Mental and Behavioral Health
STAT News interviews Lauren Carson, founder of Black Girls Smile, an organization that aims to increase awareness of mental health issues among African American girls. Carson founded the organization after experiencing her own personal battles with depression.
In an opinion piece for the Daily Texan, UT-Austin graduate Trevor Hadley argues that colleges and universities should focus on the whole student, not just academics. “The future success of students certainly depends as much on their ability to balance the rest of life’s challenges as it does on the knowledge base they build in college,” he writes.
Last week, the University of Denver hosted a mental health awareness week with educational programming and the Send Silence Packing exhibit, a national traveling installation of 1,000 donated backpacks representing college students lost to suicide each year.
Unab Khan, Brown’s Health and Wellness director, will leave the school to work at her alma mater in Pakistan. In her three years at the university, she removed the previous seven-session counseling limit, increased accessibility, addied mental health screening to routine health services appointments, and increased support for Brown Emergency Medical Services.
Depression was the theme of this year’s World Health Day.
A recent study shows that “helicopter parenting” affects male and female college students differently. The researchers found that over-involved parenting was found to reduce the overall wellbeing of young women, but not young men. Additionally, a failure to encourage independence was shown to affect the wellbeing of college males but not females.
In the Duke Chronicle, Duke University’s student newspaper, the student government leaders examine why students are not making health and wellness priorities, despite the recent investments the school has made in this area. “The root cause is not a lack of capital, but rather an absence of culture,” they write. They believe that by institutionalizing wellness, the campus would be a happier and healthier place.
Diversity and Inclusion
According to a new study published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, different minority groups internalize imposter syndrome in in different ways. “We sometimes have a tendency to homogenize the experiences of students of color,” said Kevin Cokley, one of the authors of the study who spoke to Inside Higher Ed. “They all experience discrimination to some extent, but it’s very different experiences. It’s important to be nuanced and to appreciate and to understand the experiences.”
The Trump administration’s appointments to key roles in the Department of Education have raised fears the agency will retreat from enforcing civil rights on college campuses. Its choice for General Council is Carlos G. Muñiz, a politically-connected Florida lawyer who is best known for representing Florida State University in a lawsuit brought by a student who accused a football player of raping her in 2012.
In an op-ed for the New York Times, Allison Stanger writes about the divide at Middlebury College over unpopular views and freedom of speech on campus. Stanger, a professor of political science at the college, was escorting the conservative speaker Charles Murray from his controversial talk when she and Murray were attacked by protesting students
Sexual Assault and Title IX
Rutgers hosted its first all-denim fashion show on Denim Day, an annual awareness day that protests against erroneous and destructive attitudes about sexual assault. The Rutgers fashion show was designed to be an accessible way for students to start a conversation about sexual assault.
All University of Minnesota Community Advisors — RAs that work within the university’s living learning communities — will now receive more in-depth Title IX training. A national study of 305 sexual assault claims at 104 colleges and universities found that 53 percent of reports occurred in a residence hall.
In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Frank Shushok Jr.,, deputy Title IX coordinator for Virginia Tech, urges readers to take the matter more seriously and stop blaming the victim. “The suffering inflicted upon victims of sexual violence is immeasurable, and the sheer reality that a full quarter of our student population experiences it should cause vicarious suffering for all of us.”
Shawn Patrick, an associate professor and professional counselor at California State University, San Bernardino, writes about her personal experience teaching a course on abuse and violence. “Responding to students who also felt powerless, I had to remember that humility, not bravado, opens us to compassion,” she writes. “Embracing feelings of disgust, anger, sadness or hurt when witnessing stories of violence is not a sign of failure. Rather, it is the appropriate response — the human response.”
Marina N. Rosenthal, a therapist and researcher at the University of Oregon, explains, in Inside Higher Education, her three-step response when a student discloses a sexual assault: allowing herself to mourn for the pain and violence at her campus; providing information on how to report and seek help, and remembering that she can always offer belief and empathy.
The New York Times reviews “Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus” and “The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities,” both about the current state of rape on college campuses.
Physical Disability
Valerie Piro writes about her frustrating experience visiting colleges as a prospective student in a wheelchair. “My wheelchair should never have been a barrier to higher education. Nobody’s should,” she writes.
College Affordability
A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed that college students who take out loans for their education are graduating with an average debt of $34,000, up from $20,000 ten years ago, and that the consequences of student borrowing are longer lasting. The report carefully analyzed the relationship between debt and homeownership, and found that for people aged 30 to 36, having any student debt significantly hurts your chances of buying a home.
A New York Times photo story traces the journey of one community college student who lived in shelters and hostels while earning his degree.
In a historic move, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and state legislative leaders announced a plan to make tuition free at the City University of New York and State University of New York Systems for families with annual incomes up to $125,000. The plan will be phased in over three years, starting this fall.
Substance Abuse
The Clinton Foundation and Adapt Pharma are working together to provide colleges with free doses of NARCAN nasal spray, which can reverse opioid overdoses. The partnership will provide 40,000 doses of the nasal spray, which was designed to be simple enough to administer without any medical training.
