Mental and Behavioral Health
As colleges and universities across the country are ramping up their services for undergrads in distress, one priority has been to make access to crisis care easier and faster. USNews highlighted various strategies employed at schools like the University of Michigan, University of Southern California, University of Texas-Austin, Hamilton College, Penn State, Duke University, and Carleton College in Minnesota. Hamilton is exploring an initiative that will connect students in need of counseling with online psychologists and psychiatrists. Students at Penn State can use web-based tools that help them determine whether they’re anxious or depressed and try an online five- or six-week treatment module using cognitive behavioral therapy. In some cases, wellness topics are being addressed in class. At UT-Austin, a curriculum expert works with faculty to plan ways to incorporate student wellbeing using practices like mindfulness exercises at the beginning of classes, or promoting group activities and closer social connections. In the first year of a three-year grant, some early successes include stronger ties between faculty and students.
Bowdoin College students now have free access to the 10% Happier: Meditation app’s introductory courses. The 10% meditation app is marketed as “meditation for skeptics.” Many of its meditations can be easily incorporated into a busy routine.
Michigan State University opened a satellite Counseling and Psychiatric Services location at the MSU Union. The second location will initially house six mental health providers. “It’s imperative that we get as much help to students as possible, especially where they live and gather,” CAPS Director Mark Patishnock said. “We’re working tirelessly to provide students with a variety of options and resources. Those include more counselors to work across campus, such as in the Neighborhoods. We have to be accessible to students.”
Michigan Technological University has joined the JED Campus program, which identifies opportunities to enhance students’ emotional health and substance abuse and suicide prevention efforts on campus to ensure that schools have the strongest possible mental health safety nets. Laura Bulleit, the University’s associate dean of students, said “One of the most exciting things about the JED Campus program is that it gives our students the opportunity to help shape the delivery of mental health and substance abuse services on campus. In addition to having students complete confidential surveys, we have invited student representatives to have an active role in our JED Campus team.”
This fall, two University of Colorado Boulder student athletes started the Boulder Buffs Peer Advocacy Program, which aims to ensure “that University of Colorado student-athletes’ mental health is put first through education, mentoring, awareness, and programming.” Comprised of nearly 20 student-athletes of both genders and different ethnicities, the group meets regularly to train each other on how to recognize when their peers are struggling and how to help them. One of the founders, senior soccer player Jalen Tompkins said, “It’s educating yourself, educating others and being an ally. Everything else, we can build off of.”
University of Minnesota students are expressing unhappiness with the therapy appointment limits imposed by counseling services. Student Counseling Services offers 15 free therapy sessions to students every year. Students are allowed 25 sessions across their entire time at the University. Some students say these limits on free, on-campus therapy appointments can create financial obstacles and reduce their access to mental health services. Morgan Hineline, a sophomore studying psychology, told the Minnesota Daily that she was unable to continue her sessions once she reached the 15 appointment cap. Although SCS helped arrange for an off-campus institution to provide further care, Hineline had difficulty financing and traveling to that service. According to SCS, the on-campus sessions are not intended to treat long-term problems, but focus on addressing short-term issues.
Cornell’s Counseling and Psychological Services is adding counselors, expanding services and planning a new comprehensive review of its mental health policies. Cornell Health is “expanding therapy and support through group counseling, as well as the popular Let’s Talk program” and “has enhanced its after-hours services.”
More students are entering college with pre-existing mental health conditions, and medication can be an important component of their care. But according to a report in The Inquirer, many students stop taking medications when they first arrive on campus – a time when their stress levels tend to shoot up. The result can be a resurgence of mental illness symptoms, side effects that can occur from suddenly stopping, and in the worst cases, self-harm and even suicide. Bruce Cohen, a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, explained that students may stop taking their medication because they ” don’t want to be seen as someone with a problem.” Cohen says that universities have a role to play in preventing this; Once a student enrolls, counseling centers can ask if they are on treatment, and make a point to follow up with them. According to Cohen, this is not something many universities currently do, but it could relieve some of the demand for counseling services later in the semester.
Chegg, Inc., a connected learning platform, announced the release of its 2018 State of the Student report – a comprehensive study that sheds light on the realities, thoughts and attitudes of the modern student. Highlighting insights from a survey of 1,000 college students, the report covers such areas as financial issues, anxiety and mental health, campus safety, inclusivity and discrimination, political divisiveness and their outlook on the future. According to the report, anxiety is a prevalent issue in college life; as much as 60 percent of students say they are anxious “frequently” or “all the time.” 66 percent worry there will be an incident of gun violence on campus and 68 percent worry about their futures (“frequently” or “all the time”) – yet 63 percent said they have never taken advantage of their college’s mental-health resources or are unaware that they exist.
Diversity and Inclusion
Ed Meek, a former University of Mississippi administrator and donor to the school, caused a controversy with a social media post referring to fights and arrests in the city center after a Saturday-night football game. The post was captioned, “Enough, Oxford and Ole Miss leaders, get on top of this before it is too late.” and attached photos of two black women dressed for a night out, who were both Ole Miss students. The university’s response was swift. Within the night, Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter replied to the post online, amid hundreds of comments and shares. “While we all want to ensure a safe, family-friendly environment at the university and in Oxford,” he wrote, “I must condemn the tone and content of Ed Meek’s post from earlier today. The photos in his post suggest an unjustified racial overtone that is highly offensive.” Vitter urged Meek to delete the post and apologize. In a statement, the university said “This social media post was deeply hurtful because of the sentiment conveyed about the presence of African-Americans in Oxford and at Ole Miss. We are outraged that photographs of two of our female African-American students were used to make this point.” Eventually, Meek, who graduated from the university in the 1960s, issued an apology, “I am sorry I posted those pictures, but there was no intent to imply a racial issue.”
