Mental and Behavioral Health
Thrive Global examines several ways colleges are supporting students mental health, including increased awareness of mental health issues including resources at orientation, free mental health screenings at mental health kiosks on campus, and various programs, courses, and initiatives to help students identify and talk about their mental health.
The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office released the Dreamer’s Project Report, a landscape analysis of the support that community colleges provide for the estimated 50,000-70,000 undocumented students in California. The report revealed that the most pressing needs for undocumented students are financial aid, legal services, and mental and emotional health supports.
University of California Santa Barbara opened a chapter of Lean On Me, a national nonprofit organization that provides anonymous student-to-student text-based peer support. Originally founded by students at MIT, the Lean on Me hotline connects students in need of emotional support with available peer supporters via texting. According to the Lean On Me website, students can text about nearly anything of their choice, ranging from casual conversations to more serious topics.
The Black and Blue Project: Mental Health Awareness Fair, is an event hosted by UCLA Residential Life to promote dialogue about mental health in the black student community. At its second annual event, students performed spoken-word poetry discussing the intersection of racial identity and mental health. The event featured a resource fair tabled by mental health organizations, including UCLA Counseling and Psychological Services, the Campus Assault Resources and Education program, Peer Assistance and Wellness Support, Active Minds UCLA and the Queer Alliance.
According to a report by Middlebury’s student newspaper, The Campus, there are significant obstacles to receiving mental health support at the college. In the article, students voiced frustrations with several aspects of the college’s mental health services, including difficulty scheduling counseling appointments to lack of specialized care for issues like alcoholism and eating disorders. According to Gus Jordan, executive director of health and counseling services, “The number of students requesting counseling appointments has skyrocketed over the last five years.”. “That number has grown exponentially.” Parton’s Counseling Center hired a new counselor this past spring. But according to Jordan, hiring more counselors cannot address the growing demand for student mental health services on their own. “We have to think systemically, across the campus for multiple ways of supporting students in these situations,” he said. Parton and the Office of Health and Wellness are turning to creative solutions including improved training for students and Res Life staff to help students before they reach a level of “crisis.” This fall, Parton will work with the office of Health and Wellness to improve care options across three areas.
According to a report by VICE, students hoping to take a leave of absence from college to focus on mental health are left to navigate a complicated, opaque system that often leaves them without a place to return. The report suggests that there is no standard road map across schools for how to leave, how to come back, or any clarity on when or whether students are even allowed to return. Some schools make provisions for allowing a student to leave for mental health reasons, but then requires the student to reapply for admission if they want to return. There’s no standard agreement among universities for what a mental health break looks like, how it’s recorded in students’ personal records, and how they’re allowed to come back.
VICE highlights the Stepped Care model to address the rising demand for mental health services and the resulting resource crisis at college counseling centers. Laura Horne of the DC-based college mental health advocacy group Active Minds noted that even well-resourced schools have found that they can’t keep up with rising demand. And according to VICE, staffing up on counselors is not a sufficient step, as students may need more diverse resources than counselors alone. The Stepped Care model maximizes existing resources by screening students and sending them to appropriate levels of care. This means that students seeking help do not necessarily see a counselor. Students dealing with common life stressors get funneled out to other resources on campus where they can learn coping tools, like meditation, to manage stress before it becomes an acute or chronic mental health concern. This strategy allows those students to receive quick and adequate services while freeing up mental health experts to focus on students with serious mental health needs.
The University of Delaware is one of many schools that participated in the Healthy Minds Study, a national assessment of mental health among college students conducted across over 50 universities. The goal of the survey is to help direct the future of mental health services on college campuses. At U of Delaware, the study found elevated levels of eating concerns among students compared to students at other universities who participated, with 34% of undergraduates and 37% of graduate students evaluated presenting eating concerns. High rates of depression (25% of undergraduates), and alcohol use (30% of undergraduates) were also found. The survey also collected information on student well-being to determine how many students are “flourishing,” a concept measured by questions touching on topics such as whether or not respondents were feeling optimistic about the future or well-supported in social relationships. Overall, the university ranked in the top 10% of comparable universities on the flourishing score.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
An Indiana University professor who recently faced a Title IX investigation posted a remorseful resignation letter online last week – a rare display of public confession in the #MeToo era. Ian Samuel, who began teaching last fall at Indiana’s Maurer School of Law, said he had decided to resign because “being sorry isn’t enough,” according to the letter. “Accepting responsibility means actually doing something, if you can, to spare the people you hurt from any more harm,” he wrote. “My sense is that the people most affected by all of this would prefer it if I didn’t remain at the university, and I understand why. If I were in their shoes,” he continued, “I think I’d want to live my life in Bloomington without worrying about crossing paths with a person I’d rather forget, no matter what sweet song of reform he’s singing now.” Samuel didn’t go into detail about what he was accused of having done, but he said it involved “drinking to excess in a public place I shouldn’t have been, in company I shouldn’t have kept, and treating the people present in ways they didn’t deserve.”
