Mental and Behavioral Health
In a weeklong series for WGBH On Campus, Stressed and Depressed On Campus, reporter Kirk Carapezza examines the mental health crisis among college students, the factors that contribute to it, and how schools are responding. In a piece about the heightened anxiety among high-achieving students, Sarah Lipson, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health and the Associate Director of the Healthy Minds Network said, “If this is a mental health crisis, if we want to qualify it as such, it’s a crisis of young people’s mental health.” According to the piece, Lipson places some of the blame on high admissions standards at selective schools for creating high-pressure environments. Technology is a part of it as well. “We’re just spending so much time looking down at a screen and not looking at one another,” Lipson said. “Then even within the world that we’re looking at on our phone, there’s every little bit of comparison, and people’s perfect lives being displayed on social media.” Another piece in the series focused on low-income first-generation college students, who often feel socially isolated on campuses seemingly full of wealthy students. On Thursday’s program, MCF’s Executive Director, Marjorie Malpiede, and MCF Board Member Dr. Zoe Ragouzeos of NYU will discuss our recent parent survey and other issues related to mental health.
The Editorial Board of the Daily Campus, University of Connecticut’s student newspaper, argues that UConn’s Counseling and Mental Health Services (CMHS) “must increase diversity among staff and address the excessively long wait times.” The op-ed argues that the university’s Board of Trustees should either increase the current Student Health & Wellness fee or provide a supplementary Mental Health fee.
Nine students have died at the University of Southern California this semester, causing alarm on campus and leading students to demand more mental health resources. TIME reports that USC officials now say they will open a new psychiatric clinic. It comes as students say they have long had trouble accessing mental health care at one of the wealthiest universities in the country. Dr. Steven Siegel, chairman of the USC psychiatry department, said that the project has been in the works for several years, and wasn’t in response to the student deaths. In a letter to the USC community on Saturday, university officials called the recent student deaths “devastating and heartbreaking” and sought to dispel rumors about how many students had died by suicide. Three students died by suicide this semester, the school said, and the causes of some of the other deaths have not been publicly confirmed. “People are searching for answers and information as we attempt to make sense of these terrible losses. There is a great deal of speculation about the causes of these deaths and most are being attributed to suicide. This is not correct,” they said in the letter. “These tragic losses have resulted from a number of different causes. In some cases, the cause of death is still undetermined, and in others, the loved ones do not want details disclosed.”
Harvard’s Undergraduate Council plans to launch a mental health screening in partnership with Counseling and Mental Health Services. The platform, which includes a brief questionnaire aimed at identifying students’ mental health concerns, will be free and confidential. After completing the screening, the questionnaire will provide feedback about whether a student should seek formal help.
In an op-ed in Michigan State University’s student newspaper, The State News Editorial Board writes that professors should reach out to students who aren’t showing up to class or doing well – especially in smaller, more intimate classrooms. The Editorial Board urges professors to take students concerns seriously and recommend resources if necessary.
In a Daily Cal op-ed, Alexandra Feldman argues that UC Berkeley should put more focus on alleviating the root causes of poor mental health in its student population. According to Feldman, to improve student mental health, the UC System should reform the financial aid and education systems – as concerns about money and grades top the list of stressors students face.
According to a recent global survey of 6,300 students from Nature, more than a third of Ph.D. students have sought help for anxiety or depression caused by Ph.D. study. Kaylynne M. Glover, director of legislative affairs at the National Association of Graduate and Professional Students, an advocacy organization said, “Sadly, the findings are very in line with what we hear, and what we ourselves experience.” Glover called the graduate education “systemically abusive” and said that the problem “affects students from low-income and marginalized backgrounds the worst.” According to Nature’s survey, of those who sought mental health treatment or assistance at their Ph.D. institutions only 26 percent said it was helpful. Eighteen percent said they didn’t feel supported. Nine percent said they wanted to seek help but that there was none available on their campus.
This fall, James Madison University’s Counseling Center began limiting access to one-on-one therapy. In an email to faculty members, Vice President for Student Affairs Tim Miller addressed the “record number” of students who have come forward with mental health concerns in “the last week or so.” In Miller’s email to faculty, he stated that he’s “incredibly concerned” about students and urged colleagues to keep an eye out for any signs of distress, such as changes in appearance, lack of concentration or abnormally low attendance rates. Miller also stressed the importance of taking students seriously when they come forward about their challenges. Miller encouraged faculty and staff to walk students to the Counseling Center and to submit a Madison Cares Referral, an outlet used to log a concern about students’ well-being.
