From LearningWell magazine
The new issue of LearningWell magazine is out featuring: stories about teaching innovations that lead to improved belonging and engagement; new research on student mental health post pandemic; perspective from an industry leader on new directions for college counseling centers and this story on the Engelhard Project for Connecting Life and Learning, a faculty led initiative at Georgetown University that makes connections between students’ academic studies and their broader life experiences, especially in the areas of well-being, flourishing, and mental health.
Mental and Behavioral Health
Main Stories
NPR’s Morning Edition spoke to students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, many of whom have expressed fear and grief in the wake of a fatal shooting on campus. On the front page of UNC-Chapel Hill’s student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, text messages sent during the incident captured campus-wide panic. The messages included frantic pleas from peers, family members, and faculty: “Are you safe? Where are you?” and “Hey- come on sweetheart- I need to hear from you.” In a response to the student paper, President Biden wrote, “No student, no parent, and no American should have to send texts like these to their loved ones as they hide from a shooter.”
The New York Times reports on changes to Yale University’s mental health leave policies. After a first-year student at Yale died by suicide in 2021, organizers have worked to change Yale’s protocols for mental health leaves. Rachael Shaw-Rosenbaum, whose death sparked a push for change in Yale’s mental health leave policies, posted online days before her suicide, writing that “if I go to the hospital again, I will not be able to resume college and will lose the opportunity I had to learn at an extremely competitive university.” The Times reports that previous policies required students to withdraw from the university without guaranteed readmission, banned them from campus spaces, and revoked their university healthcare. As of last week’s legal settlement, Yale will no longer ban students from campus jobs and events during mental health leaves, and re-enrollment will depend largely on the advice of the student’s medical provider.
Higher Ed Dive reported on a survey conducted by the career-planning platform Handshake that found that over 4 in 5 college seniors experienced burnout, characterized by chronic exhaustion and a decline in motivation, at some point during their undergraduate education. 29% of respondents reported experiencing burnout frequently, while 16% said they experienced it rarely. As college seniors prepare to enter their professional lives, a staggering 80% said they worry about burnout in their early careers.
In an op-ed for the New York Times, Jonathan Malesic, a professor at Southern Methodist University and author of The End of Burnout, urges students to pursue fulfillment in college rather than approaching education as “a series of grim tasks that, once completed, qualifies them to perform grimmer but better-paid tasks until retirement.” Malesic argues that college students’ emotional wellbeing depends in part on being able to embrace learning and imagination over the pursuit of high-paying jobs.
Other News
The Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) at Penn State University will provide a free 2-Hour CE program on “Trauma and Loss Among College Students in a Post-COVID World” with PESI on November 8, 2023 from 12:00pm to 2:00pm EST. Anyone who wishes to attend may sign up for the webinar here.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Inside Higher Ed reports that Carleton College ended legacy preferences in admissions last week. In an email to the campus community, Carleton President Alison Byerly wrote, “We believe that our goal of expanding access makes this the right time to discontinue legacy preference.” At Georgetown University, nearly 600 students, faculty, and alumni have signed a petition to eliminate legacy admissions. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Senator Anthony Williams expressed his intent to propose new legislation to ban legacy preferences at colleges and universities in the state, following in the footsteps of Colorado, where legacy admissions practices were banned in 2021.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision to end race-conscious admissions, high school students navigate confusion around disclosing racial and ethnic identities in college applications. The New York Times reports that because colleges and universities can no longer lawfully consider race as a factor in admissions, application essays have become an ever-important place for students to discuss how their identities and lived experiences may contribute to their academic lives and campus communities.
An article in The Chronicle traces the lives of the 148 female college students who left Taliban-occupied Afghanistan on an American military plane, 15 of whom now attend the University of Delaware. As Afghan students put down roots in Delaware, the university’s English-language institute is developing programs to cultivate the emotional and social wellbeing of a group of students who sustained a long and profound trauma. “The reason I am here is not a coincidence,” one student said. “First I should help myself become independent, then help society and help my home country.”
The Washington Post reports that on Friday, Texas A&M University shut down their diversity office ahead of state law requiring its closure by January 1, 2024. The decision arrives after a July email in which officials notified faculty that they would drop their required lesson on “respect and inclusion” from a seminar offered to first-year students. Faculty and students at the university reflect on what this decision, along with the state’s ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) curriculum, will mean for higher education in Texas.
As more than a dozen states introduce bans on DEI policies and curriculum, Inside Higher Ed examines potential implications for employment outcomes among students of color. The article cites the ACE-UP project, which launched last year to promote more racially equitable employment opportunities for community college students. Since states began introducing policy changes around DEI in education, at least two colleges that initially partnered with ACE-UP have ended their participation in the project over concerns about the current and future legality of race-conscious decisions in both higher education and postgraduate employment.
