Mental and Behavioral Health
Stanford University Vice Provost for Student Affairs Susie Brubaker-Cole announced that starting this summer, Counseling and Psychological Services “is significantly increasing” its availability of weekly in-person initial consultation appointments, as part of ongoing efforts to decrease wait times for mental health services. The University also previously announced the addition of four CAPS clinicians by fall 2019, as well as online training to provide faculty with strategies to support student well-being in academic settings. These updates come on the heels of two graduate student suicides within one month of each other and concerns about a lack of adequate mental health services for students.
In a new UK survey conducted by Advance HE and the Higher Education Policy Institute, two thirds of college students said they think mental health problems should be disclosed to their parents or guardians in “extreme circumstances”. The yearly Student Academic Experience Survey showed that 66% of the UK students surveyed supported telling someone’s parent or guardian about their mental health issues “under extreme circumstances”, while a further 15% supported it “under any circumstances”. Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), US schools are not permitted to share student medical records or information with their parents. The survey also found that students were significantly more anxious than other young people. Just 16% reported feeling “low anxiety”, compared with 37% for all those aged 20 to 24.
A bipartisan bill, introduced by U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart (R- UT), would raise public awareness of suicide prevention resources available to college students. The Improving Mental Health Access for Students Act, co-sponsored by Rep. J. Luis Correa, D-California, aims to require colleges and universities to provide contact information for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Crisis Text Line and a campus mental health center on student identification cards. For colleges and universities that do not provide identification cards to their students, schools must ensure that the information is available on their website.
Former Ohio State University Undergraduate Student Government President Shamina Merchant was named one of three finalists for the Student Body President of the Year Award presented by the National Campus Leadership Council. Valencia Warren, interim deputy director of the NCLS, said that Merchant was selected as a finalist because of her service on University President Michael V. Drake’s Suicide and Mental Health Task Force and her advocacy to include more student voices in the discussion; the hiring of more mental health counselors; the creation of a peer-to-peer “warmline” and the development of a mental wellness app co-designed with Apple.
Natacha Foo Kune, the director of the University of Washington’s Counseling Center and a former international student, spoke with radio station KUOW about the mental health of international students. The story identifies the feelings of isolation and loneliness, as well as fear about visa or immigration status as common sources of stress.
In a Stanford Daily op-ed, an anonymous Stanford researcher calls on students to remember their peers who have died by suicide, and criticizes the school for not doing more to save students in need of mental health help.
At Florida International University, Psychology Doctoral Intern Zina Peters started a CAPs podcast, “On the couch with Kiwi,” which features interviews with FIU’s CAPS clinicians covering a wide range of mental health topics including depression, anxiety, and sleep hygiene. Peters said, “In creating an atmosphere of support, I hoped to reach students that are unsure if they should seek help and remind them of the resources available on campus.”
An analysis of CDC data by the non-profit Trust for America’s Health and Well Being Trust shows that over the past decade, young adults have been more likely than any other age group to die from drugs, alcohol and suicide. According to the authors, the data underscore the despair Millennials face and the pressure on the health care system to respond to a crisis that shows little sign of abating. Drug-related deaths among people 18 to 34 soared 108% between 2007 and 2017, while alcohol deaths were up 69% and suicides increased 35%. The increases for these three “deaths of despair” combined were higher than for Baby Boomers and senior citizens. “There is a critical need for targeted programs that address Millennials’ health, well-being and economic opportunity,” says John Auerbach, CEO of the Trust for America’s Health and Massachusetts’ former health secretary. He cites “burdensome levels of education debt,” the cost of housing and the challenge of building careers during the “great recession” and the opioid crisis. Many Millenials are also parents of young children and their alcohol or drug misuse or poor mental health often has serious impacts on multiple generations of their family says Auerbach. The millennial generation is typically defined as people born between 1981 and 1996 – who are 23 to 38 years old today.
Following the deaths of multiple students that investigators determined to be suicided, members of the Rochester Institute of Technology chapter of the Theta Chi fraternity are aiming to raise college students’ awareness of existing mental health and suicide prevention resources. The fraternity will host a mental health awareness week this fall on campus.