In response to Harvard’s Counseling and Mental Health Services announcement of its pilot program offering a limited amount of same-day appointments for non-urgent cases, the Crimson Editorial Board argues that the policy does not go far enough. While the op-ed acknowledges that the change is an important development in improving mental health care at Harvard, the program is simply a band-aid for a worsening problem. According to the Editorial Board, CAMHS is understaffed, which results in students often waiting several weeks for an appointment and turning to student peer-counseling groups for help. The editorial calls for Harvard to hire more CAMHS counselors and focus on instituting preventative measures. The op-ed suggests training all faculty on “what healthy academic environments look like, how struggling students can be assisted in the context of their academic work, where courses can be tailored and reinforced to accommodate students who are dealing with mental health problems.”
Earlier this semester, Cornell University’s Counseling and Psychological Services implemented several reforms to their mental health services, including adding free 25-minute in-person consultations and increasing the number of full-time counselors. Two months later, CAPS reported a decrease from 37 days to 15 days in students’ average wait time of scheduling appointments online.
According to mental health survey results conducted by Harvard University Health Services in 2017 and 2018, Harvard students experience significantly higher rates of depression and anxiety than the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s reported national average. Outgoing Harvard University Health Services Director Paul J. Barreira said that the mental health surveys included College freshmen, as well as five departments within the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The survey showed that the surveyed graduate departments ranged from a 15 percent to 30 percent prevalence rate of depression, and a 13.2 percent to 30 percent prevalence of anxiety.
Barnard College‘s new wellness initiative “Feel Well, Do Well,” launched at the beginning of the fall semester, has become increasingly visible-including to prospective students and applicants to the college. In the Columbia Spectator, some applicants to Barnard who cite campus resources for health and wellness as an important factor in their college decisions, noted an awareness of the college’s commitment to student well-being. One applicant shared that the wellness resources have not been strongly promoted at other schools she has considered, and are a distinct feature of her knowledge of Barnard. Another applicant said, “Barnard definitely has stood out as having a stronger emphasis, because during the panel they had people from different locations on campus, where [other institutions] seem like they have one place to go.”
Diversity and Inclusion
The Chronicle adapted an excerpt from the new book Diversity, Inc. by Pamela Newkirk, a professor of journalism at New York University. The essay claims that diversity initiatives, which have powered a multibillion-dollar diversity industry, have not shown results in more diversity or less bias. And, according to Newkirk, there’s some evidence that some of the anti-bias strategies can make matters worse. She blames higher education leadership for a lack of willingness to go beyond symbolic gestures to substantially expand the pool of underrepresented students and faculty of color. The article quotes, Cyrus Mehri, a civil-rights lawyer who successfully litigated a number of landmark discrimination lawsuits who said, “They want drive-by diversity,” Mehri says. “When you keep choosing the options on the menu that don’t create change, you’re purposely not creating change. It’s part of the intentional discrimination.”
In an op-ed in the Hechinger Report, Caroline Siegel Singh, an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego and an intern with New America’s higher education initiative, and Alejandra Acosta, a policy analyst with New America’s higher education initiative, write that while DACA made higher education more financially accessible for undocumented students, it is not a silver bullet for higher education access that many have claimed. Singh and Acosta argue that more must be done to make college financially accessible for undocumented students. The suggest that states grant access to in-state tuition and state aid to these students by adjusting their residency eligibility requirements.
Racist and anti-semetic incidents have roiled Syracuse University‘s campus over the past two weeks, leading students to fear for their safety, prompting some professors to cancel class, and sparking investigations by law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York issued a statement calling on Syracuse’s Board of Trustees to bring in an “experienced monitor with the relevant expertise to effectively investigate these incidents.”
Women’s colleges across the country are increasingly opening admission, at least partially, to gender-nonconforming applicants, including nonbinary students. However, Education Dive reports that admissions criteria vary widely and aren’t always publicly posted, leaving trans students floundering for answers. These schools now largely admit trans women, but very few accept trans men. Some of them accept students who don’t identify with a single gender, but only if they label themselves female. Researchers of LGBTQ issues say this compounds problems trans people already endure.
Finding the money to recruit and support faculty members is a challenge for most colleges, and is especially challenging for historically black colleges and universities which are chronically underfunded. Three HBCUs – Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Prairie View A&M University – announced plans to invest in their faculties after receiving a total of $3 million in grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. “We are still educating an enormous number of African Americans who are going to have to carry the load in a significant way for participation in American society,” said Ruth J. Simmons, president of Prairie View. “That deserves our paying attention to the development of faculty who we are putting in front of these students.”
