Mary Christie Quarterly Issue 14 | Summer 2019

Mary Christie Quarterly A publication of the Mary Christie Foundation

Interesting People Doing Important Work p. 11

Well-Oriented

How outdoor education lays the groundwork for wellness

p. 16

Issue 14 | Summer 2019

Mary Christie Quarterly The Mary Christie Quarterly is a publication of the Mary Christie Foundation, a thought leadership organization dedicated to the health and wellness of young adults.

STAFF President Editor & Executive Director Program Manager Art and Layout Director

John P. Howe III Marjorie Malpiede Dana Humphrey Ashira Morris

ARTISTS Cover Illustration

Daniel Chang Christensen

Spot Illustrations

Lily Strelich

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chair

John P. Howe, III

Secretary

Marjorie Malpiede

Treasurer

Maryellen Pease

Member

Frederick Chicos

Member

Lisa Kelly Croswell

Member

Robert F. Meenan

Member

Zoe Ragouzeos

Editor’s Desk

H

ello and welcome to the summer issue of the Mary Christie Quarterly.

We are so grateful to the experts, leaders, and students who share their knowledge and perspective on issues related to teen and young adult health and wellness.

This issue is particularly full of great ideas and really interesting people.

In fact, we’ve started a new feature dedicated to just that.

It is called “Interesting People Doing Important Work.”

Dr. Sarah Ketchen Lipson, Associate Director of the Healthy Minds Network, and assistant professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, and Dr. Michael Lindsey, Executive Director of the McSilver Institute for Policy Poverty and Research at New York University, are featured.

In addition to our cover story on the value of outdoor education programs, told by students who experienced them as well as pioneers in the field, we hear from two college presidents, fairly new to the job, with an enormous amount of energy and vision; a student affairs director with tales from the trenches; and an expert on living a good life, among other content.

Thanks, as always, for reading and sharing our work.

Have a wonderful rest of the summer.

Sincerely,

Marjorie Malpiede Editor

CONTE NTS 11 Interesting People Doing Important Work Sarah Ketchen Lipson, co-Principal Investigator of the Healthy Minds Study; and Dr. Michael A. Lindsey, Executive Director of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research, discuss their work.

“Mental health problems were undoubtedly the greatest barrier to student success,” Lipson told the Mary Christie Quarterly.

30 Q&A: President Grant Cornwell The President of Rollins College talked about embracing diversity and global engagement.

“So much of the work we are doing has to do with a student’s ability to listen to people who think differently and collaborate with them to create new and shared insights.”

CONTE NTS 06 Q&A: David Wippman, President of Hamilton College 11 Interesting People Doing Important Work 16 Well-Oriented 24 What is the Best Way to Live?

28 Changing the Face of STEM 30 Q&A: Grant Cornwell, President of Rollins College 33 Q&A: Dr. Mamta Accapadi, Vice President of Student Affairs at Rollins College 37 Analysis: Forced Medical Leaves of Absence 40 Science Summary

Q&A: David Wippman The President of Hamilton College on bringing the school into the future

Interviewed By Marjorie Malpiede

Hamilton, an idyllic college in upstate New York, is as sought-after as the Broadway play of the same name, and equally as difficult to get into.

With an acceptance rate of only 16 percent, the school is benefiting from several years of growth and investment in all areas – from new facilities on its expansive, rural campus, to a need-blind admissions policy that allows for the kind of diversity reflected in its liberal arts mission.

Hamilton’s relatively new president, David Wippman, is the first to credit the college’s upward trajectory to his predecessors; though, in talking with him, it is clear he has his own ambitions for the school. Wippman, an international law scholar who attended Princeton and Yale, is refreshingly down-to-earth and fits in well at Hamilton’s Adirondacks setting, where he is often seen pursuing his passion for cycling.

Like its president, the college

06

has an elite background yet is intentionally open, looking to attract new profiles of students and engaging in new types of learning.

presidents today, prompting a broad-level examination of resources and initiatives, both inside and outside of the college wellness center.

A men’s college until the late 1970s, Hamilton’s history as a boy’s club for athlete-scholars has long since been eclipsed by its current culture as a vibrant learning environment reflective of all people and disciplines with over 50 percent women, 6.6 percent international students, and 25.4 percent students of color. Iconic fraternity houses now serve a range of campus-wide uses, having been banned as residences since the mid-1990s.

If Wippman has a theme to his tenure, it may be to accelerate Hamilton’s place in the future, overlaying a computer science component onto all of its liberal arts curricula and using the imminent retirement of long-time faculty and staff as an opportunity to build new strengths as an institution.

As the campus has changed, Wippman is mindful of the challenges that come with today’s “generation Z” students who, he says, are intellectually better prepared for college than generations past, but perhaps emotionally less so. He believes student mental health is undoubtedly one of the biggest priorities of college

Hamilton is still known for its robust athletics, now co-ed, and its rugged, outdoorsy vibe; the village of Clinton at the bottom of the hill was recently named “Hockeyville USA.” Wippman hopes this combination of qualities will attract students outside of the school’s traditional applicant pools in the Northeast and the West Coast. Judging from its growing popularity, this seems like an attainable goal.

Here is an excerpt from our conversation.

Mary Christie Quarterly: You’ve been at Hamilton almost three years now. How would you describe the school when you arrived?

What drew you to it?

David Wippman: My intellectual roots are in the liberal arts. I taught human rights for many years. I was looking to get back to those roots at a place that provided a top liberal arts education; what I consider the gold standard of higher education. I was looking for a place that provided a really engaged learning community and Hamilton met all those criteria. I knew the area because I had spent 16 years in upstate New York, but when I saw the campus and got to meet the people, I just fell in love with it.

community with the new museum, the Taylor Science Center, the enhanced Social Science facilities.

MCQ: One of these investments was in needs-blind admissions (when an institution does not consider an applicant’s financial situation when deciding admission). What was the thinking behind this decision? How did that align with your priorities?

DW: I think it’s always been a priority for the college to be as intentional as we can about access and affordability. We want to be able to attract as broad a range of students as possible and we recognize that an increasingly small percentage of the population has the capacity to pay, without financial aid, the full cost of a Hamilton education. That’s true across the country.

tion ‘was need-blind possible?’ They began fundraising around it then and it is something we remain very committed to.

MCQ: Gaining authentic diversity is difficult. What kinds of programs do you have in place to support students of different backgrounds and abilities?

DW: I think we, and everyone in higher education, have discovered that true diversity and inclusion requires much more than just simply admitting a diverse student body or achieving a diverse faculty. It’s critical that everyone feels welcome, and that everyone is positioned to take full advantage of what a place like Hamilton offers.

We have a range of programs When I arrived, the college to address a set of needs was on a remarkable ascendacross the student body. We ing trajectory and had been have a summer program for for quite a few years. By students whose academic looking at almost any metric, We didn’t want to restrict our work may not have fully prewhether it was the number of admissions to just a small pared them for the rigorous applications, or the caliber of subset of the population and education that they’ll get at the students, the faculty we so those priorities really Hamilton. We have a SEAS were hiring, or growth in the came together around the program, endowment, Student Emerit was really gency Aid on a rising Society, that path, so that We didn’t want to restrict our admissions to just helps offset was very a range of a small subset of the population. appealing. expenses for There had students of been a great fewer means. deal of attention paid to facility improveWe have a variety of student decision to become a need ment and a lot of the credit services and staff memblind school. Back in 2009, goes to my predecessor, Joan bers focused on supporting the trustees asked the quesStewart, who built the arts students from all different 07

backgrounds. That said, we all recognize that there is no single program and no single individual responsible for diversity and inclusion. It has to be an effort and a responsibility of everyone at the college.

