New Quadcast: Why LearningWell?
This week, we feature a conversation between Richard Miller, founding chair of the Coalition for Transformational Education (CTE), and Marjorie Malpiede, executive director of the Mary Christie Institute (MCI) and editor in chief of LearningWell magazine. Hosted by Dana Humphrey, MCI associate director, the episode explains why the two organizations joined forces to create an independent journal of ideas, evidence, and perspective on how higher education influences life-long wellbeing outcomes, and how LearningWell hopes to fill a void in the national dialogue about education innovation and college student mental health.
Mental Health
In an editorial in Times Higher Education, Noam Schimmel, a lecturer in international and area studies at the University of California, Berkeley, argues that “Faculty, staff and students alike need the equivalent of basic first-aid training in mental health in order to ensure that all members of the college community–but students in particular–have their mental health and welfare adequately supported.” He also writes that to build a culture that reduces loneliness, colleges should invest in “creating genuine cultures of community that foster social cohesion and a shared collegial spirit of care and compassion.”
Axios reports that ahead of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World cup starting this week, Team USA women’s soccer players launched a mental health initiative targeted at young athletes. Led by defender Naomi Girma, who lost her friend and Stanford soccer teammate Katie Meyer to suicide last year, the team is working to de-stigmatize conversations around mental health. In a partnership with the organization Common Goal, FOX Sports will dedicate 1% of its World Cup broadcast coverage to spotlighting mental health, including a three-part feature series and public service announcements. After the tournament, Common Goal will send mental health professionals to youth sports organizations across the U.S., to provide coaches and players with tools and skills to help.
A new report from The Steve Fund helps guide corporations and organizations to support the transition of young people of color into the workforce. In the report, the non-profit includes a survey of young professionals of color on cultural dynamics that affect their wellbeing. Half of those surveyed reported experiencing microaggressions at work, and half said they do not feel a sense of inclusion or belonging. A new LearningWell story highlights the report.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
A new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that the most selective colleges in the United States–those in the “Ivy Plus” category–“amplify the persistence of privilege across generations,” and suggests they could diversify their student bodies by changing admissions policies. The paper is by Raj Chetty, director of the Public Economics Program at Harvard University; David J. Deming, a research associate at Harvard; and John N. Friedman, a research associate at Brown University. It showed that, “Children from families in the top one percent are more than twice as likely to attend an Ivy-Plus college (Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, Duke, and UChicago), as those from middle-class families with comparable SAT/ACT scores.” Further, the paper states that, “Attending an Ivy-Plus college instead of the average highly selective public flagship institution increases students’ chances of reaching the top one percent of the earnings distribution by 60 percent, nearly doubles their chances of attending an elite graduate school, and triples their chances of working at a prestigious firm.” The authors list three admissions policies that drive the high-income admissions advantage: preferences for children of alumni; weight placed on non-academic credentials; and recruitment of athletes, who tend to come from higher-income families.
In an op-ed in Inside Higher Ed, Rick Eckstein, a professor and chairperson of the Department of Sociology/Criminology at Villanova University, and Linda Flanagan, the author of Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports—and Why It Matters, argue for the end of admission preference for athletes. They write that the special treatment of athletes “disproportionately favor richer families, corrupt the sports themselves and warp the educational function of colleges and universities.”
The Washington Post reports that, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision rejecting race-based affirmative action in college admissions, pressure is mounting on colleges and universities to end “legacy” admissions preferences (for applicants whose family attended the school).
The U.S. Department of Education this week opened a civil rights investigation into whether Harvard University discriminates by giving admissions preferences to “legacy” applicants. The department’s Office for Civil Rights said in a letter that it will examine whether the university’s donor and legacy preferences in admissions amount to racial discrimination.
