Wellbeing Impacts of COVID-19 and the Role of Faculty
A new survey from the Healthy Minds Network and the American College Health Association described that students are finding it difficult to access mental health care, despite worsening depression and financial stress since the beginning of the pandemic. Researchers surveyed 18,764 students on 14 campuses, finding that 66% of students report the pandemic has caused them more financial stress.
Dr. Sarah Ketchen Lipson, co-principal investigator of the Healthy Minds Study and assistant professor of health law, policy and management at Boston University, told Inside Higher Ed that faculty have an increased gatekeeping role to play in caring for students’ well-being and referring them to mental health services. She suggested that faculty should put information about mental health and wellness resources in their syllabi and mention those resources in their first class and at stressful points during the semester.
Dr. Lipson is leading a collaborative research project between Boston University School of Public Health, the Mary Christie Foundation, and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, launching in the fall, which seeks to better understand how faculty are addressing student behavioral health issues. It will examine faculty perceptions and beliefs pertaining to student behavioral health, and identify challenges and opportunities that exist with respect to recognizing and responding to student needs. The survey will capture disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Coronavirus Impact
The American Council on Education and the Steve Fund, a non-profit focused on the mental health needs of students of color, held an online meeting with higher education leaders and experts to discuss mental health resources for students of color, amid a national conversation about anti-Black police brutality and a pandemic disproportionately hitting minority communities. Dr. Tamara Stevenson, vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at Westminster College, told Diverse Education that the convening was an opportunity to “think out loud with colleagues across the country, to see what common issues we are dealing with as well as … strategies to move forward.” Dr. David Rivera, a national advisor for the Steve Fund and an associate professor of counselor education at Queens College, said that a key takeaway from the conversation was that universities need to understand that students of color are coming back to campus with exacerbated racial trauma.
The Trump administration rescinded guidance that would have forced foreign college students to take in-person classes in the fall, or else lose their visas, in response to a lawsuit filed by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At least 20 states and the District of Columbia and about two dozen universities filed various lawsuits to challenge the new rule in court. The White House measure was seen as an effort to pressure universities into reopening their campuses. Immigrant advocates said that the rules would discourage many overseas students from attending American universities.
Many within higher education viewed the new policy as the latest action by an administration unfriendly to international students. Before the policy was rescinded, it sent international students scrambling for backup plans. NPR interviewed Smit Kiri, an Indian-born graduate student at Northeastern who has asthma, who said the thought of returning to a classroom is “really scary.” It means, he said, that “we have to risk our lives and go to the university even if we are … at a higher risk of contracting the virus … or dying from it.” Mathias, a Seattle-based student who spoke on condition his last name not be used for fear of losing his immigration status, told the Associated Press that he was set to sell his car, break his lease, and get his cat permission to fly back to his home in Paris in the next two weeks. “Everyone’s very worried,” he said. “We have our whole lives here.”
Arizona State University was allotted more federal money from the stimulus relief package within the Cares Act than any other university in the country: $63.5 million, at least half of which must go directly to students whose lives were disrupted by the coronavirus. However, according to the Chronicle, the university has still not drawn on its Cares Act money or distributed any of it to students. The university says it is saving those funds for future semesters as the pandemic draws on, and distributed existing, in-house funds to students whose lives were disrupted. But some low-income students say they were turned away by the financial-aid office when they asked for assistance.
The Washington Post reports that in recent weeks, public health officials have been warning about an alarming rise in coronavirus cases that appear to be related to fraternity housing and parties, and saying that major changes are needed to better protect the health of students and the broader community in college towns. Their concerns center on how easily the virus is transmitted at social gatherings, and skepticism about whether students will follow safety precautions, including forgoing roommates, communal meals, and wearing masks.
According to the Chronicle, over 450 colleges are located in counties where coronavirus cases are spiking. Some college leaders in these areas have indicated that they would change their plans to reopen if cases rise. Robert C. Robbins, president of the University of Arizona, said late last month, “If I had to say today would we would reopen, no, because … the ICUs are full. We cannot have a situation where we’re bringing students back to campus, asking our faculty and staff to come back to campus when we’re in truly an exponential growth of the number of cases here.”
Many campuses that plan to return to in-campus instruction this fall will do so with mandatory mask-wearing policies, consistent with guidance from public health officials. But for some people, especially those with disabilities, masks present extra challenges. Many deaf students rely on lip-reading to communicate, which is made impossible by most masks. Mask-wearing is difficult for many with Autism spectrum disorders, as some experience heightened sensitivity to touch. When masks are mandatory on campus, the consequences, disciplinary or discriminatory, to those who aren’t able to wear them could be significant.
In a new survey of college administrators conducted by EAB, an education consulting firm, more than half (57%) were concerned about enforcing social distancing measures in campus common areas, and 52% were worried students wouldn’t follow safety measures off campus. About three-quarters (72%) of the college leaders said their greatest concern was getting students to follow social distancing guidelines in on-campus housing. Many respondents said they were still considering how to discipline students who do not comply with the rules.
Diversity and Inclusion
In an op-ed in the Chronicle, the authors of The Merit Myth: How Our Colleges Favor the Rich and Divide America, argued that higher ed must stop “heavily subsidizing the wealthy’s consumption of elite higher education as a luxury good, and redirect tax dollars toward the nonselective two-year and four-year colleges that do the heavy lifting when it comes to preparing a work force and lifting people out of poverty.” Anthony P. Carnevale, research professor and director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, Peter Schmidt a former senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Jeff Strohl, the research director at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce write that, given the dire economic situation, many colleges may focus solely on short-term survival, giving priority to wealthy families in admissions and tuition discounts. But, they say, the system of higher education and society at large will end up “worse off, more socio-economically divided, and even more vulnerable to future crises than before.”
Physical Health
The Washington Post published an investigation on the ability of college health centers to adequately care for students this fall. To assess the landscape of student health services at roughly 1,700 four-year residential campuses, the Post interviewed more than 200 students, parents and health officials, examined thousands of pages of medical records and court documents, and analyzed 5,500 reviews of student health centers posted on Google. They found wide discrepancies in care across health care facilities, but that colleges overall seem unprepared to handle the pandemic. Students reported long waits for appointments and “lackluster care.” Dozens of students were hospitalized, some critically, for mistakes they say were made at on-campus clinics. Many students, including low-income individuals on Medicaid, said they avoided seeking treatment altogether because the care was too costly. The investigation found that “Student health centers are akin to the Wild West of medical care. There are no national regulations, and most are not licensed by states. Only about 220 campus medical clinics of the thousands nationwide are accredited by outside health organizations as meeting best practices.” Meanwhile, college health officials are concerned about insufficient stockpiles of personal protective equipment and inadequate access to coronavirus testing on campus.
The Washington Post published responses from colleges about the care at their student health centers. Duke University commented, “No one can guarantee that students, or anyone else for that matter, can stay healthy during a global pandemic. What we can do is put in place policies, processes and resources to provide the highest degree of health and safety possible, which we have done in consultation with experts in infectious diseases, epidemiology, testing and environmental safety, among other disciplines…”