MCQ: What differences are you seeing in the types of students who are arriving on campus as opposed to, say, the early 2000s?

DW: I do think there has been a shift over the last 10 or 15 years in this regard. I would say that the students who are coming to college today are more prepared academically than was true in the past, but they also have a variety of needs that we’ve seen esca-

late in just the past few years; needs that indicate they are less resilient.

The use of our counseling center has increased substantially, as need for counseling services has increased across the country. Students are coming who have higher levels of anxiety and higher levels of depression than we have seen in past generations. And so we’ve had to change the way we meet the needs of those students.

MCQ: Do you think that student mental health has become a priority for college presidents in a way that was probably not even anticipated 10 years ago?

Photo by John Gillooly

David Wippman, President of Hamilton College.

08

DW: I absolutely think it’s a priority for pretty much every college president.

When I go to different kinds of gatherings at which college presidents are present, almost invariably, people talk about this as one of the major challenges they’re facing.

MCQ: What is your approach to student wellness at Hamilton?

DW: We have built a wonderful new health and counseling center, and we have increased the staff and resources we dedicate to mental health counseling. We’ve also moved to a case management system.

So that’s the therapeutic model which is critically important to have available to students who need that kind of support but that’s only part of the approach to this. It’s really got to be much broader than that.

There are student organizations devoted to mental health and wellness, but it’s also an effort by the college to have a broader kind of wellness program and it really has to do with student life here. One of the things we’re doing is we’re bringing together, in a more coherent and integrated way, all of the different forms of advising that students receive. We’re calling it the ALEX Program – which is to integrate Advising, Learning, and EXperiential education.

In addition to that, we’re working on a residential life curriculum that will get at a variety of life skills that we think are connected to student wellbeing like developing resilience, dealing with the ability to manage setbacks, and being prepared and confident, not only for their time at Hamilton, but for their life after their time here.

The programming would be available to students at different points in their experience at Hamilton, so it would be developmentally appropriate. In the first year, it might focus on how you live in a community; What kinds of experiences are you likely to have here; How you think about your academic studies; And how you achieve balance between work and other aspects of your life. It may change as students move through their four years at Hamilton and start to acquire more independence and maturity.

MCQ: Hamilton was at the center of a controversy involving a tragedy and the issue of parental notification. This is tricky for colleges and universities as these issues fall under FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act).

What was/is your position on that?

DW: We certainly, to the extent possible, want to work

with parents as partners in supporting their students while they’re here. And we work with students to encourage them to engage their parents as full partners.

But we have to be cognizant of the fact that mental health professionals advise that unless students can be confident that their treatment, even the fact that they’re in treatment, will remain confidential, they are much less likely to seek help in the first place. And the last thing we want to do is deter students from seeking the support that they need.

Of course there are exceptions. There are times when it’s necessary, without a student’s permission, to notify either a parent or someone else, if the counselor in his or her clinical judgment thinks that the student poses a threat, either to themselves or others. But as a general matter, we do think it’s important to maintain confidentiality.

MCQ: Do you think there’s room for improvement in how parents and schools communicate around these issues?

DW: I think there’s definitely room for improvement.

We certainly are working to communicate more effectively and regularly with parents about what’s happening at the college, and issues their students may be experiencing.

We do want parents to understand that there are limits to what we can share and that’s simply because of privacy considerations, and the federal regulations, but really and more fundamentally, if we’re trying to do what’s in the best interest of the student, we want to make sure the students aren’t discouraged or deterred from seeking help if they need it.

And for students to know that what they share, the therapist will remain confidential – this is often essential for the student to open up in the first place. We’re aware that there’s a tension between those two things, and we’re trying to manage that as best we can.

MCQ: What are some of the new initiatives you are particularly excited about at Hamilton?

DW: We’re working on something we’re calling Digital Hamilton, which is part of our strategic plan, and it’s a reflection of the change that’s taking place across society.

It’s a recognition of the fact that every field of research and every industry is changing in significant ways, and all involving some aspect of technology.

David Solomon, who is one of our alumni, and CEO of Goldman Sachs, will say that Goldman Sachs is a technology company, and in many ways it is. We want all of our 09

students to have some kind of understanding of what data and technology can make possible and to be able to think and reflect on some of the social and political implications of those changes.

We’re trying to infuse this throughout the curriculum.

the baby boom generation is in that phase.

Regardless of your major, we want you to obtain some level of digital skill and an awareness of the changes that technology is driving.

The result is that between 2015 and 2025, almost half of our faculty will consist of new hires, so while we, on the one hand, regret that we’re losing some wonderful, talented, and experienced faculty, it also gives us opportunity to hire some wonderful new faculty.

We think of this as a continuation of our focus to prepare students for their lives after Hamilton. We talk about preparing students to be engaged citizens and we really want them to understand how the world is changing. That means exposing students to data and data analytics and how they’re used, and to machine learning and artificial intelligence, and how they’re changing different fields. What I say to students is, “you don’t need to be an engineer, but you need to be able to talk to an engineer.”

Another opportunity for us is in the area of staff and faculty development. Hamilton is in somewhat of an unusual situation in this regard.

I think most colleges and universities are seeing a lot of faculty reaching their retirement age just because

10

But for us, that trend is accelerated by the timing of our merger with Kirkland College in 1978 and the hiring that we did in the aftermath of that merger.

And we’re well into that process, so it’s enabled us to diversify the faculty a little bit faster than we might have and bring in a lot of exciting, new talent.

MCQ: You’ve recently started something called “Common Ground,” which brings together renowned opinion leaders of very different viewpoints, such as Susan Rice and Condoleezza Rice.

What was the motivation for that and what do you see as the value of this kind of program?

I think everyone

recognizes that we are in a period of unusually high political polarization across the country. And I think, as unfortunate as that is for public policy generally, it’s also unfortunate for discourse on college campuses.

I think it’s really important for our students to have a willingness to consider views with which they disagree; to be open to hearing the evidence of arguments for those views. Not that they have to reach agreement with someone, but so that they cultivate the habits of the mind to be able to say, “I don’t know everything, and I should consider different viewpoints in order to challenge my own thinking.”

In some cases, it may reaffirm their pre-existing conclusions, but in a sharper and more defined way. In other cases, it may open them to ideas they hadn’t considered before.

We tend to be in information bubbles, and to seek out information that confirms what we already think we know, and I think that’s problematic. It’s also incompatible with liberal arts education, which really is about testing ideas.

And one of the best ways you test an idea is by having other people challenge those ideas.

Interesting People Doing Important Work

By Marjorie Malpiede

Sarah Ketchen Lipson Photo by John Gillooly

E

ight years ago, when Sarah Ketchen Lipson began her doctoral work in public health and education at the University of Michigan, she was motivated by one major goal: to understand and address mental health in college student populations. This motivation was born from her experience working in residential life, when she saw time and time again the deleterious effects of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders in her resident advisees.

