Mental and Behavioral Health
After a junior at the University of Pennsylvania committed suicide last week, the campus’s first and only peer-to-peer counseling organization stepped up its activities. The Penn Benjamins Peer Counseling, which was founded last spring after a string of suicides on campus, has been providing extended hours and group therapy.
“Why must people wait until they have a mental breakdown or crisis to receive the adequate help they should have gotten in the first place?” asks University of Wisconsin-Madison student Olivia Hughes in her op-ed about the stigma of mental health.
Underloading, or taking fewer classes, for psychological reasons is one option for students seeking help to balance mental health needs and academic pressures at UNC. However, the required navigation between the counseling center and academic advising can be a challenge for a student already struggling with the stress of college life.
Three NYU undergraduate students created Project InterACT, a photo initiative that aims to raise awareness and reduce the stigma of mental illness and health issues. Students handwrite their experiences with mental illness on their photos, which are shared on the Project InterACT Facebook page.
University of California Student Association (UCSA) recognized UCSB student and shooting survivor Siavash Zohoori with the Student Advocate of the Year award for working toward improvements in sexual assault prevention and mental health services.
Inclusion on Campus
Student art project at Austin Peay University, featuring rainbow colored nooses hanging from a tree, fueled racial tension on campus. The project, which was meant to bring attention to suicides within the LGBT community, has been taken down.
Duke University administration released a statement on the controversial LGBT discrimination law, stating, “We deplore in the strongest possible terms the new state law, HB2, that prevents municipalities from establishing laws that protect members of the LGBTQ+ community and others from discrimination and eliminates some economic advancement opportunities for underrepresented communities.”
Emory’s Racial Diversity Initiative, which was created by Senior Vice President Ajay Nair in reaction to student activists’ demands for improved inclusion for minority students, establishes a set of recommendations for addressing each of the 13 demands. Separate working groups, each made up of about a dozen people, including students, faculty members, and administrators, tackled the demands individually, and shared their process publically. The working groups they will all submit their final suggestions to a new committee, the Next Steps Group, at the end of this month.
As reported by Inside Higher Ed, University of Wisconsin police entered a classroom Thursday to arrest a black student for spray-painting anti-racist messages on campus. The arrest, which has exacerbated existing racial tensions on UW campus, provoked widespread anger from students and faculty who believed the police acted unfairly.
Students criticized Saint Louis University administration for failing to punish baseball players who made racist remarks within a group text message last year.
Tensions have escalated at Idaho State University which has seen an influx of students from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Resulting in burglaries and hate literature apparently directed at Muslim students. The US Justice Department is conducting a review of the incidents on campus determine if the incidents warrant a civil rights violation.
Guns on Campus
A Georgia law allowing guns on college campuses has some professors feeling disempowered in their own classrooms.One professor at Middle Georgia State University argues: “If the governor believes college to be a worthy undertaking, one that requires the utmost focus to achieve learning, then allowing students to carry concealed firearms anywhere on campus is antithetical to that end.”
Sexual Assault
University of California President Janet Napolitano called for a more efficient investigations of UC faculty accused of sexual assault. Both UC Berkeley and UCLA have been in the national news over the past year for being lenient on professors and administrators who violated the school system’s sexual harassment policies.
A recent Penn State survey found that just over half of students that experience stalking, dating violence or sexual assault ever tell someone about the incident, and only 2.6% reported the incident to campus or local police.
A new provocative ad, called “The Unacceptable Acceptance Letters” raises awareness for sexual assault on campus by putting a dark spin on the moment young people are accepted to college. The video features students who appear to be reading their acceptance letters aloud, only for that letter to transform into a narrative on a future sexual assault.
A Brigham Young University student is being investigated for violating the Mormon school’s honor code, after reporting her sexual assault to the police, which was later reported to the University. It is not clear which honor code provision the victim violated. The case has raised concerns about how college codes of conduct interfere with sexual violence investigations, and whether codes at religious colleges deter victims from reporting rapes. BYU officials have declined to delay the honor code proceedings against the victim, and say the process operates separately from its investigation of sexual-assault complaints under Title IX. The victim has been banned from registering for classes until she has participated in the honor code proceedings.
At a town hall meeting in New York, Presidential hopeful John Kasich told a student concerned about sexual assault “Don’t go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol,” prompting backlash from some observers. Conversations about alcohol in the context of sexual assault are considered especially difficult, because many see citing it as a cause implies victim-blaming.
Reproductive Rights
UC Berkeley students continue to fight for access to abortions at the student health center, a measure that was unanimously approved by the student government last month. Students argue that those who pay for the school’s health insurance plan face large economic obstacles in accessing abortion services off campus. While the administration has so far opposed the bill, students are planning various peaceful demonstrations in the hopes of bringing the student body together on this issue.
A Georgetown student calls for “contraception without deception” at the Catholic school’s student health services center, where some students can only receive a prescription for oral contraceptives if they lie about the reasons they want it.