After a yearlong investigation, Harvard University has found a prominent former vice provost and professor of government, Jorge I. Domínguez, responsible for sexual misconduct, and banned him from its campus. The university has also agreed to conduct an external review into how Domínguez’s behavior did not solicit a more swift reaction from the administration. In an email to the Harvard community on Thursday, Claudine Gay, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, wrote that Domínguez had “engaged in unwelcome sexual conduct toward several individuals, on multiple occasions over a period spanning nearly four decades.” According to a letter sent by Lawrence S. Bacow, the university’s president, to the government department, the purpose of the external review will be to examine why some women had felt uncomfortable reporting misconduct, as well as whether, when misconduct was reported, Harvard had responded appropriately.
Physical Health
University of California San Diego Student Health Services is taking preventative measures against the possible spread of measles. Last month, more than 1000 students and faculty at UCLA and California State University, Los Angeles were quarantined or sent home during the measles outbreak in Los Angeles. The SHS Director of Medical Services Dr. Stacie San Miguel said that they are taking action to identify students who do not have documented immunity to measles. Starting in Fall of 2016, a UC system-wide requirement mandates that all students provide documentation of up to 6 vaccine preventable diseases, which includes measles.
Hunger and Homelessness
Preliminary data from a survey of food and housing insecurity at the University of Washington shows that about one-quarter of students have worried recently about having enough to eat, and an estimated 190 students may lack a stable place to live. Denzil Suite, UW’s vice president for Student Life said, “As the cost of living increases, we are seeing more cases where – in addition to the normal stresses and challenges of completing a college education – some of our students are struggling to maintain stable living situations and reliable nourishment. We certainly have a role in ensuring that our students are able to maintain these basic necessities, and we have taken important steps in that direction. These findings will help us not only assess the problem, but inform how we can continue to address it.”
Greek Life
Swarthmore College will formally ban all fraternities and sororities after recent student protests led to the disbanding of two fraternities. Phi Psi and Delta Upsilon announced last week that they would shut down after the publication of racist, sexist, and homophobic documents, which appeared to have been written by members of Phi Psi, led to a four-day sit-in by student activists. Officials at the college criticized the actions of the protesters, saying that Swarthmore would await the results of a campus task force on Greek life before taking any action. The two fraternities disbanded before the task force could complete its work, but the protests didn’t stop. Unsatisfied with how the college had handled the situation, a group of students started a hunger strike. Valerie A. Smith, Swarthmore’s president, said in a written statement on Friday that, based on the task force’s recommendations, the college would no longer allow Greek life on its campus and would end the practice of leasing buildings to student groups.
College Affordability
In a move that is being applauded by policy analysts for its innovation and reach, Washington state lawmakers have taken a major step toward offering free or reduced college tuition using funds from area businesses. Last week, state lawmakers passed the Workforce Education Investment Act, which would raise almost $1 billion over a four-year period with a surcharge on companies that employ highly skilled workers, like accounting, engineering, architecture and consulting firms, and the large technology companies (like Amazon and Microsoft) that operate in the state. The bill would effectively provide free or reduced tuition for lower- and middle-income students attending community colleges and public institutions, provide new funding for strapped community colleges and eliminate wait lists for financial aid beginning in 2020. Full tuition support and fees would be available for students from families of four earning about $50,000 a year or less, with partial scholarships for students from similar households making up to the state’s median income, which is about $90,000.
Safety
Seven people were arrested last week at Johns Hopkins University as Baltimore police reopened an administrative building where the doors had been chained shut for a week in a protest over issues including the creation of a separate campus police force. A Facebook group called JHU Sit-In denounced the police action, posting, “Over 80 cops were deployed to arrest 7 people. This is a terrible foreshadowing of what Johns Hopkins will do when granted a full armed police force.” Tensions have been simmering at Hopkins and in surrounding communities over plans to create a separate campus police force with area residents worried about creating a climate of fear and intimidation. Campus police forces are fairly common at colleges and universities across the country. Hopkins officials said the move was needed to help meet the university’s security needs at multiple campuses in a city with significant public safety issues.