“Mental health problems were undoubtedly the greatest barrier to student success,” Lipson said.

Now an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, Lipson is still focused on understanding and addressing mental health in college student populations.

She has taken this interest to a national level through her research project, the Healthy Minds Study.

The Healthy Minds Study – an annual web-based survey examining mental health, service utilization, and related issues among undergraduate and graduate students – has since been fielded at over 300 colleges and universities, with over 300,000 student respondents.

The Healthy Minds Study is used by institutions in numerous ways: from assessing students’ needs before making large investments; to an-

11

alyzing data in the aftermath of a tragedy; to understanding, through benchmarking, students’ mental health relative to those at other schools.

The study is co-led by Lipson and her colleague, Dr. Daniel Eisenberg, a professor at University of Michigan. Lipson and Eisenberg share a passion for translating research into practice.

“The most sustaining motivator for this work is putting data in peoples’ hands who are actually going to do something with it,” said Lipson. “While many people talk about the mental health ‘crisis’ on college campuses, the flip side is that there is such a unique opportunity for prevention and intervention during college, a time that directly coincides with age of onset for many lifetime mental illnesses.”

The Healthy Minds Study is part of the larger Healthy Minds Network, a “think tank” of sorts that takes a public health approach to college student mental health with three main objectives: producing knowledge, distributing knowledge, and using knowledge in practice.

“We are unique in the college mental health landscape in that our starting point is research,” she said.

The Healthy Minds Study and Network are jointly housed at University of Michigan and

12

Boston University, supported by a team of research coordinators who have helped to grow the study in recent years. With more schools signing on to the survey and a number of new initiatives, the Healthy Minds Network is now a powerful partner for schools, providing them with the data to inform practice and policy on campus.

The Healthy Minds team has translated findings to support an “economic case” for investing in student mental health, essentially linking mental health to academic outcomes. Healthy Minds’ well-known ‘return on investment’ calculator allows colleges and universities to run metrics – like retention rates and percentages of students presenting with mental health needs – through a formula that gives them an indication of what they might save in terms of retained tuition if they were to increase their investment in mental health programming.

This has been a valuable tool for administrators advocating for an increase in counseling budgets, but Lipson is quick to point out that improving mental health support for students doesn’t just mean hiring more counselors.

“The demand for mental health resources far exceeds the supply on many campuses,” Lipson said.

She noted an important ex-

ception in that there is a need for improved representation in counseling center staff, which in many cases means hiring clinicians who are underrepresented minorities.

Otherwise Lipson said that many colleges and universities need to think more broadly about student-centered strategies that use innovation and technology to meet the rising demand for mental health resources.

On average, Healthy Minds data show that less than 50 percent of students with apparent need are receiving any type of support. This includes students with symptoms of major depression and students who report seriously considering suicide.

“People talk a lot about ‘help-seeking behaviors,’ said Lipson. “When I was in graduate school, I used to say I study ‘non-help-seeking behaviors.’”

Today, Lipson thinks of this through an equity lens: “It’s not random who gets help and who doesn’t. Students of color, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, these students are struggling at the same rates as their peers, the difference being that their needs are not being met.”

Lipson believes colleges need to bridge the gap between acknowledging the unmet need and increasing

the capacity to meet it with new treatment options, particularly those that appeal to students whose backgrounds and cultures keep them from showing up at the college counseling center. Healthy Minds is a research partner to the Steve Fund and the JED Foundation, which developed the Equity in Mental Health Framework. The framework provides academic institutions with a set of actionable recommendations and key implementation strategies to help strengthen their activities and programs to address the mental health disparities facing students of color.

“If there is only one model for students to choose from – a one-on-one counseling appointment – this is not really thinking about this from a public health perspective. How do we need to tailor our approach to meet the needs of diverse student populations? Where are the opportunities for prevention?

Where are the opportunities for the efficient delivery of services?” she said.

Lipson says there is likely a large percentage of students who can be helped in less intensive ways, thus alleviating some of the burden faced by counseling centers. Healthy Minds is increasingly thinking about a “triaged”

approach to college student mental health. In collaboration with researchers from Penn State, Washington University in St. Louis, and Palo Alto University, the Healthy Minds team is currently conducting a multi-campus research project focused on identifying students with unmet need and linking them to a mobile mental health platform that provides online cognitive behavioral therapy.

“It’s a really exciting opportunity for us to show whether we can effectively identify students in distress [and] link them to an online resource that may potentially be what they need,” she said, noting that many students may prefer and benefit from evidence-based online tools they can access in their own time and on their own devices.

Another major development in the intervention area is Sage, a digital tool that will provide education and support to students who participate in the Healthy Minds Study. After students complete the Healthy Minds survey, they will be invited to click on a link to the Sage site where they will be shown a curated list of mental health-related resources. The resource list will be tailored based on the students’ characteristics and apparent needs reflected

in the survey instrument.

Lipson, Eisenberg, and the Healthy Minds team have piloted the Sage platform and hope to roll this out on a national scale in the coming years.

Lipson’s move to Boston in 2018 includes plans to expand the Healthy Minds Network with additional staff and new partnerships through Boston University.

She continues to co-lead the Healthy Minds Study and Network, and has recently been pursuing new opportunities to use her survey data to inform diversity and inclusion efforts.

“There is a national dialogue about college student mental health, and there is a national dialogue about diversity and inclusion. My goal is to help bridge these two dialogues with data and evidence-informed policy recommendations,” Lipson said. “I’m extremely lucky,” she continued, “in that my work as a mental health disparities researcher is truly valued at BU, and I have opportunities to conduct the research that I hope will create real change.”

Sarah Ketchen Lipson, PhD, EdM is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Law Policy and Management at the Boston University School of Public Health. She is co-Principal Investigator of the Healthy Minds Study and Associate Director of the Healthy Minds Network.

13

Dr. Michael A. Lindsey

group that would help lawmakers explore the question: why are black boys, in particular, ending their lives at increasing rates, running counter to trends in other children their age?

Photo by John David Pittman

I

n December 2018, Dr. Michael Lindsey testified before the Congressional Black Caucus about an issue he believed to be both urgent and under-acknowledged: the dramatic increase in the suicide rate of young black boys.

Earlier in the year, epidemiologist Jeff Bridge published a study showing that suicide rates had doubled between the years 1993 and 2011 for Black youth ages 5-11 years old, with Black boys being twice as likely to die by suicide as White boys in the same age group. Mean14

while, suicide rates for White youth and other racial/ethnic groups actually decreased over that time period.

With heartbreaking stories of several young Black boys who had taken their own lives, Lindsey urged the Caucus to convene an emergency task force on the issue. A month later, the congresswoman who led the hearing, Bonnie Watson Coleman of the 12th Congressional District of New Jersey, agreed to do so.

She asked Lindsey’s organization to lead the working

Lindsey is the Executive Director of the McSilver Institute for Poverty, Policy and Research at New York University. He and his team of experts use research and policy to address the root causes and consequences of poverty.

So why is an Institute focused on addressing poverty in this country leading the examination on suicide disparities?

