Higher Ed Dive features an op-ed by Dr. Zainab Okolo, President and CEO of the Lumina Foundation, which advocates for the need to expand counseling services and address loneliness amongst college students. She responds in part to the recent testimony of Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who spoke at a Lumina-sponsored American Council on Education Mental Health in Higher Education Roundtable: “We have to find ways to model what it’s like to talk about our mental health, to help people understand that mental health is health,” Dr. Murthy said. “It’s part of our health — no less important than our physical health.” Listen to more from Dr. Okolo on the Quadcast.
For The Hechinger Report, Paul Allen, a therapist in Ontario, California, highlights the need for more Black men to become therapists. Over his career, Allen, who is Black, has observed other Black men’s resistance to therapy and suggests the shortage of Black male mental health professionals exacerbates the problem. Going forward, Allen encourages normalizing therapy as a part of general wellness and supporting policies that break down barriers for Black men to access the care and the training they need to become care-takers.
Other News
The Daily Collegian, Penn State’s student newspaper, explores the implications of the 988 mental health hotline for students with a number of wellness experts on campus.
Bowdoin College’s student paper, The Bowdoin Orient, covers the year’s first faculty meeting which evidently emphasized the need for careful attention to student mental health, especially in the wake of the pandemic.
A new report from Intelligent finds that “quiet quitting,” which regularly referred to employees refusing to go beyond the “bare minimum” for their jobs, now applies to college students, as they prioritize their mental health over their school performance.