2/6 -2/11

Mental and Behavioral Health

Newly-elected California Governor Gavin Newsom released his state budget proposal in January, with $36.4 billion allocated to higher education. Newsom hopes that this hike in funding across all of California’s higher education systems will allow for an overall increase in access to schooling, an improvement of graduation rates and a tuition freeze. In the budget summary, Newsom clarified that $240 million would be set aside for the UC to “fund operating costs, [make] efforts to increase student success, improve student mental health services, and better address student hunger and homelessness.”

According to an article in the University of Wisconsin newspaper, lack of representation and discrimination on campus can significantly impact students’ mental health. Seeking to provide more support for students of color, UW Madison Health Services hired two additional mental health providers of color last year, making the total providers specifically hired for students of color now five. One student said, “Being a person of color in Madison is sometimes frightful. Often, I will find myself isolated in academic and research settings, making it difficult to engage to the extent that I would like. I am aware that I stand out at this institution; I try to be my best self (academically, professionally and socially), to hopefully make more of the population more welcoming to others like me.”

The University of San Francisco Board of Trustees is planning to use $260,000 of the leftover funds for “Campus Security and Safety Enhancements” to replace University Police cruisers on the Tampa campus and police services at the Sarasota-Manatee campus. In addition, $1,274,228 of the fund will be used for “Student Services, Enrollment and Retention Efforts,” which will impact student mental health services. Mark Walsh, USF assistant vice president for Government Relations, said the mental health initiative is important to fund because it will significantly reduce wait times with mental health care professionals and provide more awareness, education and prevention programs.

Last semester, Princeton University launched TigerWell, a collaborative, cross-campus health, wellbeing and resilience initiative that coordinates existing resources with creative new approaches. TigerWell aims to provide multi-layered support and increased campus connectivity. Efforts include hiring of a project manager, who will coordinate and amplify awareness of the available support programs, and two new mental-health counselors. “Wellbeing is more than just the absence of being ill,” said W. Rochelle Calhoun, vice president for campus life. “It’s having a positive health identity, being proactive about your health and wellbeing, and thinking about not just getting through, but about actually thriving and flourishing.” A gift from the Elcan Family Fund for Wellness Innovation enabled the University to pursue this innovative approach to student health in the digital age. Over the next five years, the University will build a wellness ecosystem that permeates the campus, providing students with more accessible and more responsive services. The support has also enabled Princeton to invite experts to campus to share their insights. Kristin Neff, associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, was TigerWell’s inaugural lecturer. Her topic was “The Science of Self-Compassion.”

Ohio University created a position within the athletic department to allow student athletes access to a psychologist who specializes in athletics. The new position was created after confusion regarding what to do in severe situations involving student athletes’ mental health. Michelle Pride, the psychologist, said the most common reasons student athletes visit her include anxiety, depression, eating concerns, relationship issues, performance related issues, graduation, career, academic concerns and identity issues.  According to Pride, there are considerable differences between working with student athletes and other students, like schedules, relationships with the coaching staff and teammates, the role sports plays in shaping identity and the time commitment that sports require.

The weekend, the Georgia Tech will host students and campus leaders from nine universities, along with clinical practitioners, researchers, and advocates at the Intercollegiate Mental Health Conference (IMHC). Through panels, group discussions, case studies, lectures, and networking, the conference will bring together a wide range of people to tackle the issue of students’ mental health and well-being. The goal of the conference is the creation of a publicly accessible best practices repository and a shareable database of successful college mental health programs. John Stein, vice president for Student Life at Georgia Tech and the Brandt-Fritz Dean of Students Chair, is eager to create solutions. “My hope is that we will be able to learn from what other universities have tried and adapt the strategies that have proven successful on other campuses,” he said.

University of Pennsylvania launched an online challenge this week calling on students, faculty, and staff to submit ideas to enhance wellness on campus. The project, titled “Your Big Idea” challenge, also allows people to view, rate, and comment on all of the suggestions.  Submissions for the challenge – which total more than 200 so far – include ideas such as hiring staff to support long-term therapy at Counseling and Psychological Services, setting aside areas in academic buildings for napping, and making all freshmen courses on a pass/fail grading scale. The challenge is Penn’s most expansive wellness initiative since the creation of Student Wellness Services, the umbrella organization for CAPS, Student Health Service, Campus Health, Penn Violence Prevention, and Alcohol and Other Drug Program Initiatives. “We want you to think big. We’re looking for creative ideas for services, programs, amenities, and resources to strengthen Penn wellness,” the email read. “Proposals that cross departments and Schools are strongly encouraged.”