The answer starts with Lindsey himself, who is a noted scholar in the field of child and adolescent mental health, but is then explained by the genesis of the Institute’s work, which is to identify and examine the dynamics that either keep people in

poverty or allow them to rise out of it. A large part of that includes studying the impacts of race, education, and mental health.

But for schools who even have mental health support, we see a disproportionate number of students who actually get help. Black children, in particular, are at the lower rung of opportunity in this regard.

The Institute cites data indicating that suicide rates in the U.S. are closely correlated to poverty rates; that PTSD is associated with increased suicide attempts among Black urban young men; and incarcerated youth die by suicide at a rate 2–3 times higher than that of youth in the general population.

Lindsey believes these disparities reflect a larger problem that the Institute had already been working on which is to close the treatment gap for children who are suffering from mental health issues and redirect school discipline policies away from suspensions and towards therapeutic support.

“When you consider that education is the equalizer for people impacted by poverty and that completing your education is influenced by issues such as depression, anxiety and trauma, access to treatment is really important,” he said.

“But for schools who even have mental health support, we see a disproportionate number of students who actually get help. Black children, in particular, are at the lower rung of opportunity in this regard.”

Lindsey notes that Black children are also the first to be suspended from school when problems arise or issues emerge. The trends start as early as Pre-K and begin a cycle that follows some children throughout their education trajectory. Lindsey calls this “racial assignment wrapped with implicit bias.”

“There’s a demonization of behavioral presentation that Black and Brown kids seem to engender from school personnel,” he said. “When these kids misbehave in school, the first inclination, oftentimes, is to get them out.”

Lindsey is one of many advocates calling for the elimination of school suspension policies, seeing the cumulative damage to a child’s education as part of a “pipeline to prison,” for children of color and low-income. He is also advocating for more resources for mental health counseling in schools proportionate to the total number of students.

In their report, the The Congressional Black Caucus Emergency Task Force on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health, and the working group led by NYU, will pro-

vide data and recommendations on a full range of issues – from suspension policies to additional mental health staffing in public schools, to more training on implicit bias and a public education campaign.

Lindsey says that additional research on the reasons for the suicide disparities is critical and that tapping into existing legislation like the School Mental Health bill is part of the plan.

At a recent forum convened by the task force, actress Taraji P. Henson gave a powerful testimony on mental health disparities among people of color. The well-publicized speech is an indication that Lindsey and the McSilver Institute are gaining traction on one of their primary goals which is to make sure the world knows about this problem.

Dr. Michael Lindsey is the Executive Director of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University and Constance and Martin Silver Professor of Poverty Studies at NYU Silver School of Social Work.

15

Well-Oriented

Outdoor programming could be key to student wellness

By Nichole Bernier

I

t was at the end of outdoor orientation at the University of New Hampshire—a fiveday wilderness immersion of incoming first-year students—that a young woman on the program learned her younger brother had just died. He was 17, and there had been a car accident.

Administrators she barely knew were breaking news that broke her world, and she was surrounded by peers she’d only known a handful of days.

But those days had been spent on a camping trip hiking, sweating, cooking, pitching tents together, surmounting rocks and hills and sharing anxieties about beginning college. And they rallied around her, young men and women including the student leader, sleeping in her room that night to support her until she was able to return home the next day.

16

After the funeral, she went back to school to restart her freshman year, to the surprise of Brent Bell, the professor of outdoor education and leadership who’d been the one who’d had to tell her the news.

“She told me later she never would have stayed in college that semester if it weren’t for that group,” Bell recalls.

This is a particularly dramatic example of the tight bonding fostered in outdoor pre-orientation programs offered by a growing number of colleges around the country. But the emotional connection itself isn’t unusual among students, who arrive on campus anonymous and alone ready to fill the void.

The scope of programs like these goes far beyond friendship and some fire skills.

Recent studies have found academic benefits, including

higher grades and a greater likelihood of graduating on schedule. Post-trip evaluations describe enhanced confidence and competence, better interpersonal skills, changed attitudes and greater appreciation of personal differences. Many programs take advantage of a relaxed setting to introduce sensitive conversations about substance use, sexual dynamics, and stress.

With the emotional health of incoming freshmen at the lowest point in at least three decades, according to the American Freshman Survey, colleges are actively looking for creative vehicles to address mental health coping skills. And many are finding nature the perfect environment to lay the groundwork for wellness.

Putting students outdoors Today, an estimated 25,000

students take part in an outdoor orientation program heading into their first year of college at 191 schools throughout the U.S. and Canada—more people than Outward Bound or the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) put into nature in a year. The trips take a wide variety of forms, from a few days away to nearly a month, from base camps to backpacking, from optional to mandatory.

But they all reflect the framework of the original programs begun in the early 1900s.

“The actual history of these programs came in two parts,” explains Bell. “Dartmouth College’s outing club started a pre-orientation freshman program in 1908 to attract men to the club and found a lot of benefits, so there was the Dartmouth model on the East Coast.

In the 1960s out west at

Prescott College, a young president wanted students to do an Outward Bound sort of experience, a 30-day intensive.

So then places came up across the country with longer experiences, as well as shorter programs like Dartmouth’s with technical skills from Outward Bound. And they kind of merged together to what you see at a lot of schools today.”

Bell, who previously ran Harvard’s outdoor orientation program and holds a Ph.D. in experiential education, is considered a standard-bearer of the outdoor orientation movement. He’s headed research and written countless reports, and formed the biannual Outdoor Orientation Program Symposium (OOPS) for program directors to share best practices for programs and for training the student leaders who run them. He is also the census-keeper of existing programs at colleges across the U.S. (“there are about 15-20 really good ones”), and a mentor who travels to help

17

colleges start programs or fix ones that are floundering.

But his real passion is figuring out what it is about outdoor programs that makes them so powerful for incoming freshmen, honing it, and convincing more and more schools that it works.

Why take students off-campus to orient them to campus life? Why not hang out in a campus conference center and do team-building exercises? What is it about roughing it outdoors that’s so useful for orientations?

“That’s been my lifelong goal, trying to figure that out,” says Bell. He points to the interdependence of students in an intimate group—hiking, cooking together, sleeping in tents together, dealing with the weather and aches and pains together. The endurance aspect of pushing yourself beyond what you thought you could do. Then there’s the interactions, modeled and facilitated by the leaders, fostering communication in a way that develops trust and

18

breaks down power and status armor that has been worn since middle school.

“I can’t think of a time more status-oriented than the teenage years, concerned with whether you’re going to be a high-status person or a low-status person. This is about getting to know someone as they really are, no dressing up and makeup hiding yourself. Finding a way of working through conflict—because maybe if you were somewhere other than camping you could just ignore that person and not have to deal with them. And it’s about a sense of being really heard, and really hearing others,” Bell says.

nections, head into campus life with a handful of readymade friends. For directors and student leaders, it takes strategic forethought to create an environment that naturally fosters engagement and connection, laying the groundwork for more substantial relationships.

For starters, they take away the mental escape hatch of technology and social media.

“Five days alone together in a small group with little interaction with any outsiders, you really get to know each other on a deeper level,” says Christa Ricker, who heads the Tufts outdoor program.

Fostering friendship

“You go through challenges together. If it’s raining, you’re getting wet together. If there are uncomfortable things, you can’t escape because you’re all living it. And you do it without cellphones or leaning on whatever have been their go-to coping mechanisms.”

