The Quadcast
We are excited to announce that the Mary Christie Foundation is launching a new podcast series exploring issues related to the behavioral health, wellbeing and success of college students. On the Mary Christie Quadcast, we’ll be speaking with experts and influencers in higher education and health care on issues relating to the health and wellbeing of our next generation of leaders.
Our first conversation, which will be released in June, is with Dr. Zoe Ragouzeos, Executive Director of Counseling and Wellness Services at New York University who spoke to us about the impact of the coronavirus on students, counseling staff and service delivery on NYU’s domestic and international campuses.
New podcasts will come out each month and we’ll announce them here when they are available. We hope you’ll enjoy listening.
Dana Humphrey
Program Director, MCFeed Editor, The Mary Christie Foundation
Coronavirus Impact
It has been widely reported that Hispanics in the United States have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, both by the illness and the resulting economic downturn. About 20 percent have been laid off or furloughed. The Chronicle reports that many Hispanic and Latino students, who have been a driving force for enrollment growth, may not be able to start or continue their education. Deborah Santiago, the co-founder and chief executive of Excelencia in Education, said that she believes Latinos still will enroll in the fall, but “it will not be the numbers that it could be.”
According to Education Dive, the U.S. Department of Education announced it will not enforce previous guidance limiting which students can receive federal emergency grants through the CARES Act. However, it is unclear if many more students will qualify for the money. The update points to a section of the U.S. Code that prevents certain non-U.S. residents, including unauthorized and international students, from receiving public support.
The Atlantic reports on the difficulties the class of 2020 may face financially and professionally in the years to come as a result of the pandemic and impending recession. While it is unclear how long the economic downturn will last, Till von Wachter, an economist at UCLA, said, “It is fair to assume at this point that the labor market will be in bad shape for the coming year-enough to put labor-market entrants at risk of the long-term effects we found from past recessions,” von Wachter said, noting that many who do find work will take lower paying jobs and be forced to take jobs that don’t relate to their degrees.
NPR spoke with two graduates about the uncertainty for many in the class of 2020. Also featured was Katherine Newman, the UMass System Chancellor for Academic Programs and interim chancellor at UMass Boston who spoke about the long-term economic impacts of the downturn on young people.
WGBH reports on the way the pandemic has undermined the mental health of many college students, upending academic, work and social routines. For many, it has amplified existing anxiety and depression. Sarah Lipson, assistant professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health and co-PI of the Healthy Minds Study, said that faculty and administrators “need to be telling students that we care about them – that we see them.” Dr. Lipson sees the current crisis as an opportunity to increase access to mental health services by transitioning to therapy delivered over the phone or online.
The social media app Wisdo helps connect people facing major life challenges with others who have been through similar experiences. The service is offering 2020 grads six free months membership to give them a chance to find mentors with similar experiences walking from graduation into a recession like those in the class of 2008. Additionally, Wisdo is surveying its users about their mental health during the pandemic and have found that depression, anxiety, and stress are leading to sleeping problems, trouble expressing thoughts and feelings in conversation, and challenges with enjoying life.
The University of Southern California’s Daily Trojan reports that mental health concerns already prevalent on college campuses have been exacerbated by the pandemic. According to the article, the loss of coping mechanisms, like interactions with friends, social gatherings and extracurricular activities, has exacerbated feelings of isolation and loneliness during social distancing.
June Gruber, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado in Boulder, writes in Science Magazine that professors must take a stand to support the wellbeing of their students during the pandemic. “In my own research, my colleagues and I have begun to see increased rates of depression and decreased well-being among U.S. college students who we’ve been tracking over the past year,” she writes. She cites research showing that supportive mentorship leads to increased student well-being, academic success, and retention in the sciences. She offers advice on how to best support mental wellness during COVID-19 including staying connected, being flexible, and finding meaning in a time of adversity, which can help us cope with stress and enhance well-being.
In an op-ed in The Breeze, James Madison University student Josie Haneklau writes that the school has worked well to accommodate its students. Haneklau praises the “Dukes Outreach Guides,” which are points of contact assigned to each JMU student for when they need help finding resources or getting questions answered. Additionally, she points to emailed wellbeing surveys and messages of support from faculty and the administration. JMU also implemented a credit/no-credit option that allows students to opt-into after final grades are announced, and dedicated the next Giving Day to raising funds for students impacted by the coronavirus, specifically those who may not be able to return in the fall due to financial complications.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance for colleges as they reopen their campuses. The guidance does not address when or whether colleges should resume in-person classes but describes practices colleges can put in place to reduce the spread of the illness and outlines steps they should take to address suspected cases on campus. Strategies to maintain a healthy campus environment include promoting social distancing, ensuring proper operation of ventilation and water systems, increasing cleaning and disinfection practices, closing communal spaces such as dining halls, game rooms, exercise rooms or lounges or staggering usage of such spaces; and changing food services protocols. The guidance advises that colleges can promote behaviors that reduce the spread of the virus like encouraging self-isolation of students, faculty or staff who are sick or have had exposure to the virus, promoting good hand hygiene and recommending the wearing of cloth face coverings. “Face coverings should be worn as feasible and are most essential in times when physical distancing is difficult,” the CDC guidance states. The guidance recommends encouraging telework “for as many faculty and staff as possible” and giving employees and students at higher risk of severe illness due to age or underlying medical conditions the ability to telework or take on modified job responsibilities.