In their brief, Nature Rx: Improving College-Student Mental Health, Donald A. Rakow and Gregory T. Eells describe how colleges can use their campuses’ natural settings to combat unhealthy stress among students and employees. “There is an incredibly impressive body of scientific evidence now that verifies the psychological, physical, and behavioral benefits of time spent in nature,” says Rakow, an associate professor of horticulture at Cornell University. He and Eells, the executive director of such services at the University of Pennsylvania, say Nature Rx approaches can reduce rates of anxiety and depression, which are high and rising on campuses.
Diversity and Inclusion
In recent months, there has been a surge in the number of colleges dropping requirements for SAT or ACT scores. Four more have done so in recent weeks, including Carthage College, Marquette University, the University of Southern Maine and the highly competitive University of Rochester. Critics of test optional have suggested that the policy is a gimmick to attract more applicants. Jonathan Burdick, Rochester’s vice provost for enrollment initiatives and dean of admissions said, “Even well-constructed tests don’t lead to better decisions, and the cost to students having to take and submit those extra exams outweighs any benefit to us. The burden has been greatest on our first-generation and low-income applicants with excellent high school grades and lower scores.”
Harvard University has rescinded its offer of admission to Kyle Kashuv, a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., and a former Turning Point USA leader, after racist comments he made about two years ago surfaced online. Kashuv became an activist for gun rights shortly after the Parkland shootings but was accused in May of having used racial slurs in a shared Google Doc in 2017. He wrote the N-word multiple times in the document. Shortly after the comments became public, he posted a statement on Twitter calling the racist language he had used “callous and inflammatory” but not formally apologizing for it.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
The Chronicle reports on the problem of intimate partner violence, which gains less attention nationally than sexual assault but is common, poorly understood, and easily overlooked on college campuses. Intimate-partner violence is a broad term that encompasses not just physical and sexual abuse but also psychological abuse, like stalking or belittling. Research shows that at least one out of every 10 college students has experienced some form of violence from a current or former partner, with some estimates reaching 40 percent or higher. Often, campus administrators and officers do not recognize the signs; the campus safety net wasn’t designed to detect the full spectrum of intimate-partner violence. Under the federal campus-crime-reporting law known as the Clery Act, changes that took full effect in 2015 required colleges to start tracking reports they receive of domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking. But in 2016, nearly 90 percent of colleges said they had received zero reports of dating violence, says Anne Hedgepeth, director of federal policy at the American Association of University Women. “That doesn’t really square with the experiences students are having,” she says.
A former UCLA physician, James Heaps, was charged with sexual battery in connection with two patients (not students) he treated at UCLA Health. The case joins the myriad incidents in academe involving physicians and alleged sexual assault, including UCLA’s neighbor, the University of Southern California. The parallels in these cases call into question the oversight of college health centers and demonstrate how a powerful figure such as a campus doctor can intimidate and prevent students from reporting abuse. “Especially when trusted figures are abusers, they know they can weaponize the trust in them to further get away with abuse,” said Jess Davidson, executive director of advocacy group End Rape on Campus. In March, UCLA began reviewing its handling of sexual assault cases in a clinical setting with the intent of revising any policies it viewed as weak. Ohio State, a school that recently dealt with a similar situation, in a statement, touted a number of reforms it has made, among them mandatory sexual misconduct prevention training for students, professors and staff members.
The former University of Oklahoma president David L. Boren has agreed to resign from and sever all ties with the institution following the conclusion of a Title IX investigation. Boren, who retired as president in June 2018 but continued teaching political science, has been accused of sexual harassment by university aides, news of which surfaced in March. Boren, who is also a former governor and U.S. senator, chose to resign from his teaching post after the investigation, according to a statement issued on Wednesday by the university.