To the incoming students, the draw of the outdoor program seems obvious: make con-

At West Virginia University, they take away the phones and hand them journals.

“Students say it’s life-changing. So I’m trying to backfill, look at the key features that do what we’re trying to achieve, and share the best practices with folks at other schools.”

“By the end, participants would say, ‘I’m so glad you took my phone away,’” says Brynn Benson, who graduated in 2018. After her own pre-orientation trip as an incoming first-year student, she went on to be a student leader each subsequent year.

To her, the most potent tool for creating authentic relationships is the “If You Really Knew Me” exercise.

“We tell them, ‘If you were an iceberg, we see the top 10 percent of you—what you wear, how you speak.’ We encourage students to write a poem about the other 90 percent, what others don’t see,” Benson explained. “Just write a few lines, it doesn’t have to rhyme.”

family issues. It can get very intense, even tearful.

not finding the right social fit on campus.)

“It’s so great when people really share and trust. Sometimes it can get almost too intense. As a leader you have to know how to bring them back down and debrief.”

Nature’s classroom

Another common activity used in programs is “Fears in a Hat.” The leader passes out pieces of paper and asks everyone to write down the one thing they’re most nervous about as they’re starting college. The slips of paper are then passed around anonymously, read aloud, and discussed.

(The top three anxieties that program directors hear are not getting along with a roommate, not being able to handle the academics, and

Many program directors develop a curriculum of sorts to capitalize on the students’ mindset outdoors—a more receptive state of attention than is typically experienced in the classroom. Studies have shown that spending time in nature has a measurable restorative quality for students, in terms of both concentration and stress reduction.

A number of such studies are collected in the new book Nature Rx: Improving College Student Mental Health, published in May by Cornell University professors Donald Rakow and Gregory Eells.

Having spent a few days together, they put it right out there, she says— Colleges are actively looking for creative vehicles anxiety and to address mental health coping skills. And many assault, depression and are finding nature the perfect environment to lay discriminathe groundwork for wellness. tion, deeply personal

In the 90s, researchers Steven and Rachel Kaplan developed the Attention Restoration theory—the idea that restoration oc19

curs when we are away from the norm, and that a natural setting provides a more relaxed state with an increased ability to attend to tasks.

In one research example cited, a group of 56 individuals with no access to electronic devices participated in a four-day nature immersion trip. They were given a test to complete before and after the trip; the second one showed a 50 percent improvement in creative problem-solving tasks over the earlier one. A similar study showed a significant improvement in working memory among adults who’d taken a 50-minute nature walk.

Unsurprisingly, program leaders have discovered nature’s classroom makes an excellent environment for conversations often covered in standard orientation gatherings, such as alcohol and drug awareness, sex and

20

consent, gender and cultural diversity.

“It’s standard in most programs now that you don’t just go outdoors and bond and have a good time and come back and feel good about that,” says Rick Curtis, the director of Princeton’s outdoor action program for 38 years.

“There’s more that can be achieved. It’s an opportunity for new students to be integrated into a community’s institutional ideals and values, like being an active bystander and taking care of people in the community.”

In many programs, these conversations are part of a popular curriculum shared among OOPS members called “Leave a Trace” (the name is a twist on the environmental sustainability principle, Leave No Trace). It focuses on using the student leaders to provide a positive vision of

what it means to be a responsible member of the college community, in behavior and decision-making.

“Our curriculum development for Leave a Trace centers around having some of the harder conversations on the trail with the leaders,” says Marion Holmes, a director at the outdoor orientation program at West Virginia University (WVU). “Stereotypes, the college drinking culture, all kinds of diversity—it’s a more comfortable and open place to talk about these tougher topics.”

WVU is a good example of the difference a setting can make.

For years, the university had a thorough drug and alcohol orientation curriculum, as most schools do, but couldn’t get students to attend it or get engaged, says Bell, who supervised Holmes as a graduate student.

“The danger is that the students really believe they’re the expert at drinking or drugging, that they know more about it than someone

who’s researched it for 20 years. You have to give the material the clout of the peer relationship,” he said.

“So they trained the adventure leaders to deliver the curriculum in the woods, and it was fantastic. It was someone they trusted who was their age talking to them, and it had great results of lowering the drinking and drug problem rates on campus.”

The esteem piece Confidence. Grit. Resilience.

Leadership. It might sound cliché to say the challenges of an outdoor adventure program build character, but they do. The personal growth that comes out of a sense of achievement is one of the most potent and lasting effects of the experience.

“You actually have to get up in the morning, put 40 pounds on your back, hike over multiple mountains, then sleep under a tarp whether or not it’s raining.

The transference of understanding your ability to overcome challenges is higher

than if your challenge is to build a popsicle stick tower,” says Christa Ricker at Tufts.

“Those things are of value, don’t get me wrong. But it’s so much clearer that you’re going to emerge from an outdoor program with a deeper sense of your own power and abilities, and that’s going to carry over into your first-year experience and beyond.”

Tyler Smith is a part-time student at West Virginia University who participated in the outdoor orientation his first year, and has been a student leader for two years since.

“For me, it was one of the most impactful experiences I’ve ever had. And it 100 percent carries over in other areas of your life—talking with other people, communication skills, and being organized. In these experiences you have no other option than to be detail-oriented, because if you don’t fold the corners of your tarp well, you’re going to wake up in a puddle,” he says.

“You can’t teach confidence,

but you can make them feel the benefits of being more confident. You take someone rock climbing and they’re scared but the whole group is cheering them on. When they come down, they’ve had an experience that takes them outside their comfort zone, and that really sticks with people.”

Academic advantages A body of research suggests that the first experiences in a student’s first year may be the single greatest determinant of whether a student feels successful or unsuccessful in college.

According to more than 25 peer-reviewed published studies and 11 doctoral dissertations, outdoor orientation programs have been shown to improve academic performance, retention, extracurricular involvement, successful adjustment to college, and sense of place (“Outdoor Orientation Leaders: The Effects of Peer Leadership”; The Journal of Outdoor Recreation, Education, and

21

Leadership, 2017).

WVU was the focus of an eight-year study of student retention rates and graduation. From 2004-2012, the academic performance of students who participated in a subsidized outdoor orientation program (3,878) was contrasted with those who did not (47,533). Allowing for variables like first-generation college status, adjusted gross income, ethnicity, and SAT/ ACT stores, the study found that participating in an outdoor orientation increases the probability of staying in school by five percent. For students fitting an at-risk profile, that number rose to 7 percent.

“Anything that creates a two to three percent improvement in the rate of retention is considered a big win. The headline is that this is one of the best retention vehicles I know of,” says Bell.

“The programs tend to attract more upper-middle-class white students, but what we’ve found is the more disadvantaged you are, the 22

more the benefits apply. The student at the lowest level of retention is an African-American male from out of town in financial aid with low SAT scores, and that student actually sees a retention rate of 11-16 percent. The challenge is getting people to believe it, and the students to sign up. For some of them, it’s the first time they’ve ever slept outside.”

The schools that offer the programs don’t need to be persuaded. Some—such as Princeton, Middlebury, and Hamilton—have seen such positive results that they’ve made participation mandatory for all incoming first-year students. Princeton has had an outdoor orientation program for 45 years and made it mandatory in 2016.

