Steve Fund and ACE Host a Conversation on the Mental Wellbeing of Students of Color
The Steve Fund and the American Council on Education are hosting a virtual conversation among presidents and senior leaders on the mental health and wellbeing of students of color. Inequalities brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and racially motivated acts of injustice have exacerbated mental health burdens for students of color, many who come from low-income communities, immigrant backgrounds, and families facing food and housing insecurity, racial/ethnic discrimination, and inadequate access to healthcare. The organizers hope this meeting will foster connection among higher education leaders and experts to discuss challenges and opportunities in addressing the mental health of students of color during the pandemic. The action-oriented discussion will identify and elevate existing strategies and best practices that can support the mental health and wellbeing of students of color at a critical moment.
The convening, designed for college and university presidents, chancellors, and senior campus leaders, will take place Monday, June 29th from 12:00 to 2:00pm. You can register here.
Black Lives Matter
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees voted to lift a 16-year moratorium on the renaming of campus buildings, monuments, and memorials. The renaming freeze was implemented by the board in 2015, after it voted to change the name of a classroom building named for William Saunders, reputedly a Ku Klux Klan leader. At the time, the board said that the 16-year moratorium would give the university time to “develop new education initiatives and evaluate their effectiveness.” Of the vote, Board of Trustees Chair Richard Stevens said, “Many people have realized it’s important to move forward with some of these issues. And that’s what we intend to do on this campus. It’s a moment of leadership. It’s time to do it.”
The campaign to relocate the University of Mississippi‘s Confederate monument finally succeeded last week after years of advocacy from students, faculty and staff. The state board governing the school backed a plan to move the statue from the campus’s main entrance to a cemetery on university grounds. “The presence of the monument in the heart of our campus has been a subject of debate off and on for a long time,” said Glenn F. Boyce, Mississippi’s chancellor, in a statement. “Now is the time for change as we strive to make a better present and future for everyone on our campus.”
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, university administrators across the country have released statements in the past several weeks condemning racism. However, according to the Hechinger Report, many Black students see the statements as rhetoric that is void of action as they have watched white students go unpunished for racial taunts and insults, monuments of Confederate and pro-segregation leaders remain on campus and the numbers of Black faculty members stay stagnant.
Kent State University’s Undergraduate Student Government and Black United Students collaborated to host a town hall meeting to discuss racial injustice and black student safety. Lamar Hylton, Vice President for Student Affairs, Talea Drummer-Ferrell, Dean of Students and Amoaba Gooden, Interim Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, started the meeting by emphasizing that it was a safe space for students to talk about their complaints and voice their opinions. Some students shared their experiences with RAs and police and said that they do not feel comfortable returning to campus. Chazzlyn Jackson, the Senator for Diversity for USG, stated, “They [campus police/Kent PD] need to reach out to us and plan an event or build a relationship with the Black community.”
Coronavirus Impact
A new study by researchers at Arizona State University found that undergraduate students at their university have suffered significantly and unequally as a result of the pandemic. They found that low-income students at the university were 55 percent more likely to delay graduation than their more affluent peers, and 41 percent more likely to change their major.
Inside Higher Ed reports on a new working paper from professors at Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania that models the spread of COVID-19 in a large university setting, examining the effectiveness of mitigation efforts. The research suggests that accurate testing and limits on class size and social contact may be critical.
The Washington Post reports on the unusual plans for campus life for the fall semester, with many colleges limiting student housing and getting rid of triple or even double rooms.
In Forbes, David Rosowsky discusses what he calls a “great national experiment” in returning to campus, with “a crowdsourcing of efforts and outcomes, and the generation of a shared knowledge set on topics ranging from pandemics to population health, from student behavior to faculty flexibility, from hybrid learning to virtual student experiences, and from adapting facilities and spaces to building institutional resilience.” With various models promoting social distancing and limiting face-to-face interaction, to testing, contract tracing, Rosowsky writes, “We will learn what works and what doesn’t. We will see where risks are lowered and where they persist.”
The Chronicle asked professors, presidents, administrators, graduate students, and a rising freshman: Should colleges open in-person in the fall? Cinzia Arruzza, an associate professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research, writes that there are no good options. Roslyn Clark Artis, president of Benedict College explains that risks for their students are greater off campus than if they return.
After Purdue declared its intent to reopen this fall, parents and alumni urged the administration to put on the brakes. The Chronicle reports that some viewed the university’s commitment to reopening as morally wrong. Others had logistical questions like, “Can lectures be held remotely, with recitations in person? How are you changing dining-hall operations? Where will sick students quarantine? Will dorms be cleaned professionally?” One parent advised not to rely on students to clean rooms, as “they don’t have the time or interest.”