Grand Canyon University has fired Roy Shick, vice president of advancement, after learning he was accused of and investigated for sexual assault of a student athlete while serving as senior associate athletic director at the University of Washington. Washington investigated Shick after a student athlete alleged he assaulted her. The report found the allegations to be credible, after which, Shick resigned. Grand Canyon University administrators say that they were unaware of UW’s finding and that the investigation did not come up during a background check of Shick. Colleges are required to investigate reports of sexual violence, but those findings don’t appear on background checks, allowing schools broad discretion over what to share with the public, police or prospective employers. Federal law doesn’t require schools to share such information with each other. Cassandra Strickland, the student athlete assaulted by Schick said, “My story is not unique. There are hundreds, if not thousands of other girls at other universities, whose stories are being buried to protect the reputation of the schools they attend,” Strickland said in an email. “It’s a problem, it’s been a problem for far too long and we need to change that.”
A Marshall University student was found responsible for sexual assault in 2016, cleared on appeal, and allowed back on campus in 2017. He then allegedly committed two more sexual assaults in 2018 for which he has been indicted. The case highlights the difficult decisions college administrators must make about students accused of sexual misconduct, and how due-process concerns, the criminal-justice system, and federal policy don’t always align.
Student Success
According to an essay in the Hechinger Report, University instructions and forms, including handbooks, guides, syllabuses, websites and policies, are filled with complex, pedantic jargon.”Universities have been slow to realize the importance of plain language,” said Deborah Bosley, a former professor at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte who owns and runs The Plain Language Group, which helps clients communicate more clearly. According to the article, the impenetrable language of universities is a serious problem for students because it adds another layer of obstruction as they try to navigate higher education, especially for underrepresented students. Some schools have started to address the problem. Starting this past academic year, the University of Georgia produced a handbook that was mailed to more than 400 incoming freshmen who were the first in their families to go to college, using simple and clear language.
A 2018 Georgetown University study found that students who worked had lower grades and were more likely to drop out, a risk that was especially high for low-income students. A new study suggests that this is only part of the story, finding that students who work while in college earn higher salaries afterwards. The more a student earns during his college years, the bigger the bump in adult earnings.
College Affordability
All seven of Oregon’s public universities will raise tuition for the 2019-2020 school year, with officials citing increased costs and less money than expected from legislators. The hikes range from 2.33% at Western Oregon University in Monmouth to 9.9% at Ashland’s Southern Oregon University. Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, expressed disappointment that higher education wasn’t included in a $2 billion increase for K-12 schools that legislators approved earlier this year. She has continued to push the Legislature to increase university budgets to avoid tuition increases higher than 5%.
Food Insecurity
A survey of about 11,000 students at the State University of New York (SUNY) system found that about 35 to 40 percent of them reported being food insecure. At the first SUNY Conference on Food Insecurity, officials reviewed the ways that schools are trying to address basic needs of students in order to better address the situation. Currently, all 64 SUNY campuses have food pantries and many are starting to partner with food banks as well.
In an op-ed in the Hechinger Report, Angela Sanchez, a program officer of College Success at ECMC Foundation, a national postsecondary education funder based in Los Angeles, outlined ways to break the cycle of food and housing insecurity on college campuses. Her recommendations include: breaking down biases to increase access, training all campus personnel to assume active roles, capitalizing on cross-sector partnerships, and seeking opportunities to partner with philanthropies. According to Sanchez, taking action means “re-examining campus policies and practices that create and perpetuate stigmas and silence among students struggling with food and housing insecurity.”
Policy and Politics
A new survey of nearly 1,400 Americans who describe themselves as likely to vote in the 2020 general election suggests that most believe in the value of colleges and universities but think the institutions must do a better job of educating students affordably and effectively. The survey, conducted by Third Way, also suggests that the public is more centered in its views about higher education than the politicians who represent them. The report’s co-authors, Tamara Hiler, Third Way’s deputy director of education, and Lanae Erickson, senior vice president for the social policy and politics program, wrote that the findings explain why “there is widespread bipartisan support for implementing stronger federal guardrails across the entire system to make sure that both students and taxpayers are getting a real return on their huge investment in higher ed.”