“We got to the point in 2012 where we were taking over 800 students out of a class of 1,300—that’s 60 percent of the class. And then there were 150 who did a community service program, and then there were the varsity athletes who couldn’t leave

campus,” says Princeton’s Curtis. “So there were only a few hundred who didn’t do any pre-orientation activity, and when they got to campus they didn’t know anyone and felt left out of something special that had happened.”

Secondary benefits Some students who participate in the programs experience it like a light switch clicking on, a realization that they want to stay involved in the program and be a part of sharing it with future participants. Program structure varies by school, but in most cases, students can become leaders as early as their sophomore year.

The training can range from rudimentary wilderness and emergency skills with some leadership psychology, to an entire year with 600 hours of preparation, including practice trips with surprise preparedness drills.

The student leader experience carries extraordinary responsibility, and shows a fascinating psychological

trajectory in their travel in four stages, as outlined in the Journal of Outdoor Recreation, Education, and Leadership (2017). First, students decide they want to share the impactful experience they’ve had with future first-year students by becoming a guide.

fidence in myself – two traits that I struggled with prior to becoming a leader,” says Christopher Wilks, a student leader at Princeton who had never been backpacking before his own student orientation as a freshman. “This gives me the confidence to step out of my comfort zone to try something new, and not to fear failure. Being able to lead a group in the outdoors is a such a great boost in confidence that I can’t imagine coming from anywhere else.”

that reappear.

Bell is gratified to hear it, because that’s why he went into outdoor education after being a first-year student on such a trip, and the first in his family to attend college: to have a role in bringing that kind of experience in the lives of future students.

Second, as they train and then embark on the trip, It’s a common refrain from they’re nervous and awed program to program. by the weight on their shoulders and doubting their own “We get some great evaluacompetence. Next, they work tions [such as], ‘Best decision to project I ever made.’ competence, And the staff feeling the members importance “The headline is that this is one of the best are strongly of looking affected by retention vehicles I know of.” — Brent Bell, trustworthy; hearing it,” Professor of Outdoor Education and Leadership, and last, they says Holmes University of New Hampshire rise to the of WVU. challenge, “Every year, and discover someone increased goes on a confidence and interpersonal It’s a common refrain in the trip and has a transformative conflict resolution skills. evaluation forms that come experience, applies to lead, in from students who’ve “As a leader, I feel as though hung up their hiking boots to and ends up doing something my insight to understanding very different with their lives take a seat in the classroom. people has increased tremen- Confidence, competence, because of it. And they want dously. Being a leader has to pay it forward, too, for leadership, trust, insight, also taught me to take charge communication, best, favorother students to have that of situations and to have con- ite, greatest, are some words experience.”

23

What is the Best Way to Live?

The Lifespan Research Foundation may have the answer

By Marjorie Malpiede

F

orget cholesterol, the best indicator of a long life may well be the quality of a person’s relationships. And Dr. Robert Waldinger has the evidence to prove it.

Waldinger is the fourth director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development – considered one of the longest research studies of its kind in the country. Begun in the late 1930s with two separate and very distinct groups of men, it continues today with its original aim: to understand what makes for a good life.

While the findings from the multi-faceted, qualitative research are more nuanced, the dominant message from over 80 years of work is that good relationships keep us happier and healthier.

“The surprising finding was that when we wanted to predict who was going to age well, who was going to age in

24

better health for longer, and who was going to live longer, it turned out to be the people who were most connected to other people,” he said.

In an indication of how hungry people are for wisdom in this area, Waldinger’s TEDx Talk on the subject is in the top ten most viewed talks in history. As a result of that response, Waldinger decided to start the Lifespan Research Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to translating the key findings in the study into a prescription for how to live a healthier and more meaningful life.

Lifelong subjects The study as we know it today is actually the interweaving of two studies whose authors were unaware of the other’s existence. The first began at the Harvard University Health Service at the urging of department store

magnate W.T. Grant who was interested in understanding elements of success in business, basically what it would take to be a good department store manager. The director of the health center was able to expand the study to focus on healthy development – general physical and mental wellbeing - primarily from adolescence into adulthood.

As Waldinger said with no small touch of irony, “In America in the 1930s, if you wanted to study healthy young adult development, you picked, as your cohort, white men from Harvard.”

Out of four classes, 1939 to 1942, the Harvard deans chose a total of 268 sophomores who they thought were the soundest specimens to study. Since then, this same group of men completed questionnaires every two years, gave extensive interviews, had their family

members interviewed, and their physical and mental health assessed for what was literally the rest of their lives.

(A very small percentage of the men are still alive and still participating in the study well into their nineties.)

Also in the late 1930s, a Harvard law school professor, Sheldon Glueck and his wife Eleanor, a social worker, were interested in juvenile delinquency, particularly what protected boys from troubled and impoverished backgrounds from becoming delinquent. The aim of that study, which identified teenage boys who were most likely to turn out badly yet were doing well, was to understand what kept them out of trouble.

That study involved 456 non-delinquents who were not only from poor neighborhoods, but had families that, on average, were known to five social service agencies for a variety of issues, including mental illness and domestic violence.

In the early 1970s, the third director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, George Vaillant, thought it would be interesting to bring these two studies together as contrasting groups, with their original aims broadly intact.

The larger study accelerated the traction gained by each

of the individual efforts and kept it going far longer than expected.

Its longevity allowed the researchers to look beyond the transition from adolescence into young adulthood to adult development over a lifetime. In the last five years, the study has been expanded to include over 1300 of the children of these men, most in their 50s and 60s, extending the reach of the research across generations.

“Child development has been well studied for many decades but adult development has only recently been studied because we used to think when you’re 21, and you’ve found a partner and a job, you’re done,” said Waldinger.

“And now, of course, we realize that adulthood is a time of tremendous growth and change.”

What we now know Dr. Waldinger begins his TEDx Talk by citing a recent poll of millennials who were asked about their major life goal; 80 percent of whom responded “to get rich” and over 50 percent of whom said “to become famous.”

Audience members may have guessed where this was going but for the next 15 minutes, Waldinger explains that, not only do the goals declared at youth change dramatically over time, the most determining factors in a happy life are those that are rarely drummed into us as children.

“We’re given the impression that fame and fortune are what we should be going after, but we’ve learned from observing entire lives that what keeps people happy and healthy are good relationships,” said Waldinger.

For the men in the study – whether tradesman or CEO’s, married or single, rich or poor -- it was the quality of their close relationships that became the protective factor against premature aging and illness.

Connections, be it in the community or with a close friend, and having a higher purpose to your life, were dynamics claimed by the happiest and healthiest members of the group, regardless of their status.

In the reverse, loneliness (now claimed by one out of five Americans) was found to 25

Photos by John Gillooly

Dr. Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

be, as Waldinger says, “toxic” to health and overall wellbeing.

“At first we didn’t believe the findings,” he said. “In the 80’s we thought, ‘how could your relationships actually impact whether you got heart disease or how long you were going to live?’ And then other research groups studying completely different groups of people found similar things and we began to say ‘wait a minute. This mind/ body connection has really powerful impact.”