According to annual data released by the Institute of International Education, new international student enrollment dropped for the third-straight year in the 2018-19 academic year. Fewer foreign students headed to the U.S. for undergraduate and non-degree education, with those groups declining year-over-year by 1.5% and 5.7%, respectively. Despite those trends, the number of international students in the U.S. reached a record high of 1.1 million in 2018-19, a year-over-year increase of 0.5%. Some U.S. college leaders have blamed White House rhetoric, visa delays and global tensions for discouraging overseas students. The officials who released the report downplayed those concerns and pointed to growing competition from abroad as well as the price tag of a U.S. degree.
Sexual Assault, Harassment and Title IX
Coleman Hutchison, a tenured associate professor at the University of Texas Austin, was found to have violated sexual misconduct policy, He was punished – barred for two academic years from supervising graduate students by himself, from consideration for promotion to full professor, and from appointment to any administrative or leadership position. But he was not put on leave or barred from the classroom. Now, as he returns to teaching, students are vehemently protesting, with varying demands. Some want Hutchison and Sahotra Sarkar, another professor who was accused of misconduct and found to have violated university policy, off the course schedule. Others want them fired. Cases with similar dynamics are playing out at colleges across the country.
Substance Use
The LA Times reports that last week, University of Southern California President Carol L. Folt and the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that investigators are looking into drug overdoses as a potential cause of death among some of the nine students who have died this semester. So far, three of the deaths have been confirmed as suicides and the other six were under investigation. While Folt would not elaborate on the scope of the inquiries or circumstances of the individual deaths, citing federal student privacy laws, she said USC is doubling down” on education and outreach over drug abuse. Investigators are trying to determine whether any student deaths are connected with tainted drugs, according to the Times.
The Chronicle highlights the growth of the Haven at College, a private recovery center that supplements colleges’ existing substance-abuse recovery services. The Haven offers sober-living residences and outpatient programs on or near campuses they partner with. With Haven, students don’t have to interrupt their academics to get help. Annette Molyneux, associate dean of students and director of counseling and health at Drexel University, which partners with Haven, said, “The nice thing is that they can live in a sober-living community and still take classes, not lose any time. That’s significant. I don’t know of any other programs that have that option available.” Haven is also enhancing existing centers, beginning to offer outpatient mental health treatment for anxiety and depression at some schools.
Greek Life
In the wake of the death of a Cornell University freshman following a fraternity event, the school suspended the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. Prior to the suspension, students had started taking campus safety into their own hands. The university’s Interfraternity Council banned fraternity social events for the rest of the semester. In an email to all Cornell students the day of the IFC ban, Martha E. Pollack, president of the university, commended the actions of the two Greek councils. “These welcome developments demonstrate that student leadership recognizes the seriousness of the situation,” Pollack wrote. However, questions remain about the ban. Dillon Anadkat of Alpha Delta Phi, sent a statement The Cornell Daily Sun asserting that the ban only encourages more unregistered and off-campus events by doing away with the registered events. “It is time for fraternities to sit down with the university administration to find more comprehensive, feasible, and tenable solutions to prevent such tragedies from occurring again,” Anadkat wrote. “Banning registered events seems more symbolic than substantive.”
Student Success
A new paper, “The Post-Collegiate Influence of Undergraduate Experiences: Intellectual, Civic, and Psychological Outcomes,” considers the link between particular college experiences and graduates’ noneconomic outcomes. Nicholas S. Bowman, a professor of higher education and student affairs at the University of Iowa and the paper’s lead author said that the paper shows uniform and positive relationships” between the key experiences during college and the outcome measures. The relationships were particularly strong between experiencing challenge during college and intellectual development; between diversity interactions and civic development; and between good teaching and college satisfaction. The researchers also found that diverse interactions had a weaker positive association with their outcome measures for black alumni.
Guns
A Chronicle interactive report suggests that gun violence may be dissuading international students from pursuing a degree in the United States. The article states that admissions officers are peppered with questions about campus safety while on recruiting trips. A survey of about 2,000 current international students and recent graduates of American colleges by World Education Services, a nonprofit international-education research company, found that nearly two in five are worried about gun violence. Earlier this year, the Chinese government warned students and other travelers about the risks of going to the United States.
