expansion and conversion to a long-term, sustainable endowment of $100,000 that would generate new funds each year.
Diversity and Inclusion
A new report from the Institute for Higher Education Policy outlines three strategies rural communities are using to increase the college-going rates of their population: Understanding local barriers to attending college, using innovative means to recruit and serve students, and forming partnerships between schools and the workforce are all critical to boosting completion rates, the researchers found.
The Chronicle features the story of Peyman Rashidi, an Iranian student who was blocked from boarding a flight to the U.S. after his visa was revoked. According to the Chronicle, Rashidi is one of at least a dozen Iranian students in computer science and engineering, most heading for campuses in the University of California system, whose visas were voided at the last minute. They are part of a broader spate of incidents in which international students, including some from China and the Palestinian territories, were prevented from entering the United States. The recent revocations, which happened without warning or explanation, are raising alarm within higher education. There is concern that the uncertain climate for international students could damage American universities’ global reputation and undercut their competitive edge. Those worries are especially acute at the graduate level where nearly a third of all doctorates awarded by American universities go to international students.
More than 180 colleges and 40 higher education associations have filed briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court defending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows some 700,000 undocumented immigrants to study and work in the U.S. in two-year blocks. The court agreed to take up the issue of whether the DACA program is legal earlier this year and expects to reach a decision by mid-2020. The groups filed their briefs last week ahead of oral arguments scheduled in November. Some of the colleges have argued that rescinding DACA would drain their campuses of talent, diversity and leadership, and “undermine the many years of investments” they’ve made to support undocumented students.
The Southern Regional Education Board’s Doctoral Scholars Program will address the lack of underrepresented students and faculty within higher education when it hosts the annual Institute on Teaching and Mentoring conference this month where around 1,200 Ph.D. students and college faculty members will be in attendance. Only around six percent of U.S. faculty members are African American and under 6 percent are Hispanic or Latino. Throughout the event, there will be sessions discussing financial planning, the importance of diversifying faculty ranks and ways to publicize research.
For Education Dive, Marvin Krislov, the president of Pace University in New York, discusses his institution’s commitment to reaching underrepresented students. According to Krislov, Pace’s strategy, rooted in its mission, has three main pillars: Removing barriers, building a pipeline, and expanding the pool. For example, Pace has financial literacy counselors who stay involved with students and families from application through enrollment, so they understand the four-year cost of college, find resources to help them pay for it and emerge as debt-free as possible. Enrolled students are put on the Pace Path, a signature education model integrating curricula with practical experiences like internships and research. Pace admissions staff make a concerted effort to engage schools in underrepresented communities. Pace is also building dual-admission programs with area community colleges and overhauling their online offerings.
According to a new report by the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), small and mid-sized institutions play a significant role in strengthening the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) pipeline among underrepresented students. Dr. Harold V. Hartley III, senior vice president at CIC. “We were particularly concerned about underrepresented students and their success in STEM fields. STEM obviously is very important for our economy and a great opportunity for employment for students. Underrepresented students, especially women and students of color, tend to be left out in these STEM fields.”
Through their Presidents Speak column series, Education Dive explored how three college presidents are increasing access to higher education. Their tactics include recruiting out-of-state and internationally, strengthening transfer pathways with two-year institutions, partnering with local companies to help students find work after graduation and increasing the amount of need-based aid they offer. Jayson Boyers, President of Cleary University, a business-focused institution partners with local employers. He said, “We must think bigger, and broader, to develop the whole person if we want a sustainable workforce that sustains higher education. Economic growth depends on these types of partnerships.” John Broderick, president of Old Dominion University in Virginia, discusses what his university is doing to increase social mobility for students, taking steps to attract low-income students to their campuses and ensure they can afford to attend. Dayton University, a private Catholic institution in Ohio, is addressing that difficulty by partnering with Sinclair Community College, a local public two-year institution. Students admitted to the UD Sinclair Academy get a four-year lock on net tuition, access to the university’s facilities, and academic advisers on both campuses to help ensure their credits transfer.
Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights
California will become the first state in the nation to require public universities to provide access to abortion pills on campus under a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday. Senate Bill 24 by state Sen. Connie Leyva will go into effect in 2023, with the University of California and California State University systems required to offer students medical abortions.