26

When Waldinger surveyed people following the reaction to his TED Talk, he learned that his audience cut across every demographic, indicating a universal yearning for this kind of information.

been given by a minister at a church and for some people, that would be enough.

But for many people, it’s not. What this study does is give legitimacy to this truth through science.”

He says it was not just about one or two important takeaways but, rather, insights generally about what really happens to people throughout life; what adulthood looks like for most people; and what constitutes a life of purpose.

Research to practice

“My TED Talk could have

If the study provides the evidence, then the Lifespan Research Foundation is the application of what has been learned. Founded in 2018, the Foundation provides content and consulting derived from the key findings, starting with the lifespan perspective

which Waldinger describes as “understanding where you are in your lifespan and how that shapes your views of life.”

“The Lifespan perspective is an important foundation because, literally, the fact of death, and the fact of a finite lifespan, drives a lot of our psychology and a lot of our behavior,” he said.

The Foundation helps people examine three major domains: their sense of purpose; affirmative relationships; and adapting to challenges, all in the context of how these things change over time.

Through workshops and online content, Waldinger says people can better understand and improve each of these domains. It is Waldinger’s insight into relationships that may be the most eye-opening and, ultimately, the most life-changing.

‘Sure, relationships are important but the question is what kind of relationships are the most beneficial?

What elements within a relationship actually promote health?”

Waldinger outlines over a dozen components, affirmed by research, of “good” re-

lationships, challenging assumptions within more traditional narratives. Just as staying in a high-conflict marriage can be more detrimental to your health than becoming single, having a high-quality relationship with any partner or mentor can be just as affirming as having a loving spouse or parent.

He also cautions that good relationships are not conflict-free, noting that many couples studied in the research frequently argued.

“They just knew, that, at the end of the day, they had each other’s backs.”

Stay informed. Read

The MCFeed

The Mary Christie Foundation’s weekly roundup of news and research on the health and wellness of young adults

SUBSCRIBE at

http://marychristiefoundation.org/mcfeed/

27

Changing the Face of STEM The University of Maryland-Baltimore County’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program celebrates 30 years of increasing representation in science and engineering Photos By Marylana Demond

T

hirty years ago, Baltimore philanthropist Robert E. Meyerhoff came to then-University of Maryland-Baltimore County Vice Provost Freeman Hrabowski with the seed of an idea: to create a program that would enable all students, regardless of background, access to the highest levels of science.

Over Memorial Day weekend, hundreds of Meyerhoff Scholars Program alumni filled an auditorium stage to thank Meyerhoff for his bold vision. They also came to share their own experiences as proof that he was right to believe in their potential and invest in their futures so many years ago.

The night of gratitude kicked off an emotional weekend of fellowship and reflection celebrating the Meyerhoff Scholars Program’s 30th anniversary.

Over the course of Friday evening, alumni and supporters shared stories of the successes they attribute to a community that believed in them from the start—one that in

28

the words of poet Langston Hughes let them “hold fast to dreams.”

“Meyerhoffs are ‘all in’ types,” said Keith Harmon, director of the program. “Now as alumni, they are distinguishing themselves as STEM professionals, changing the face of the STEM workforce, and showing the world how right Bob Meyerhoff was to believe in them in the first place.”

The first of its kind in the country, the Meyerhoff Scholars Program launched in 1989 with a small cohort of African American men interested in pursuing graduate degrees in science, engineering, and related fields.

In the years that followed, the program expanded to include women and students of all backgrounds who were committed to increasing the representation of minorities in science and engineering.

See the Science Summary on p. 40 for a new outcomes report on the program.

29

Q&A: Grant Cornwell The President of Rollins College on community and belonging

Interviewed By Marjorie Malpiede

Four years ago, Grant Cornwell moved to Florida to become the president of Rollins College. The decision, while very intentional, had nothing to do with the weather. The former chief academic officer of St. Lawrence University and president of the College of Wooster was seeking an institution that would serve his devotion to the liberal arts in both philosophy and geography – a place, he says, aligned with the world his students would be entering.

Rollins is in the quintessential college town of Winter Park and has been rated one of the most beautiful campuses in the country. But of larger value to Cornwell was its close proximity to Orlando, a global city with a rapidly growing, diverse population. The college’s trustees had been seeking a leader who appreciated the opportunity this location held at a time when higher education was becoming increasingly more diverse.

30

Grant Cornwell was just the guy.

A philosopher with a background in human rights theory, Cornwell has long worked in the area of globalization with a focus on multi-cultural democracies. He believes that embracing diversity and global engagement is critical to fulfilling the mission of a liberal education. Since his arrival, Rollins has continued to make great strides in this area and is beginning to reimagine itself as a truly urban liberal arts college with all of the opportunities that entails.

It is clear from our conversation that Cornwell is a visionary leader with deep views on education and society. In developing strategy, he says, “You want to figure out what you’re very good at and invest in it – and then figure out what you need to be good but are falling short in, and also invest in that.”

When it comes to student health and wellbeing, Roll-

ins is experiencing the same challenges as most schools trying to keep up with the demand for services amidst escalating rates of anxiety and depression. But in discussing community and belonging at Rollins, Cornwell sees an advantage to living on the small, residential campus bordering Lake Virginia. Whether it is trying to have it both ways or just benefiting from the best of both worlds, Rollins seems to have figured out its sweet spot.

Here is an excerpt from our interview.

Mary Christie Quarterly: What drew you to Rollins?

Grant Cornwell: There were a number of things that attracted me to Rollins but at the top of the list was the idea of serving, if you will, a traditional American liberal arts college in the center of a dynamic global city; a city with a rapidly growing and diverse population; a city with a rapidly expanding

economic structure and job opportunities, with all of the richness of diversity and multi-cultural influence that I think is both highly relevant for the kind of education we provide, but also highly desired by students of this era.

I served for over 20 years as a professor, dean and chief academic officer at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York, and then spent eight years as the president of the College of Wooster in rural Ohio. While they are both fine liberal arts institutions, I believe that for the liberal arts to be relevant in this global era, we have to fully embrace diversity and global engagement. Trying to do that in small, white, rural towns is profoundly challenging.

MCQ: How has this vision played out at Rollins thus far?

becoming demographically aligned with the world our students are entering when they graduate and I think that’s a very healthy environment for our style of education.

MCQ: You’ve written and spoken a lot about the role of liberal arts in today’s world. What is your theory around that?

GC: It goes way back for me.

I’m a philosopher by training and have always been interested in the question of cultural relativism and how different cultures have different ethical and political beliefs; and what happens when they intermingle. My work as a philosopher was in human rights theory, with a focus on how race and racism are understood in different nations and different points in history.

education for working, living, voting, leading, and thriving in a globalized multi-cultural society.

What is different about a liberal arts college like Rollins is that all the learning takes place in the context of human relationships. There is more mutual accountability and more immediacy than is even remotely possible in on-line learning environments or those dominated by large, impersonal lectures.

It’s a much more rigorous approach to education because so much of the work we are doing, so many of the learning goals that we espouse , have to do with a student’s ability to listen to people who think differently and collaborate with them to create new and shared insights.

