Mental and Behavioral Health
University of California Student Association is advocating for the establishment of a $40 million fund for mental health services, and a grant program that would improve access to mental health services for the California Community College, California State University and University of California systems.
Across the pond, a London School of Economics student was evicted from the residence hall after being admitted to a hospital for an acute mental illness. The incident highlights the school’s reputation for poorly supporting students with mental health issues.
In Science, an interdisciplinary group of scientists discuss their recent study on the mental health stresses of graduate students. “Academia has a culture of not showing anybody else that we’re struggling,” said Teresa Evans, director of the Office of Career Development within the Graduate School of Biomedical Science at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
Students at the Governor’s School for the Arts in Norfolk, VA, drew on the voices of teens and young adults in their community with depression to write the play “Reframe the Shame.” The idea for the play, intended to reduce the stigma around mental health, emerged after a music student committed suicide in 2014.
Instagram, Tumblr, and other heavily visual social media sites are expected to create a safe environment, but blocking a few hashtags associated with eating disorders usually leads to the creation of many more unblocked variations. Buzzfeed reports on why eating disorders are difficult to fight online and how social media sites are responding.
As University of Pennsylvania sees its tenth student suicide in three years, students demand more from the administration to combat the issue on campus. President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price announced Wednesday that the Task Force on Student Psychological Health and Welfare will reconvene immediately to determine what steps can be taken to ensure the wellbeing of Penn students.
Health on Campus
The reaction of a small Jesuit college in containing a highly fatal infectious disease outbreak on campus sets a precedent for other schools.
Freshman Health Week at Harvard University has expanded its focus from previous years, now addressing mental health and sexual health, as well as physical health. Students are participating in activities ranging from zumba, yoga, and a food-literacy cook-off to journaling and color-booking
Inclusion on Campus
“University of Wisconsin System will create a task force to study the experiences of minority students and make recommendations to improve the racial climate on UW campuses, officials announced Friday. Six students from around the UW System addressed the Board of Regents on Friday, saying they felt unwelcome on campus and citing incidences of racial hostility.
The Black Liberation Collective, a group of organizers striving to connect student activists across the country, is succeeding through social media.
A recent survey on first amendment rights sponsored by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Newseum Institute, found that while 70 percent of white students said that their right to assemble was secure, just 39 percent of black students felt the same.
University of North Carolina President, Margaret Spellings, comments on the new controversial LGBT state law, saying “it sends a chill throughout this institution for staff, faculty, and student recruitment.”
Following student protests last fall, University of Kansas created a new “multicultural student government” independent of the Student Senate. One of the fifteen demands set forth by the activists, the new governing body, is meant to “give a seat at the table to students who have long felt they’ve been denied one.” The move is considered a first for colleges and universities.
Trump chalkings spread to universities across the country, continue the debate over free speech and safety on campus.
Sexual Assault
President of the board of one Harvard’s exclusive final clubs apologized on Wednesday, after writing a statement in the Harvard Crimson suggesting that admitting women to the club could lead to more sexual assaults.
Community colleges face unique challenges in complying with Title IX, the federal law that in part, regulates how colleges address sexual assault on campus. In addition to facing many of the same difficulties as four year colleges doing Title IX compliance, community colleges are often called on to address assaults that happen off campus, coordinate with multiple police departments across a region, offer counseling services to their students, and provide sexual violence education to their students – all with less resourced health departments.
Reproductive Rights
An editorial in the Daily Californian argues for abortion services to be provided at UC Berkeley health center after a resolution calling for implementation of abortion services was passed unanimously through the school’s student senate.
Sleep
The UCLA Healthy Campus Initiative will hold a “sleep fair” next week, with a panel discussion moderated by Ariana Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post and author of “The Sleep Revolution.”
The New York Times reports on colleges across the country installing “nap pods” on campus, to encourage students to get more sleep.