More than 1,000 Seattle University students, alumni and faculty members signed a petition pushing back against the school’s president after he decided to remove Planned Parenthood from an online list of health-care resources. A group of about 30 students gathered at the school, which is a Catholic institution, to protest, while SU President Stephen Sundborg met with about eight faculty members on the issue. Sundborg says he made the decision last month based on Catholic beliefs. “I made this decision, consistent with my own and other presidents’ previous practice, in my responsibility to publicly represent our university as Catholic and in reflecting the central teaching of the Catholic Church regarding abortion – specifically as a significant moral issue – and not any other services provided by Planned Parenthood,” Sundborg said in a letter to the community.
Physical Health
According to the Berkeley Beacon, Emerson College’s student newspaper, college health officials expressed apprehension about the effects of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker’s four-month ban on the sale of vaping products on students. Lauren Owen, the Associate Director of the Center for Health and Wellness for Emerson College, Owen said the main concern following the ban is that students will either continue to buy vaping products from unreliable or dangerous places or that they will begin smoking cigarettes. “We are just scared that kids will be buying e-cigarettes on the streets and in alleyways where anything could be in them,” Owen said. The ban, implemented on Sep. 24, includes all in-store or online purchases of vaping products that contain nicotine, THC, or CBD. The Governor set the ban in place after declaring a public health emergency following a series of vaping related illnesses.
Student Success
As more colleges and universities use big data to track their students, often in the hopes of improving student success, concerns about privacy and ethics have increased. D. Christopher Brooks, director of research at the Center for Analysis and Research at Educause, a nonprofit organization that advocates for technology in higher education, tells the Chronicle that using student data to examine specific theory-based questions about their performance is one thing, but collecting data on students “for the sake of doing so, or for purposes that may not be clear, I think that’s where we get into this fuzzy ethics space.”
One in four institutions no longer requires the standardized SAT and ACT tests for admission and every 10 days, on average, another university makes these tests optional for admission. The Hechinger Report looks at a resolution now wending its way through the California legislature calling for the public University of California system to study the usefulness and fairness of standardized tests in the admissions process. Although a long shot, it would be “the grand prize” if California’s public universities went test-optional, said Robert Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest, a nonprofit organization focused on the misuse and overuse of standardized testing. While it is difficult to predict the effect of downplaying the role of standardized tests in admissions, so far, it appears to be leveling the playing field for some students who don’t always get accepted. The University of Chicago, which made the tests optional last year, reports a record enrollment this fall of first-generation, low-income and rural students and veterans. A June analysis by the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce suggests that the 200 most selective colleges and universities already look at more than candidates’ standardized test scores alone. It found that, if SAT and ACT results were the sole basis for admission, 53 percent of students who were accepted wouldn’t have gotten in.
College Affordability
In September 2019 the Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student aid released data showing two consecutive years of falling default rates on student loans. In the Hechinger Report, two economists who are student loan experts, Sandy Baum at the Urban Institute and Adam Looney at the University of Utah, pointed to several reasons for the improvement in student loan repayments: a strong job market, fewer students going to colleges with the worst track records and new ways to avoid default by restructuring student loans.
In the Democratic primary, several higher education initiatives have emerged as priorities, including free college and debt relief, simplifying the FAFSA and expanding funding for colleges and universities. Education Dive created a round-up of what some of the top candidates have proposed so far, and the response of higher education experts.
In an op-ed in Diverse Education, Sarah Sidoti, an assistant director of the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project at the University of Pennsylvania, offers caution on free college programs. According to Sidoti, the very act of making college free creates another barrier: a surge of applicants to public universities with limited institutional capacities. Sidoti writes that when faced with an enrollment goal, admissions departments at four-year public institutions will focus on what they always have in evaluating applications: academic merit – primarily, high school GPA and standardized test scores in conjunction with a personal statement. The problem is that academic merit, as a metric, has been proven to be inherently biased along class and race lines; the higher a student’s SES, the higher their performance. Sidoti writes that for universal free college plans to succeed in democratizing access to higher education, simply covering the costs of tuition and fees to public institutions is not enough. Local, state, and federal governments must increase higher education appropriation funds to enable them to sustain a growing infrastructure.
Free Speech
The University of Wisconsin could soon impose mandatory punishments for students who disrupt speakers or prevent other people from exercising their free-speech rights – a step further than most states and colleges have taken in their efforts to protect expression on campuses. The Wisconsin system’s Board of Regents is expected to formally approve the punishments, which would require suspension if a student was twice found to have “materially and substantially disrupted the free expression of others.” Three such incidents would result in expulsion. The punishments have been widely criticized by students, faculty members, and First Amendment experts.