Soon after protesters at the University of North Carolina toppled the statue Silent Sam, Duke University‘s history department called on the school to rename the campus building it’s housed in, which is named for Julian Carr, the trustee who unveiled the confederate statue in 1913 with a speech in which he boasted about having “horse-whipped a negro wench,” which he called a “pleasing duty.” Michael Schoenfeld, a spokesman for Duke, said that the university’s president, Vincent Price, could submit a recommendation to its Board of Trustees by the end of the academic year.
Harvey Mudd College is taking a hard look at its core curriculum and the mental-health and counseling services it offers. Students have complained that the curriculum at the school is overwhelming, even “soul-crushing”. In complaints to mental-health counselors and outside evaluators, students described feeling like they had little time for showers or sleep. The problem is particularly acute among the growing number of first-generation and minority students. Last year, after a leaked report quoted professors complaining that the college’s focus on diversity had caused standards to slip, student frustrations exploded in protests that ended with classes canceled for two days. A curriculum committee is now considering how to ease pressure on students without sacrificing rigor, but divisions remain among the faculty about whether this change is just pandering to students who lack the work ethic or preparation needed to succeed.
A new report released by the University of Southern California’s Race and Equity Center grades both public universities and states on how well they attract and graduate black students. The report measured black-student equity in state universities based on four indicators: how closely the percentage of black students matches the demographics of that state; how closely the gender makeup of the black-student population mirrors the gender makeup of all students, regardless of race; how closely black students’ six-year graduation rates match that of all students; and the ratio of black students to black professors. Louisiana earned the lowest rating in the report, despite having the second-highest percentage of black residents. Mississippi, the state with the largest share of its population identifying as African-American, was ranked fourth-lowest on how inclusive its public universities are. The west coast states, which have smaller black populations, fared better by the report’s metrics. The highest-rated state in the analysis was Massachusetts.
Sexual Assault and Title IX
The hashtag #WhyIDidntReport was trending on Twitter last week, in apparent response to a morning tweet by President Trump about Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who has accused Brett M. Kavanaugh, Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, of sexually assaulting her when they were both in high school. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation. Trump tweeted “If the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents.” Tweets tagged #WhyIDidntReport shed light on why. Shedding light on the continued complexities of this issue for colleges,the Chronicle published a selection of tweets from college women on the subject. Some students were drunk at college parties and felt they’d be blamed for what happened to them. Some had heard horror stories from peers about the Title IX reporting process. Some were afraid to be socially ostracized. Some were concerned about college power structures. Some did report and weren’t believed.
In a Washington Post op-ed, Donna Freitas, a visiting associate professor at Adelphi University and author of the new book, “Consent on Campus: A Manifesto,” argues that though the current Department of Education is dismantling what the Obama administration did to fight sexual assault and harassment on campus with respect to Title IX, colleges and universities can maintain their efforts. According to the author, great progress has been made since the Obama administration’s introduction of new guidance for college administrations: Title IX coordinators are being hired and trained, entire communities are beginning to think more expansively about consent education and what that means, and universities are seeking out experts to help them to prevent sexual violence and harassment from happening in the first place.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, colleges and universities across the country are outsourcing sexual assault and harassment investigations and hearings, experimenting with alternative forms of dispute resolution due to the increase in complaints and lawsuits.
College Affordability
Rice University is “dramatically expanding” its financial aid offerings, promising full scholarships to undergraduates whose families have incomes under $130,000. The school says it wants to reduce student debt and make it easier for students from low-income families to attend.
Greek Life
Police said they are investigating whether hazing could have played a role in the sudden death of a 20-year-old University of California Riverside student. Tyler Hilliard died after going to a nearby mountain with other members and pledges of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, according to his mother, Myeasha Kimble. Medical aid was called to Mount Rubidoux around 9 p.m. on Saturday the 15th, and Hilliard was taken to a hospital where he was alert and talking to staff. “There were texts in my son’s phone in regards to paddling,” Kimble said. “There were also text messages on the phone where he was getting hit with a cactus.”
Substance Use
A new survey of 19,539 U.S. undergraduate, graduate and professional students found that almost 16 percent of college students say they misuse prescription stimulants, often in the quest for better grades, According to the 2018 College Prescription Drug Study, led by researchers at The Ohio State University, more than 9 percent of students said they had misused pain medications – roughly the same percentage of students who reported non-medical use of sedatives. A majority of students who misuse prescription drugs – including 79 percent of stimulant users, 57 percent of sedative users and 51 percent of pain medication users – said they obtained the drugs from friends.
Physical Health and Wellness
More than an hour and a half passed between when a University of Maryland football player reported exhaustion and when his ambulance departed for the hospital, according to a new investigation into the death of the athlete published last week by the University System of Maryland. The delay of care for 19-year-old Jordan McNairwas one of several concerns outlined in a report on the investigation, conducted by the sports-medicine consulting firm Walters Inc. Among other recommends, the report suggests the the university should also move student-health and student-wellness positions outside the influence of coaches.
Texas A&M Student Body President Amy Sharp is rolling out a new campaign that aims to improve the health of the student body by focusing on nutrition, fitness, mental health and safety. The three primary goals of the campaign are to let students know that Texas A&M cares about their health, to educate them about the resources that already exist and to connect them with those resources, Sharp said. Rather than making isolated programs that have a short-term impact, leaders are focused on bringing awareness to pre-existing resources and knowledgeable personnel. September’s focus was on sexual assault, and October will be focused on mental health.
