Mental and Behavioral Health
Simmons University Wellness hosted “A Conversation on Body Image“, where the dialogue focused on building a healthy relationship with one’s own body while immersed in a culture obsessed with diet talk and attaining the “right” figure. Panelists from Boston University, Boston College, and the Harvard School of Public Health, addressed common issues and questions regarding body image eating disorders, and their intersectionality.
Since 2004, the Wellness Center at Loyola University has gradually increased its staff to adequately treat the rising numbers of students who need help, upping its mental health staff from four to 15. In 2017, a new “care manager” role was created to work with students to find healthcare professionals in the community who fit their needs and are covered by their insurance. In an op-ed, the Loyloa Phoenix staff argued that, despite their efforts, the Wellness Center alone isn’t equipped to adequately treat the increasing student mental health needs. They recommend adding a one-credit required mental health core class for every Loyola undergraduate, with a variety of options, including classes on coping and stress techniques, brain chemistry, psychology, yoga, stretching or mindfulness.
In an effort to expand mental health services, University of Iowa will add a required suicide prevention course for all first-year and transfer students. This week, student government voted to add the course, while also taking steps to add more employees to the counseling department. Another bill that was voted on and passed, was an increase to the annual mental health fee for students by $2 per semester, pending the approval by the Iowa Board of Regents. That increase will go to help counseling services hire the university’s second case worker and an additional staffer focused on suicide prevention. The caseworker will also work with the Dean of Students to help students in crisis.
Cornell University President Martha E. Pollack and Ryan Lombardi, vice president for student and campus life, spoke to the Student Assembly last week, focusing on the recent college admissions scandal and ongoing efforts to improve mental health on campus and diversity. Pollack said, “The single issue that comes up the most within student complaints is mental health.” Twenty-one percent of all students sought care for Cornell Health’s Counseling and Psychological Services in the 2016-2017 academic year, up eight percent from 13 percent a decade earlier. Speaking on potential reforms to the current mental health support system on campus, Pollack said that the University is “taking a far broader and much more holistic approach.” Pollack also announced a new formal review of existing policies this semester, which will focus on evaluating the effect of factors like sleep and technology on mental health.
More than 450 people gathered for the 17th annual Depression on College Campuses Conference at the University of Michigan. The two-day conference, titled “One Size Does Not Fit All: Aligning Levels of Care to Student Mental Health Needs,” aimed to shed light on depression on campus, focusing on the best methods to provide support to all students with unique and varying needs.
Students at the University of Connecticut protested last week, demanding better mental health care from the university. Students at the demonstration called for reform at Counseling and Mental Health Services (CMHS), attributing many of the problems to insufficient funds.
4.5 percent of students on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus self-reported that they had been diagnosed with anorexia and/or bulimia in their lifetime, up from 3.7 percent in 2015. Students also say the on-campus resources for students suffering from an eating disorder aren’t enough. Boynton Health, the University’s primary student health resource, currently does not offer any eating disorder therapy groups or major treatment options on campus. Students who are diagnosed with an eating disorder at the health center are referred to off-campus specialized treatment institutions. According to Mary Utz, a therapist at Boynton Health’s Mental Health clinic and a member of the clinic’s eating disorder team, the reason the health center does not provide more resources is due to the complexity of the disease. “We know that those students need more regular care then we can provide. They need to seek that specialist care and have that team.”
A research team led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has received a five-year, $3.8 million grant to evaluate the use of smartphones in treating psychiatric problems that are common among college students. Ellen E. Fitzsimmons-Craft, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry who is collaborating on the project said, “Mobile apps help get around the stigma of seeking help at a counseling center. They also help work around scheduling issues so that students can use the app when they have the time, even in the middle of the night. The mobile app intervention will be hosted by SilverCloud, a company that specializes in using mobile technology for mental health problems.
The Editorial Board of the Daily Bruin sums up what appears to be across-the-board dissatisfaction with the university’s mental health services. “To students, CAPS’ problems are endemic; to CAPS staff, the problems are unsolvable without administrative support; and to administrators, the problems are sometimes even nonexistent,” it writes. According to the Board, UCLA students in need of mental health care face long wait times and a severely limited number of allotted appointments. Despite the problems with CAPS and growing student discontentment with the service, the Editorial Board claims that administrators have few satisfactory solutions and seem to lack an understanding of what students want or need from the services. They also appear to be at odds with the university’s role in this regard. In the editorial board’s March 11 meeting with administrators and Chancellor Gene Block, Monroe Gorden Jr., vice chancellor of student affairs, disputed the fact that CAPS is a short-term care provider, contradicting Nicole Green, its executive director, who has stressed that CAPS is a short-term mental health facility built to temporarily serve students on a limited budget.
Two years ago, Ohio State University launched the SMART (Stress Management And Resiliency Training) Lab, where students can work one-on-one with volunteers or use self-guided, web-based programs to learn about mindfulness, meditation and breathing techniques in an effort to help them relax on their own, and for free. Also available are a weekly meditation group and occasional programs geared for the student-veteran population. Since opening in February 2017, the lab has hosted more than 1,100 biofeedback visits and served more than 100 people in the meditation or veteran-specific groups.
Stanford University is facing what many are calling a graduate student mental health crisis, due in part to a “toxic culture of overwork”. In a survey of 1,180 graduate students conducted by the Graduate Student Council (GSC), one-third of respondents reported that they were either neutral or dissatisfied with their mental health. At a GSC town hall discussion last October with representatives from CAPS and Student Affairs, graduate students identified similar themes, raising grievances over the financial and logistical difficulties of seeking off-campus psychological care and the challenges of working with advisors “who don’t understand the importance of work-life balance or mental health.” Last week, current graduate students and recent alumni staged a protest outside a GRAD Diversity Day event for admitted and prospective students, warning of the University’s alleged failure to address mental health, sexual violence issues and affordability.
A graduate student protest is also planned this week at Cornell University. On Thursday Cornell graduate workers, undergraduates, and community members will attend Cornell Graduate Students United’s (CGSU’s) rally for improved Cornell mental health services. The rally represents an escalation of CGSU’s mental health campaign; a similar rally was held last semester.
Harvard University faces a complaint filed with the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights alleging the school’s 2018 decision to place former student Ty Pelton-Byce ’20 on a mandatory leave of absence constituted disability-based discrimination. The complaint alleges that Harvard officials had violated section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits institutions that receive federal funding from discriminating against people with mental or physical disabilities. The complaint states that Pelton-Byce was diagnosed with depression by two mental health professionals and argues the College failed to provide appropriate accommodations for his diagnosis when administrators put him on a mandatory leave of absence after he received a failing grade and an unsatisfactory grade in two classes during spring 2018.
Seeing an increase in students seeking mental health services, Missouri State University Counseling Center changed its model to “solution-focused brief therapy” in 2015. “Typically, with brief solution focus, you are really looking at trying to help students as quickly as you possibly can, to find solutions for their problems in a time sensitive way,” said Shaun Fossett, one of the center’s mental health clinicians. In the former model, the Counseling Center allowed students to access unlimited appointments and offered more walk-in services, including intake, or first-time, appointments. Due to high demand, they changed to scheduled intakes and a limit of eight sessions per semester. The center has also hosted more group sessions in an effort to assist a larger number of students with similar concerns, though they haven’t had high attendance.