Mental and Behavioral Health
Loneliness is a growing public health concern, one that is increasing among young people. The Ithaca Voice partnered with WRFI, Ithaca College Park Scholars, and the Cornell Daily Sun to do a deep dive deep into the issue of loneliness and its impact on mental health in young people in Ithaca. The stories included how social media negatively and positively affects mental health and how local colleges are handling students in crisis. One feature highlighted a petition by Cornell graduate students urging the university to improve mental health services; another covered an Ithaca College student’s encounter with public safety, which raised questions about how mental health calls are handled on campus.
The University of Mississippi Counseling Center recently announced that it would start limiting student appointments to 10 per student per year, due to extensive waitlists. UCC director Bud Edwards said, “We are trying to treat students’ needs adequately, and at the same time treat as many students as possible. We’re going to see if that will satisfy these two competing demands for quality of care and number of students we see.” Edwards said students who need more than ten sessions have other options, including unlimited group therapy, as well as referrals to treatment centers in the area and other on-campus treatment options. The UCC also now offers classes for stress management and meditation. “The mental health conversation has gone beyond therapy now,” Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Brandi Hephner Labanc said. “We want to look at mental health in a broader way.”
In an op-ed in the Daily Trojan, Jordan Mickle argues that Mindful USC, a mindfulness initiative created to help students cope with stress, create healthy work environments, and encourage emotional intelligence, overlooks some of the immediate symptoms of stress, including poor health habits. According to Mickle, busy schedules and shortage of funds result in malnourished and unhealthy students, and without fundamental self-care, it’s hard for students to tackle additional topics like mindfulness. Mickle believes mindfulness initiatives can also help students develop and maintain healthy living habits, like simple changes in diet and sleep.
Davidson University students may no longer schedule recurring appointments in advance in order to free up space for other students. However, Director of the Counseling Center, Dr. Trish Murray has implemented a new resource open to students, called the Mental Health Ambassadors (MHAs) program. According to the Counseling Center’s website, MHA’s are “a volunteer group of students who are committed to raising awareness and implementing programming about mental health issues that are specific to the college experience.”
The Rochester Institute of Technology’s student newspaper, The Reporter, compiled a “History of Mental Health Services at RIT”, starting in 2015, when RIT’s administration hired a consultant to audit of the institute’s mental health services. Students expressed frustration with the services, especially regarding how difficult it was to get personal appointments. In response, Senior Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. Sandra Johnson attempted to create what she called an “integrated health model,” opening new positions within student affairs to help students more effectively. This year, CAPS served 24 percent more students compared to two years ago. Walk in appointments were implemented and increased from 183 in 2015-2016 to 894 in the 2017-2018 academic year. Dr. David Reetz, director of Counseling and Psychological services, announced new staffed offices built into five buildings across campus. And a number of new mental health positions, aiming to be filled by the 2019-2020 academic year, are being implemented – including an Outreach coordinator to speak with students in their places of residence.
Student health is at the forefront of seven of the 11 University of Southern CaliforniaUndergraduate Student Government Senate campaigns this semester, a trend that candidates say has grown from raised awareness and the desire to speak out among the student population. As senators, two candidates aim to expand emergency services at the health center and improve required safety and wellness online courses. Sarah Van Orman, chief health officer for USC Student Health, said it was clear that the health center did not have enough capacity to meet the needs of all USC students. “We just didn’t have enough staff to provide this number of services that were needed, both in medical care, in particular areas, but more importantly in mental health,” Van Orman said. “We don’t have that problem fixed yet, but I think there’s a really clear commitment from the university and … a really clear path to rectify that.” The campaign also wants to increase the number of mental health professionals available to students and lower the number of off-campus counseling referrals – a process that can be expensive and time-consuming. Van Orman said that currently, 70 percent of people seeking mental health services are referred off campus, a number that she hopes to bring down to 30 percent.