Wesleyan University, a private liberal arts college in Connecticut, announced that it will no longer consider applicants’ family relations in its admissions process, joining other selective colleges including Amherst, Johns Hopkins, and Carnegie Mellon. Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan, said of the decision, “It’s good to remove hypocrisy whenever you can. Should we have done it sooner? Yeah.” He also said the decision is a way to communicate to high-school students from backgrounds that are underrepresented at selective colleges—Black and Latina/o students, first-generation students—that Wesleyan might accept them. “We want a diverse campus,” he said. “Please apply.” The University of Minnesota–Twin Cities also ended its legacy admissions policy recently. According to Keri Risic, executive director of admissions, “It was not adding additional insight into enrolling academically prepared students.”
In the Chronicle, Gerald Early, a professor of African and African American studies at Washington University in St. Louis, explores the complex picture of Black peoples’ feelings towards affirmative action as “both a gateway and a burden.” According to Early, Black Americans have had mixed feelings about affirmative action since its inception. “If affirmative action was viewed as a civil-rights victory by many Black people it never directly benefited, it often became a source of embarrassment for some it did,” he wrote. “Black people felt stigmatized by affirmative action because it came to mean that you had lesser qualifications—that you were admitted to a college or appointed to a job merely because of your race.”
An overhaul of Florida’s African American history standards, backed by the state’s Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, has faced harsh criticism. The recently released curriculum standards stipulate that Florida students must learn that enslaved people in the U.S. “developed skills” that “could be applied for their personal benefit.” The guidelines drew condemnation from historians, educators, and Republican and Democratic politicians alike. Vice President Kamala Harris said in a speech in Jacksonville, “How is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization?” Will Hurd, former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd (TX) and fellow candidate in the GOP primary, tweeted, “Slavery wasn’t a jobs program that taught beneficial skills. It was literally dehumanizing and subjugated people as property because they lacked any rights or freedoms.”
According to the Chronicle, college officials in Texas are scrambling to figure out which programs to cut before Senate Bill 17, which bans all DEI offices, programs, and training at public colleges, goes into effect. The University of Texas Board of Regents has yet to provide guidelines on how colleges should respond to the law.
Sexual Assault, Misconduct and Title IX
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the California auditor’s office and a law firm hired by Cal State released a report asserting that “the California State University System improperly responded to some allegations of sexual harassment, dropped the ball on investigating and documenting certain cases, and often didn’t hold perpetrators accountable.” This led to a widespread lack of confidence that reporting misconduct would lead to any institutional action. The auditor reviewed how the system handled 40 specific sexual-harassment accusations by university employees.
College Affordability
Higher Ed Dive reports that Maine will continue its tuition-free community college program for state residents for two more years.The initiative began to help high school graduates affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Student Success
College Promise, a nonprofit advocating for free postsecondary education, created a guide detailing the support needs of different populations, including student parents and students with disabilities. The group pointed to non-tuition expenses, which many free college programs don’t cover, as a barrier for students. The report coincides with their group’s announcement that the U.S. now has 425 free college programs, up from 53 programs at the organization’s inception.
Inside Higher Ed highlights a new report that found that 60% of students were unaware of the full scope of support services offered to them at their college or university. While academic advising was the support most recognized by students (62%), they were least aware of the student health clinic (33%), peer mentoring (31%), and student success coaches (29%). The report notes that this lack of awareness can create gaps that negatively impact student retention, and recommends strategies for institutional stakeholders to better support students including: effective communication, coordinated efforts, investments in tech integrations, and disaggregated data.
Hazing
Northwestern University is facing two lawsuits from former athletes over its role in hazing incidents involving the school’s athletics department. According to one suit, a female student athlete experienced “hazing, harassment, bullying and retaliation” as a member of the volleyball team and sustained an injury while running suicides—an exercise where an athlete runs to every line on the court and back in quick succession—as a punishment. The other suid from former Northwestern quarterback and wide receiver Lloyd Yates alleges he was subject to sexual assault by his teammates as part of ritual hazing. Yates told CNN that athletes “were forced to do acts in the nude as punishment and for other sorts of…initiation.” He described the experiences he had as “dehumanizing” and said, “These were things that were just really graphic, especially [as a teenager and young adult] who was just trying to fit in and make his mark in college sports.” The University has fired two coaches as a result.
