Don’t Miss This Article: Learning from Dr. Cole
In the spring issue of the Mary Christie Quarterly, MCI Executive Director spoke with Dr. Jonathan Cole, professor and former provost at Columbia University, and author of several books on higher education, about the triumphs and failures of American higher education, the promises offered and often unmet, and the collective changes that need to be made within the institution where he has spent his entire career. Dr. Cole explains that when he returned to teaching after serving as provost, he found that the student body had significantly changed; Students’ mental health and their personal relationships had been negatively affected by the hyper-competitive atmosphere. “There’s a large proportion of these kids who, before they even come to college, are suffering from high levels of anxiety and depression,” Cole said. “Then when they get here, it gets worse because they are wound up so tight trying to reach the next level. Their friends become their competition. I think that’s very sad. Instead of exploring the human mind and having this opportunity that they’ll never have again, they’re extraordinarily competitive about getting into the right graduate school because they are thinking ‘only one of us is going to get in.’” Read this and other articles in the Mary Christie Quarterly.
Mental and Behavioral Health
Main Stories
In an op-ed in Inside Higher Ed, Elisa Bolton, interim director of psychological and counseling services at the University of New Hampshire, summarizes key data takeaways on college student mental health and advises on what colleges could do to better approach campus mental health services. According to an Active Minds survey last spring, 80 percent of college students report that the pandemic has negatively affected their mental health. However, Bolton states that “while COVID-19 has exacerbated the challenges many students face, nationally two-thirds of students who sought mental health treatment over the past year did so for reasons unrelated to the pandemic.” In addition, Bolton says, “At my own campus, demand for UNH’s campus mental health services is actually down from previous years, though it has been fairly steady over the course of this academic year. Not only that, but students’ academic performance actually improved this fall over the previous fall.” Bolton argues that “although students are performing well academically and rates of hospitalization for our students are down, students are clearly communicating that they want and need more help.”
An article in Salon magazine outlines the mental health ramifications of student debt, citing research that links financial stress and suicide, and evidence of an association between suicidal thoughts and student debt. A March 2021 poll of high debt borrowers conducted by Student Loan Planner found that suicidal ideation for those with student debt grew from one in 15 in 2019 to one in 14 in 2021. According to the Salon article, higher ed institutions that benefit from this debt system are rarely held accountable, and can and should play a larger role ameliorating in the debt crisis.
In an op-ed in Inside Higher Ed, Sherrie Page, R.N., M.S.N., the health and wellness coordinator at St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, VA, argues that colleges must get involved in high school mental health in an effort to address issues before students come to campus. According to Page, “Each college or university must require incoming students to take for-credit mental health courses in high school and make it a mandatory part of the admissions process.” She writes that, as the number of teens with anxiety and depression continues to rise, they must be better equipped to recognize symptoms of a mental health disorder, know how to seek help, and learn self-care techniques to manage stress.
Other News
A new Harvard poll of 2,513 18-to-29 year old Americans found that 51% said that they had felt down, depressed or hopeless for at least several days in the previous two weeks. Further, 59% reported having trouble sleeping, and 28% have had thoughts of self-harm.
WPR reports on a recent report, “Voices of Wisconsin Students Project: Learning, Coping and Building Resilience During COVID-19” which highlighted the reactions of 160 middle and high school students to their new learning environments and their views on mental health during the pandemic. Students spoke about their coping strategies, including meditation, journaling, spending time outside, exercising and finding ways to connect with friends.
According to an article in the UNC Mirror, some students experience problems with the “stepped care” model at the University of Northern Colorado counseling center, feeling they need individual therapy but are not able to access it.
Reuters reports that educators across the country believe that students’ mental wellbeing became a bigger priority after schools switched to virtual or hybrid learning. Increased funding and new initiatives nationwide are helping schools navigate the new normal.
In a guest column in the Cornell Sun, graduate student Rebecca Harrison expresses her frustration with what she perceives as the university’s alarming lack of attention paid to grad student mental health.
A new university-wide coalition dedicated to improving student mental health and wellness at the University of Rochester will begin meeting to assess the current state and improve student well-being.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
The Chronicle interviewed Assistant professor of higher education at Texas A&M University at Commerce Katie Koo, who has won awards for her “longitudinal research on the impact of campus climate and discrimination on international students’ mental health.” Koo says, “[international students’] challenges didn’t begin with the pandemic, although recent events have exacerbated them.” Koo describes the stressors international students face and how colleges can establish more “culturally responsive mental-health services” to better fit their needs. Read the full transcript here.
The University of Texas at Austin fight song, “The Eyes of Texas,” which was first performed in 1903 at a minstrel show by “white students who were likely in blackface,” is sharply dividing the university community. The New York Times reports that wealthy donors and the administration have backed the continued use of the song, while many students and faculty want it abolished. Tensions escalated after a university committee released a report in March claiming the song has “no racist intent;” Campus tour guides went on strike, while wealthy alumni started threatening to cut off donations if the song was discontinued.
According to the Hechinger Report, the pandemic, despite all its ills, has created an opportunity for California to lay out a roadmap that would make the public higher education landscape in the state more equitable and inclusive for all students over the next decade. The Recovering with Equity report, assembled by the Council for Post-Secondary Education, includes recommendations like centralizing the college application process, bolstering support for students as they transition from high school to postsecondary education, and helping connect students with resources to address digital connectivity issues, and food and housing insecurity.
