(Press-News.org) Nearly 80 percent of higher education faculty report dealing with student mental health issues—issues that more than 90 percent of faculty believe have worsened or significantly worsened during the pandemic, according to a new nationwide survey led by a Boston University mental health researcher.
"The vast majority of faculty members, myself included, are not trained mental health professionals, but we have a role to play in supporting student well-being," says survey principal investigator Sarah Ketchen Lipson, a BU School of Public Health assistant professor of health law, policy, and management. "These data underscore a real opportunity to better equip faculty with knowledge and basic skills to support and refer students."
These findings, detailed in a first-of-its-kind report, underscore faculty's growing involvement in the health and well-being of students and their willingness to serve as mental health "gatekeepers"—a role that has become increasingly important as students continue to navigate online learning, social isolation, and other COVID-19-related stressors.
But the survey revealed that less than 30 percent of faculty have received training from their academic institutions to handle these issues, even though almost 70 percent say they would welcome this guidance and are eager to strengthen their support for students experiencing mental or emotional health challenges.
Another key survey finding: more than one in five faculty members said that students' mental health has taken a toll on their own mental health. Almost half of respondents said that their institution should invest more in supporting faculty mental health and well-being.
"I am hopeful that our new research in this area will raise awareness of the reality that many faculty members are struggling with their own mental and emotional health," Lipson says.
She says she leveraged BU's mental health resources to help her find a therapist. "I know that I am a better teacher, advisor, and colleague because I am able to prioritize my own mental health in a way that meets my needs," she says.
The pilot survey, which was funded by the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation and conducted in partnership with the Mary Christie Foundation and the Healthy Minds Network, was administered during the spring 2021 semester to almost 1,700 faculty members at 12 colleges and universities across the United States. The results indicate that more work needs to be done on campuses to enable faculty to identify and refer students in mental distress.
"These data make it clear that college and university faculty members are attuned to the mental health needs of their students," Lipson says.
Importantly, she says, while 75 percent of faculty reported that they would reach out to a student in mental or emotional distress, only 51 percent were confident that they could recognize signs of student mental distress. More than 60 percent of faculty believe that it should be mandatory for institutions to provide basic training on handling student mental health, and faculty want additional resources, such as a checklist of warning signs, guides for how to initiate conversations, and a list of available mental health resources.
The survey also found that while 55 percent of faculty believe their institutions are welcoming or somewhat welcoming towards students of color, 58 percent of Hispanic or Latinx faculty and 39 percent of Black or African American faculty believe their institution is hostile or somewhat hostile towards students of color. These results indicate that institutions should not only make campuses more inclusive for students, but also build the level of trust needed among faculty of color to refer students to campus resources, the report said.
"Data are powerful in creating change in higher education, and for so long, there has been a lack of national data on the mental health of college and university faculty," says Lipson. "I hope that investments in new resources to support faculty well-being will yield benefits not only to individual faculty members, but also to students and institutions writ large."
INFORMATION:
UCLA materials scientists have developed a class of optical material that controls how heat radiation is directed from an object. Similar to the way overlapping blinds direct the angle of visible light coming through a window, the breakthrough involves utilizing a special class of materials that manipulates how thermal radiation travels through such materials.
Recently published in Science, the advance could be used to improve the efficiency of energy-conversion systems and enable more effective sensing and detection technologies.
"Our goal was to show that we could effectively beam thermal radiation -- the heat all objects emanate as electromagnetic waves -- ...
By translating the pattern of interconnections between nature's food chains to industrial networks, researchers at Texas A&M University have delineated guidelines for setting up successful industrial communities. The researchers said this guidance can facilitate economic growth, lower emissions and reduce waste while simultaneously ensure that partnering industries can recover from unexpected disturbances.
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"This finding suggests that higher education does not influence brain aging" says Lars Nyberg from Umeå University in Sweden, first author of the study and also a part of the Lifebrain consortium.
Brains shrink at the same rate
All brains shrink with age, and the dominant view has been that more education slows the rate of shrinking. However, the evidence has been inconclusive because studies have not been able to track the rate of change over time. Until now.
Measured brain shrinkage over time
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EUGENE, Ore. -- April 27, 2021 -- The addition of meat alternatives such as poultry and fish is not reducing the global production and consumption of energy-gobbling land-based meats, according to new research.
That conclusion comes from an analysis of 53 years of international data by University of Oregon sociologist Richard York, who focuses on energy consumption in relationship to economic issues such as power and inequalities, and politics. His findings published April 26 in the journal Nature Sustainability.
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Shopping habits and escalating consumption of many consumers are inflicting a heavy environmental toll, and while the majority of customers seem hesitant to act "green" on their own, companies are increasingly expected to implement effective eco-friendly tactics. But efforts to increase towel reuse at hotels, paperless adoption in the banking industry or "ugly" food consumption at grocery stores have been challenging.
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An international, multidisciplinary team that includes faculty members from The University of Texas at Arlington has published a paper in the journal Philosophical Psychology that wades into the debate about whether fish feel pain.
Their conclusion: while fish lack certain regions of the brain typically associated in humans with processing the unpleasantness of pain, this does not offer definitive proof that fish don't experience painful events.
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Rockville, Md. (April 27, 2021)--Deep heat creams widely used by athletes to soothe sore muscles may also boost performance when applied before exercise, according to new research presented virtually this week at the American Physiological Society's (APS) annual meeting at Experimental Biology 2021.
Researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore studied a small group of male volunteers to determine the effects of deep heat cream on exercise endurance. Each volunteer participated in two trials--one where he applied a thin layer of a commercially available ...
Rockville, Md. (April 27, 2021)--Researchers from Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina have demonstrated that a common diabetes drug inhibits the spread of Clostridioides difficile, or C. diff--a potentially life-threatening infection commonly acquired during hospital stays. The team will present their work virtually at the American Physiological Society's (APS) annual meeting at Experimental Biology 2021.
C. diff is the most common hospital-acquired infection in the U.S. It starts in the intestines, often after a course of antibiotics. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorizes the bacteria C. diff as a public health threat that "require[s] urgent and aggressive action." In 2017, ...
Rockville, Md. (April 27, 2021)--The popular herbicide Roundup® has been in the news because of concerns its main ingredient, glyphosate, might cause cancer. Now researchers from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) are evaluating the pesticide for potential neurological impacts. This week, the scientists will present their work virtually at the American Physiological Society's (APS) annual meeting at Experimental Biology 2021.
The roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is a microscopic worm that lives in soil and feeds on bacteria. Scientists have studied it extensively since the 1960s to better understand fundamental physiological processes of the animal kingdom. Because roughly 38% of its genes have counterparts in humans, findings ...
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By the end of the trial ...