On Saturday, descendents of 272 people enslaved by Maryland’s Jesuit priests convened at Georgetown University for what the Washington Post called a “first-of-its-kind family reunion.” In 2019, several years after it became public knowledge that Georgetown had sold 272 enslaved people to Louisiana plantations in order to pay off a debt in 1838, the university created a reconciliation fund in response to a student referendum. “Our history has ebbs and flows — it can be like barbed wire,” one of the attendees said, “But it’s all part of who we are.” The Southern Maryland Descendant Gatherings Committee became one of the first beneficiaries of the reconciliation fund in April 2023.
The Chronicle reports that two untenured writing professors at different Christian colleges lost their jobs in light of complaints about bringing race into their curriculum. Both professors, one at Palm Beach Atlantic University and the other at Taylor University in Indiana, assigned books about race by authors of color to their writing classes, and both had their contracts terminated by their respective colleges. These professors had both assigned books by Jemar Tisby, a professor at another Christian college—Simmons College of Kentucky, a Christian HBCU. Tisby’s writing examines modern Christianity and racial injustice and has been the subject of both immense praise and criticism among Christian academics and institutions.
College Affordability
As the pause on federal student loan payments reaches its end, 40 million borrowers will resume repayments. According to the Washington Post, 4 million of these borrowers have already enrolled in the Biden administration’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, an income-based repayment plan.
Inside Higher Ed reports that Columbus State Community College in Ohio received additional funding this summer to extend its housing program, which provides both short- and long-term housing to students with housing insecurity. A similar effort to support low-income students is ongoing at Virginia Commonwealth University, where miniature food pantries across campus provide free and accessible food to students in need.
Higher Ed Policy Issues
Artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT has raised questions surrounding academic integrity and accessibility in higher education. Students applying to college may now have access to AI-assisted applications and essays, and colleges must decide how they want to regulate use of these technologies. Many teachers and admissions experts worry that artificial intelligence could hinder students’ development of critical thinking and writing skills.
In an op-ed for the New York Times, Professor Debra Satz, dean of Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, and Professor Dan Edelstein, faculty director of Stanford’s civic, liberal, and global education program, argue that by abandoning “civic education,” colleges put freedom of speech at stake. When guest speakers ignite controversy on college campuses, Satz and Edelstein write, universities are increasingly keen to rescind invitations. Satz and Edelstein argue that controversial figures must be allowed to speak, and the campus community must be allowed to engage and disagree with their ideas. It is the job of educators to “equip students to live in a democratic society whose members will inevitably disagree,” they argue.
Trust in American institutions of higher education has significantly diminished in recent years, the Times reports. Prospective students increasingly view college as a risky investment that may never pay off. The percentage of young adults who reported feeling that a college degree is “very important” fell to 41 percent this year from 74 percent a decade ago. 45 percent of Gen-Z Americans say that a high school diploma is “all you need” to “ensure financial security.” The change is also reflected among parents: between 96 and 99 percent of parents in the early 2010s said they expected their children to go to college; now, almost half of American parents say they would prefer their children not attend college or university. However, according to The Chronicle, roughly 80 percent of college graduates surveyed this year said their college degree was worth it. This number climbs among graduates with higher incomes and is lower among those with outstanding student debt.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
Joshua Wright, a former law professor at George Mason University, has resigned after accusations of sexual harassment by two former students. “Wright denies any misconduct but acknowledges having what he described as consensual sexual relationships” with the alleged victims, The Post reports.
The Biden administration has announced plans to implement new Title IX regulations in October. The plans have sparked concerns among some higher education faculty and experts who fear the implications of wrongful accusations assessed without due process. Though many have celebrated the additional regulations as protective measures for students and victims of sexual harassment and assault, Professor KC Johnson of Brooklyn College and the CUNY Gradute Center writes in his op-ed for The Chronicle that “the regulations strip from accused students virtually all of the procedural protections they currently have under Title IX, unless a local court ruling requires their college or university to employ a fairer process.” According to Higher Ed Dive, however, policy experts are doubtful that the regulations will be released in October as scheduled, as the Department of Education has yet to send its proposal to the Office of Management and Budget for review, a process that will take up to 120 days.
Under a bill passed by California state legislature last week, the California State University system would be required to increase transparency in its investigations of sexual harassment cases on campus. The bill follows findings of a July audit that Cal State institutions have improperly handled reports and closed cases prematurely, according to a Higher Ed Dive report.
Substance Use
Fatal overdoses involving fentanyl nearly tripled among adolescents from 2019 to 2021, when 84% of all teen overdoses involved fentanyl. Amid the opioid epidemic, educators and families are stocking up on naloxone as high schools and colleges introduce new initiatives for drug awareness and prevention, NPR reports.