Diversity and Inclusion

According to a report from the National Center for Education Statistics, more than a third of all high-school students take courses for college credit while in high school, but minority, low-income and first-generation students are far less likely to get the benefit of this head start. Originally intended only for high-achieving students, classes that offer both high-school and college credit have since been extended to more students, as long as they meet minimum college-readiness standards. Students with better-educated parents were also more likely to participate. While 42 percent of students whose parents had earned at least a bachelor’s degree enrolled in these classes, participation shrank to 26 percent for students whose parents had less than a high-school diploma.

The American Talent Initiative, a group of leaders from more than 100 selective colleges and universities, met to strategize on how to recruit and graduate more students from the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. Two years after it launched with backing from Michael Bloomberg, it has 110 members, up from the founding 30, and it counts progress toward a goal of enrolling 50,000 low income students to schools nationwide with high graduation rates. The group wants to reach that milestone by 2025. According to the American Talent Initiative, the number of students at participating schools with enough financial need to qualify for federal Pell Grants grew more than 7,200 from 2015 to 2017. That represented a 3 percent rise in total Pell enrollment at the schools and a step toward the 50,000-student growth target. Bloomberg hailed the results as a sign of commitment to widening access at top colleges.

For the second year in a row the number of international students who enrolled in U.S. graduate schools fell by 1%. The drop was led by a decline in students from Saudi Arabia and India, according to a report released Thursday from the Council of Graduate Schools. The modest declines follow years of robust growth and represent a challenge for U.S. universities, which rely on full-pay international students. Analysts point to factors such as uncertainty about post-graduate work visas, anti-immigrant sentiment, a strong U.S. dollar that can make programs more expensive, and a cutback in scholarship money provided by some countries-especially those dependent on oil revenue.

In the days following revelations that Virginia Governor Ralph Northam may have dressed either in blackface or in a KKK robe in a photo that appeared on his medical-school yearbook page, higher education leaders consider the power of similar photos. .Walter Kimbrough, the president of Dillard University and an expert on fraternity and sorority life, told the Atlantic, “There’s an incident practically every year.” Just weeks ago, two students at the University of Oklahoma were filmed in a video laughing as one of the students wore blackface, painted down to the palms of her hands, and said the N-word. At least one of those students was expelled from her sorority.

Sexual Assault and Title IX

The Chronicle interviewed R. Shep Melnick about his book, The Transformation of Title IX, which criticizes how Title IX has been applied to sexual misconduct and athletics during the Obama administration. According to Melnick, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has expanded Title IX’s reach far beyond its original purpose.  Melnick, a professor of American politics at Boston College, argues that civil-rights officials – with the help of activists and federal judges – have wielded the gender-equity law to try to upend gender stereotypes, define sexual harassment in an overly broad way, and force institutions to adopt a particular view of gender identity. The interview also covered masculinity, and the shortcomings of prevention training.

Greek Life

According to the Atlantic, while fraternities often make headlines for dangerous, harmful behavior, healthy chapters can provide young men with much-needed intimacy and emotional support. Media coverage tends to lament the problems they cause rather than explore the challenges they face. The message that doesn’t come across is that the same forces that have led to what has been called  “toxic masculinity” on campuses don’t only oppress girls, they can suffocate boys, too.

College Affordability

There are now more than 300 “free college” programs in 44 states, more than 120 of which were launched from 2015 to 2017, according to data from the College Promise Campaign. A crisis in college affordability and a tightening labor market have propelled the proliferation of the “promise” programs, which have been championed by lawmakers across the political spectrum. Most programs support two-year degrees and are closely aligned with the local labor market, aiming to help fill the estimated 7 million open jobs in the U.S. Critics contend that some of the programs are so narrowly tailored that they only reach a small number of people. And they say that it isn’t clear that all programs are leading students to graduate from two- or four-year colleges at higher rates.