Higher Ed Dive reports that Idaho’s legislature cut $2.5 million in funding for social justice programming at three of its public universities: Boise State University, Idaho State University and the University of Idaho.
In a column for the Hechinger Report, Dr. Andre Perry covers the recent wave of laws being enacted by conservative legislators to ban coursework on critical race theory, a theoretical framework which looks at how racism intersects with our daily lives. The Idaho House of Representatives passed a bill this year to ban critical race theory and similar work based on the beliefs of some lawmakers’ that it will “exacerbate and inflame divisions on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or other criteria in ways contrary to the unity of the nation and the well-being of the state of Idaho and its citizens.” Perry argues that the true “reasons this country is literally divided are clear to any reasonable person: slavery, Jim Crow segregation, housing and education discrimination, a biased criminal justice system and feckless conservative lawmakers who are desperate to find an equivalent to a system of white supremacy.”
“Critical race theory,” Perry continues, “is a theoretical framework that helps scholars identify and respond to institutionalized racism, particularly as it is codified in law and public policy.”
A new study published in the American Educational Research Journal in April, found that test-optional admissions did not substantially diversify college student populations. Among about 100 colleges and universities that adopted the policy between 2005-06 and 2015-16, the share of Black, Latino and Native American students increased by only 1 percentage point. The share of low-income students (measured as those who qualify for federal Pell Grants) also increased by only 1 percentage point.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
The U.S. Department of Education will hold a virtual hearing to collect feedback on Title IX from June 7 to 11. Former Secretary Betsy Devos, under the Trump administration, issued a tribunal system to handle reports of sexual assault, requiring schools to allow both parties to cross-examine each other and limit what investigations of off-campus incidents colleges would need to review. The Biden administration has promised to undo Devos’s policy and has begun a new regulation for the U.S. Education department to deliver.
On Friday, hundreds formed a crowd at Northwestern University President Morton O. Shapiro’s home to protest the decision to promote the university’s new athletic director, Mike Polisky. In January, Polisky was sued by Hayden Richardson, a student and member of the cheer team, for failing to “adequately respond after Richardson complained about being groped by drunken fans and alumni at tailgates and fund-raising events.” The lawsuit states that Pamela Bonnevier, the head cheer coach, “expected cheerleaders to mingle with powerful donors” and “that the cheerleaders were being presented as sex objects to titillate the men that funded the majority of Northwestern’s athletics programs.” In response to her complaints, Richardson claims that Polisky minimized her concerns and accused her of fabricating evidence.
Higher Ed Dive covers a new Oregon Senate resolution, brought by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, that would create a committee charged with examining how the state’s universities respond to allegations of sexual misconduct and racial discrimination on campus. The proposal comes after two recent scandals at Oregon universities over how they addressed claims of sexual misconduct.
Student Success
In the Chronicle, University of Washington student Rochelle Bowyer describes navigating her disability (she has dyslexia) pre and post pandemic, noting how much more accessible learning has become from online classes. As colleges prepare to return to “normal” campus life this fall, many disability activists, students, and faculty are raising questions on what normalcy should look like. Other students with disabilities also express frustration as the immediate shift to virtual learning benefiting them only took place when “suddenly, the needs of people who don’t identify as disabled converged with the needs of those who do.”
Higher Ed Dive covers a new report from the Postsecondary Value Commission which studied how much college degrees benefitted students and revealed gaps in equity. The analysis found that at “nine in 10 public four-year institutions, median student earnings exceeded those of high school graduates and covered the net price of college 10 years after entry.” The commission also looked at data from the University of Texas system, revealing racial, gender, and socioeconomic disparities from the return on investment for students. Mamie Voight, interim president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy and contributor to the report, said, “These findings leave no doubt that by allowing these inequities to persist, we are hurting students of color, students from low-income backgrounds, women students, and our workforce, our economy and our society as a whole.”
Basic Needs
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona ends former secretary Betsy Devos’s ban on pandemic relief grants, which only allowed access for students who qualified for federal student aid. As a result, students who were undocumented, international, justice-impacted, or had defaulted student loans were excluded from the relief funds. The New York Times reports that after an announcement from the White House on Tuesday, undocumented and international college students will now be eligible to receive money from the Biden administration’s $36 billion federal emergency grants to cover food, housing, and school supplies.
Democrats in the House and Senate, led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D, MA) and Bernie Sanders (VT, I), introduced legislation that would make permanent the pandemic-related Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for college students. In December, Congress increased the number of low-income college students eligible for SNAP to include students who are eligible for work study, have an expected family contribution of zero dollars, or qualify for a maximum Pell Grant on their federal financial aid form.
Coronavirus: Safety and Reopening
Higher Ed Dive is tracking major news and analysis of how the coronavirus is impacting higher education. The most recent news includes the Biden administration’s push for vaccine distribution to “high-enrollment” institutions, which will include community colleges. The news tracker will be updating every weekday and can be found here.
In an op-ed for Inside Higher Ed, Julianne Malveaux says the key to safe and sustained college reopenings will be through high-volume antigen testing. Malveaux states, “The answer, science suggests, is to leverage all available public health tools at our disposal, including vaccines, social distancing, mask wearing and, importantly, the enormous capabilities of high-throughput antigen testing.”