Inside Higher Ed reports that despite warnings from public health officials, no state has required colleges to test all students when campuses reopen for the fall semester. States are considering cost and test availability in their evolving views on who should be tested. And some state officials are skeptical that testing asymptomatic students would do much good, since one study showed that asymptomatic people often test negative falsely. Others fear that after testing virus-free, asymptomatic students will relax social distancing practices.
Voluntary workouts for college football have resumed, with some campuses welcoming players back in phases this month. However, dozens of athletes at several colleges have already tested positive for Covid-19. At some campuses, the current testing procedures are more rigorous than those likely to be deployed in the fall, calling into question whether colleges will be able to safely reopen campuses. According to Education Dive, at least one institution, Bowdoin College, has canceled sports for the fall season because of the pandemic.
ESPN reports that UCLA football players are demanding their health and safety is protected as they near returning to workouts and practice. Thirty current players and one former player signed a letter asking that third-party health officials be put in charge of overseeing and enforcing health and safety guidelines.
Mental and Behavioral Health
STAT reports on “the cliff” that occurs when teens with mental health conditions turn 18 and cross into adulthood, often without any preparation for the challenges ahead. STAT spoke with teenagers, young adults, and mental health providers, and experts across the country to understand the experiences of young people with mental health conditions as they transition from adolescence to adulthood. Young people often feel that no one prepared them for the often-complicated reality of navigating mental health care in adulthood: finding a therapist, filling prescriptions, scheduling appointments, and paying co-pays.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
The U.S. Supreme Court announced in a 5-4 decision that the Trump administration cannot end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows individuals who came to the U.S. as children to receive two-year temporary protection from deportation, subject to renewal, and to become eligible for a work permit. In September 2017, the Justice Department announced President Trump’s plan to end DACA. The majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts said the administration’s rescission of the program was “arbitrary and capricious” under the Administrative Procedure Act and failed to provide adequate reasoning to end the program. However, Roberts also wrote that the decision to end the program did not violate the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection clause, opening up the potential for the administration to terminate the program in the future with different, sound reasoning.
The Trump administration backed off plans to curtail a popular work program for international graduates, after a strong lobbying effort by colleges, employers, and even some Republican members of Congress. However, the administration suspended the issuance of H1-B and other temporary work visas through the end of the year by executive order. Universities use H1-B visas to hire top academics and researchers, and as a tool for recruiting international students, as it offers the possibility of working in the United States after graduation. The administration said the visa suspensions are needed to ensure that jobs go to American workers first during the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Kendra Sharp, professor of humanitarian engineering at Oregon State University, told the Washington Post why she believes these policies will hurt not, only the students and schools affected, but also the United States long term.
The Brown University School of Public Health announced a new Health Equity Scholars fellowship program that offers full scholarships for a Masters of Public Health to up to five students from Tougaloo College, a historically Black college in Mississippi. The goal of the Health Equity Scholars program is to “increase public health leadership with people who will be more aware of the needs of the African American community and those communities with health disparities,” said Wendy White, a collaborator of the partnership and principal investigator of the Jackson Heart Study Undergraduate Training and Education Center at Tougaloo.
A community college professor in California has been placed on administrative leave after asking a Vietnamese-American student to “Anglicize” her name because he felt it sounded “offensive” in English. In an email exchange that was shared to tens of thousands on social media, Matthew Hubbard, a professor at Laney College, repeatedly asked the student, Phuc Bui Diem Nguyen, to “Anglicize” her name because it “sounds like an insult in English.” Tammeil Gilkerson, president of Laney College called the incident “disturbing.”
The New York Times reports that Monmouth University in New Jersey is removing Woodrow Wilson’s name from its marquee building after administrators, professors and students said that the former president held abhorrent views on race and reinstituted segregation in the federal workforce. The decision is contrasted with a vote by Princeton University’s trustees in 2016 to keep Wilson’s name on campus buildings and programs, despite student protests.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Princeton and Northwestern are joining the growing list of selective colleges that won’t require applicants to submit standardized test scores next year.
Amid concerns the coronavirus pandemic could worsen racial disparities, former U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. called for Congress to forgive some student debt and to double the award size of Pell Grants during a hearing held by the House Education & Labor committee, which is controlled by Democrats. The hearing focused on the pandemic’s worsening of racial disparities in the workplace, health care and education. King, who is now president and CEO of the Education Trust, also backed the idea of institutions eliminating legacy preference in admitting the children of alumni, a practice that he said discriminates against students of color.
