Here's my second feature for the magazine at my internship, and my personal favorite:
At Harvard University, 1,300 students were screened for depression and anxiety in one night at dining halls around campus. Coordinated by peer student groups, the screenings identified upwards of 200 students who met the criteria for these disorders, leading to more 40 new referrals to mental health services. But the screening did more than just that for the campus; it also prompted a conversation among students about mental health.
As efforts are being made to reduce the stigma of mental health issues, the face of mental health care is changing on campuses worldwide. “In the last ten years, we’ve doubled the number of clients we see and doubled the number of visits,� says Dr. Greg Eells, associate director of counseling and psychological services at Cornell University in New York. “It seems to be a national trend.�
In addition to the increase of mental health problems, higher education professionals have also reassessed mental health procedures in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, along with subsequent shootings at Delaware State University in Dover, Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge, and Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. The question of “Could this happen to us?� has registered on the radar of many campuses, causing institutions to evaluate their preparedness to respond to emergencies.
The Midwestern Higher Education Compact, a non-profit organization that assists Midwestern states in advancing higher education through interstate cooperation and resource sharing, conducted a study in March 2008 of 331 two- and four-year campuses. The study, “The Ripple Effect of Virginia Tech: Assessing the Nationwide Impact on Campus Safety and Security Policy and Practice,� finds that 87 percent of these institutions reviewed their safety policies and procedures following the Virginia Tech shootings, and nine in ten made changes of some kind. Colleges and universities are considering privacy laws and communication practices with a new perspective, realizing that the cost of unpreparedness may be greater than once thought.
Connecting the Dots
Immediately following the Virginia Tech shootings, Governor Tim Kaine appointed a panel to review the case of gunman Seung Hui Cho and the events leading up to the tragedy. The Virginia Tech Review Panel reported that school officials “explained their failures to communicate with one another or Cho’s parents by noting their belief that such communications were prohibited by the federal laws governing the privacy of health and education records.�
These privacy laws refer to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), both policies with which misconceptions run high in the world of higher education. FERPA protects the privacy of students’ educational records from parents, but does allow the sharing of personal observations, and releasing information to “appropriate� school officials, defined at the discretion of the school. HIPAA, not exclusive to colleges and universities, establishes privacy standards regarding the electronic exchange of health information. The report found that although many departments and individuals were aware of warning signs in Cho, “no one knew all the information and no one connected all the dots.�
Colleges and universities are heeding the recommendations made by this report and using these findings to reevaluate their understandings of FERPA and HIPAA. Lisa Trahan, dean of the first year experience at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, says that this has allowed student affairs professionals to be educated on privacy policies. “If there was someone who’s health and safety was in jeopardy, you need to do what is right by that person, and FERPA is loose enough to allow that. People can’t hide behind FERPA as much [since Virginia Tech]. It’s forced people to gain a better understanding and appreciation and closeness with FERPA.�
“The Ripple Effect of Virginia Tech� found that more than half of the institutions had reviewed their policies under FERPA post Virginia Tech, and about a quarter of those said they had changed how they carry out FERPA and communicate student information. Dr. Eells observed these alterations as effective in improving safety. “Prior to Virginia Tech, there was a lot of misunderstanding on what the restrictions of FERPA were. Since Virginia Tech, if anyone has any major concerns about safety that they communicate to someone, there won’t be consequences from FERPA. You can communicate information if that will be helpful.�
Compared to FERPA, HIPAA follows a more complex consent system and has enforced consequences for violations, making it less open to interpretation than FERPA. Jim Rooney, associate director of housing and director of residential life at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, finds that unlike FERPA, the restrictions of HIPAA cannot be redefined. “HIPAA is clearer and more directed than FERPA is, putting our medical staff is at a greater disadvantage.�
In response to these policy evaluations, lines of communication between college and university departments have strengthened in the past year. “The Ripple Effect of Virginia Tech� found that 65% of respondents had a “care team� or similar group of faculty and/or staff that meets regularly to discuss troubled and potentially troubled students.
The University of Wisconsin in Madison is an example; their Interdisciplinary Team, or “I-Team�, consists of the housing department, the university police, the dean of students, counseling services, and the disability office, and meets every two weeks to share information and see if particular students are experiencing issues within a variety of departments. In response to Virginia Tech, Wisconsin also added the Threat Assessment Response Team, including legal services, to assess if there is an indication of threat to anyone on campus.
Harvard University builds relationships between departments with their Administrative Board, which meets for two to three hours a week. They also assign liaisons from the counseling department to housing, and they incorporate mental health training in the halls. “We have very open communication between our college and our programs,� says Paul Barreira, director of behavioral health and academic counseling at Harvard College. “Once you start doing these things, it builds community and starts conversation.�
A similar group of departments, the Intervention Team, meets weekly at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to identify trends. In collaboration with this, they can log academic or behavioral concerns on a Web site in order to make the appropriate referrals for students.
All these institutions, however, stressed that information goes out only on a need-to-know basis, which may not include parents. Barreira acknowledges that although they cannot call parents in most situations, “we look to parents as another resource to help students be successful. We have a more qualitative assessment of what’s going on in the student’s life and we assess whether a conversation with parents would be helpful or necessary. One challenge is making sure we do connect the dots with who needs to know.�
In the Event of an Emergency
Another criticism given by the review panel about Virginia Tech was that university administrators failed to issue an all-campus notification until almost two hours after the event elapsed. “The Ripple Effect of Virginia Tech� reported that the biggest change on college campuses was the inclusion of emergency alert systems via text messages and other mobile communication devices. Over 75 percent of institutions indicated that they planned to acquire the technology or had already implemented systems since April 2007. However, telecommunications companies require their subscribers to manually opt in to any mass alert service due to privacy reasons, and getting students to do so creates some difficulty for administrators.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is in the midst of plans for an emergency notification system, and Trahan finds combating this obstacle as an ideal opportunity to involve parents. �Our plan is to talk to parents at orientation and make it part of the registration process. It will be voluntary, but we will provide a process to make it easy.�
With student privacy rights on the table for debate, institutions are careful not to go overboard. More than half of surveyed colleges and universities had considered installing metal detectors, and nearly half had considered installing closed circuit cameras in classrooms, but most of these institutions eventually rejected the implementations. Similar outcomes surfaced regarding background checks and admissions policies. Dr. Eells agrees that professionals must prioritize the success of students rather than focus excessively on the unlikely crisis. “From a statistical standpoint, things like threat assessments will have false positives. The real risk isn’t there.�
No matter how institutions have handled privacy and emergency procedures in the aftermath of recent school shootings, higher education professionals across the board agree that building the lines of communication is essential. Mental health issues manifest in all the aspects of student life, including academic, social, and emotional. In communicating information appropriately and identifying trends across the departments, student affairs professionals will be better able to provide for the mental health needs of students.