NPR reports that for colleges considering reopening in the fall, plans rely on consistent testing. “We’re at the stage when every college and university president is acutely aware that if they open in the fall, they will need a testing regime,” says Terry Hartle, of the American Council on Education,. “What they haven’t figured out yet is where they’ll get the tests, what the regime will look like and what the protocols will be.” Hartle said that large universities and those with schools of public health will have a leg up, while smaller schools may need to work with local and state health departments for testing. Test availability is one concern. “The reality is that reagents and supplies are still a challenge for a lot of us,” says Michael Rao, the president of Virginia Commonwealth University and the president of the school’s health system. “I do think that ultimately it’s unrealistic and it has been unrealistic and it probably will remain unrealistic for some time to assume that we can all be tested all the time.” He says in lieu of testing, screening and symptom tracking can be just as important for containing outbreaks. Testing costs are also significant. According to NPR, tests can cost anywhere from $50 a test to triple that.
The Chronicle spoke to Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about some of the strategies universities have said they’ll employ to reopen. Dr. Fauci advises that reopening in the fall will be dependent on the location of the school and the demographics of its students body. He also spoke to the possibility that with new tests becoming available over the summer, many more people could be tested quickly. On a testing program, Fauci said, “I think you get the first baseline and then you do what’s called surveillance testing where you don’t test every single person, but every week or two you selectively test a representative sampling to determine if there is a below-the-radar-screen amount of transmission that you’re not detecting.”
According to the Hechinger Report, more students are considering community college amid the coronavirus pandemic. Before the pandemic, many students opted to take summer classes at their community colleges to affordably add course credits to their transcript, a strategy known as “summer swirl.” Now, with the uncertainty of whether college classes will be online or in-person in the fall, more students are choosing these less expensive classes not just for the summer but also into the next semester. However, there are roadblocks to this detour. Students may have trouble transferring their credits back to a four-year university and high school graduates who have already been accepted as freshmen by four-year institutions might have to reapply if they decide to start at a community college; in some states, they aren’t able to transfer at all until they complete the equivalent of an associate degree.
Mental and Behavioral Health
Dartmouth College’s newly elected Student Assembly president and vice president, Cait McGovern ’21 and Jonathan Briffault ’21 ran on a platform that advocated for increased mental health services and awareness on campus, financial accessibility and student engagement. The Dartmouth interviewed them to learn more about their plans for the upcoming year. “There are many administrators and students and student organizations such as the Mental Health [Student] Union who have been dedicated to holding conversations about mental health on campus and working to advocate for student mental health,” McGovern said. “Our goal is to help continue these conversations and bring in more voices. We want to make a mental health committee where there will be people from Dick’s House, the Student Wellness Center, the Mental Health [Student] Union and hopefully College President Phil Hanlon, bringing all these voices into one room and sitting down and seeing how our resources can best support each other and what we can do as a college to support our students even better.”
Sports Illustrated reports that University of North Carolina football head coach Mack Brown and Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham are working to combat mental illness among their student-athletes and their families. UNC has brought on counselors including Dwight Hollier as the Student Assembly president and vice president. Hollier is a former NFLer and National Board Certified Counselor and Licensed Professional Counselor with extensive expertise in families, adolescents, and adults. Brown said they are looking at multiple markers to assess whether a student may be struggling. “We’re looking at why a young man would have bad grades.” Brown said, “That’s a sign there’s something else wrong. And there’s more alcohol issues and drug issues right now with the depression and with the pandemic, people are talking about it all over the place. So it’d be foolish to think that it’s not surrounding some of the people that touch our programs.”
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
The University of California board of regents voted to stop using the SAT and ACT college admissions exams. The move reshapes college admissions in one of the largest and most prestigious university systems in the country. The unanimous 23-to-0 vote ratified a proposal put forward last month by UC President Janet Napolitano to phase out the exams over the next five years until the sprawling UC system can develop its own test. Standardized testing has become a point of contention in recent years as many argue that the exams are an unfair admissions barrier to minority students who cannot pay for test preparation. “The test is a proxy for privilege,” said Regent Cecilia Estolano. “It’s time, it has been studied to death.” “The University of California is one of the best institutions in the world, so whatever decision they make will be extraordinarily influential,” said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education. “Whatever U.C. does will have ripple effects across American higher education, particularly at leading public universities.”
College Affordability
In a normal year, colleges would be raising tuition by a few percentage points to keep pace with operating costs. This year, even as the coronavirus pandemic has ravaged institutional finances and stretched budgets, some college leaders are foregoing planned tuition increases. The University of California System was one of the first to back away from a planned tuition increase. Education Dive reports that the system’s governing board said moving forward with the plan would be inappropriate given the economic turbulence of the moment