Diversity and Inclusion
The newly elected 6B -University of Pennsylvania’s six main minority coalition groups – held its first town hall last week to discuss issues surrounding student wellness, faculty diversity, and marginalization on campus. The 6B student leaders represented the United Minorities Council, Asian Pacific Student Coalition, Latinx Coalition, Lambda Alliance, UMOJA, and Penn Association for Gender Equity. Students raised concerns about faculty diversity on campus, saying they wanted to see more Penn faculty members who have also experienced marginalization and could better relate to their experiences.
Officials at American University are investigating the sighting of a man wearing a Confederate flag hoodie in a campus dining hall last week. “We recognize that the Confederate flag feels threatening to members of our community,” Fanta Aw, vice president of campus life, said in an email to the campus. “As a university that values inclusion, freedom of expression and a culture of openness, we recognize that resolving the tensions that can arise between these issues is challenging.”
University of Pennsylvania’s second annual Men and Masculinities summit gave students a chance to discuss healthy norms surrounding gender and identity. The event, hosted by Penn Violence Prevention, featured a keynote speech followed by panels and small group discussions. Workshop topics included, “Feeling Our Way Through Consent” and “Men, Mental Health and the Media: What lessons have we learned?” In the workshops, students discussed how masculinity affects their daily lives and perceptions. Students shared their perspectives on topics including implicit biases and how gender issues intersect with race and sexuality.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
The Department of Education has been inundated with approximately 100,000 public comments on its proposed new rules for how campuses handle cases of sexual assault. Secretary Betsy DeVos opened the public comment period two months ago, after unveiling her plan to replace Obama-era rules with regulations that, according to her, would better protect the accused. Some who have weighed in praise the new rules for “restoring sanity” and fairness to the process but many more are critical. The comments range from short expletives and insults aimed at DeVos, to personal and sometimes graphic accounts of sexual assaults, and pleas not to return to the days when victims were not believed and incidents were swept under the rug.
As president of Baylor University, Linda Livingstone has tried to move the institution forward from the infamous sexual-assault scandal, when multiple women accused the university of paying little attention to their reports of sexual assault and of letting football players, in particular, off the hook when they were accused of rape. Yet Livingstone doesn’t believe there’s a point at which Baylor can completely leave behind its past. I don’t think there’s ever a sort of line of demarcation where you say, ‘OK, the past is done and we’re moving forward,’” Livingstone said in an interview with The Chronicle. Later she added: “What happened will always be a part of who we are at Baylor. It will always be a part of our story. It will always be a part of what influences and informs the decisions that we make.” The long shadow of the scandal became apparent once again on Monday, when Livingstone was forced to address the campus community after five sexual-assault reports in the past two months raised alarm among students. In a letter, she emphasized that the reports were being handled properly, through the university’s Title IX process.
Substance Use
The number of drinking incidents involving Dartmouth College students and campus security, or residential advisers, is on the rise, according to a study released by the school. Overall alcohol-related incidents involving safety and security officers or residential life staff increased from 388 in the 2016-17 academic year to 437 in 2017-18.
Safety
Johns Hopkins University is seeking state approval to create an armed police force, something that many urban universities maintain amidst some controversy. The private university has proposed building a force of about 100 armed officers over three to five years to patrol on and around its three city campuses as violent crime has been on the rise. The Hopkins police proposal has received pushback from some area residents, lawmakers and students, who are concerned about potential racial profiling and a lack of accountability with a privately-operated security force.
A University of Central Florida sophomore was arrested after police found an automatic weapon in his car on campus. Max Bennett Chambers, a 19-year-old mechanical engineering major, was charged with two felonies linked to possessing what an affidavit called a machine gun and bump stock. Police have banned him from campus. An anonymous tip warned that a student may have made devices that turn a semiautomatic weapon into an automatic weapon, increasing the rate of fire.
Greek Life
The parents of a Pennsylvania State University student who died after a fraternity event have sued 28 former fraternity members, alleging the men led hazing activities and failed to call for help for their son long after it was needed. Timothy Piazza was 19 when he pledged Beta Theta Pi at Penn State and was fatally injured when he fell down a flight of stairs at a pledge event. His death became a national symbol of the dangers of alcohol, hazing and other risky behavior in Greek life.