That’s what we do every day at Rollins. You sit in a semiI became especially interested nar of 15 students, working GC: We are an urban liberal in how multi-cultural democ- out difficult issues, listening arts college with all the inracies are possible. I was to people who think really timacy and community you simultaneously asking, “How differently with no buffer to get from a small, liberal arts does the basic philosophy of block people who don’t think college and that’s the strategy liberal education stay releexactly like them. That is we’ve been pursuing. We are vant in this rapidly globalwhat prepares our graduates very close to for the world being a miof work and nority-servcivic life after ing instituIt is to be celebrated. What we are seeing is the graduation. tion. We’re democratization of higher education access.

MCQ: Do over 20 peryou worry cent LatinX, that liberal over 30 pereducation is cent diverse, vulnerable? around 10 percent internaized, digital world?” I think tional. With our students, fac- the answer is it is the best ulty and staff, we are quickly 31

economy needs as many people coming out of college with four-year degrees as we can possibly produce. So you have to think this is profoundly ideological and has a lot to do with the anti-intellectualism of the current political climate.

MCQ: Rollins’ student body, intentionally, is becoming more diverse, and that means you are getting students with varying levels of income, primary education, and preparedness. What does that mean for you?

Photo by Scott Cook

Grant Cornwell, President of Rollins College.

GC: There is some vulnerability, but it’s not new. The liberal arts college is one of America’s great inventions and contributions to the world. The irony is that, over the last decade, the question of whether or not a liberal arts education is viable and relevant is being asked here and in Washington – but not around the world.

Just as we’re doubting the value of our own invention, other nations are asking how to do it. Places like China and India are asking, “How did American higher education come to be the powerful giant that it is and how has 32

it fueled the ascendancy of America as a global power?”

The answer they’re coming to is its commitment to liberal education – broad education for all citizens, rather than technical education for an elite few.

MCQ: Do you see this questioning as part of the “devaluing” of higher education that’s become part of the political rhetoric?

GC: We’re in a period when facts are less salient than ideology. All you have to do is look at the facts of employment and earnings and there’s no question that the

GC: I think this is the challenge of the moment for higher education. How do we teach the students we have, as opposed to the students that maybe we somehow wished we had or believe we used to have? We shouldn’t bemoan what they lack or what they struggle with.

These are our students now and we have to fully embrace them, meet them where they are, and bring them along.

I think that’s where all higher education is right now and it is to be celebrated because, really, what we’re seeing is the democratization of higher education access. We are getting students from every background of our society and we have to figure out how to be successful with every one of them. I don’t think we’re cutting edge in this regard and we have much to learn from our colleagues at

Q&A: Dr. Mamta Accapadi Rollins College’s Vice President of Student Affairs works closely with President Grant Cornwell

There’s no doubt that presidents have a large role to play in their students’ health and wellbeing, from directing policy to setting a tone that affects campus cultures.

But the myriad of factors that impact student wellbeing – from mental health support and physical safety to co-curricular activities and residential communities – are largely influenced by student affairs professionals, making the synergy between these two offices critical to the college experience.

At Rollins College, there appears to be a solid connection between the president’s vision for student life and the way it is interpreted and managed on campus, thanks to Dr. Mamta Accapadi, Rollins’ Vice President of Student Affairs.

In a separate interview, Accapadi talked more specifically about student affairs policies, how her own experiences have shaped her approach, and why she wishes she knew more about the students who arrive on campus.

Mary Christie Quarterly: What encompasses student affairs at Rollins?

Dr. Mamta Accapadi: I think of student affairs as the holistic life of a student. Thematically, we put this into three categories at Rollins: care, community, and career.

The theme of care includes mental health, student conduct, title IX, as well as transitions like orientation. The theme of community is really about how students cultivate a sense of belonging on campus, relationships with their peers, and meaningful connections with their faculty members.

Students build community in residence halls, but they also engage in the community. We want them to think about the ways they build connections and empathy outside of themselves. The theme of career focuses on career services, internship support, student employment, work study, philanthropy-funded experiences, and opportunities that allow students to make

meaning of the experiences they have on campus so they can enter the world of work with both the recognition and confidence that Rollins has prepared them well.

MCQ: Where are you with student mental health support? Are you seeing the same uptick in request for services as most colleges and universities?

MA: The Director of the Wellness Center is a direct report to me, and plays a key institutional leadership role at the College. We are definitely seeing an uptick in students seeking help for a variety of reasons, particularly anxiety and depression.

We are also seeing an increase in students seeking sustained, or continuity of treatment from home – I think this is another area where we are resource-challenged.

We need to think about what the role of a wellness center on a college campus should be.

33

other institutions, and especially at community colleges.

We’re simply paying attention to the best ideas that are out there right now on how to do that.

MCQ: Do you see it as ironic that, as four-year degrees are being questioned, first generation students and students of color are seeking degrees at such high numbers?

CG: It is rare to meet a parent who says, “I don’t care if my child goes to college or not.” It doesn’t matter what background you come from.

The family understands that access and prosperity and thriving are all a function of education, so the behavior of the market does not reflect the rhetoric. Try asking those who make the case that not everyone needs a college degree what they want for their own children. You only get one answer: a college degree.

MCQ: What is yours/Rollins’ view of your students’ emotional and behavioral health? What role does the school play here?

GC: When we accept a student, we have the ethical obligation to support their success and that means their emotional and behavioral health as well. We believe that. Our faculty believes that. But the need greatly exceeds our capacity to serve every student in every way that needs to be served and 34

we simply do our best.

So there’s a state of trust and challenge which is frustrating because we all want more.

That said, I think that our mission helps in that we see it as our duty to nurture our students towards thriving, not just as students, but as human beings. We educate students to not only have good jobs but to have good lives and a good life means you are happy – not just in the psychological sense, but in the Greek sense that you are thriving as a human being.

There’s also a great sense of belonging here. It is very hard to be isolated or anonymous in a residential liberal arts college; you’re always in some kind of relational context which, of course, brings its own challenges.

MCQ: What are some of the big, new initiatives at Rollins and how do they relate to what we’ve been talking about?

GC: We are very proud of our mission to educate students for global citizenship and responsible leadership and we wanted to make that commitment more manifest and intentional. At Rollins, we see liberal education as profoundly pragmatic, actually as the most practical course of study available.

We are long-practiced at help-

ing students realize this for themselves through experiential learning and civic and global engagement – all of which are a kind of learning that prepares students to put their education to work in the world.

Next fall, we will be opening a new building in the middle of campus that is actually our old library that will now be home to all of the programs we might call “Applied Liberal Learning.” We’re co-locating all of these into a kind of nexus we’re calling “Rollins Gateway” – as each of these programs provides a gateway into preparing students for the world.

Another initiative aims at expanding our capacity for residential housing on campus, which is something students really want. We’re relocating facilities to make room for a new residential commons right on the shores of Lake Virginia that will add 500 new beds. This will allow many more students to live on campus, but the really significant factor here is the whole complex is developed around wellness and thriving. There will be a fitness center with a yoga studio and meditation room and a kind of “Whole Foods” market with a teaching kitchen. The entire living, learning community is designed around promoting mental health and well-being and we’re super excited about that.

Are we a primary care provider? Are we an emergency services resource? Are we here to take care of the emergent situations or are we here to maintain care for students who are looking for ongoing support?

In our current environment at Rollins and nationally, we need to identify where our resources provide the best support for a community of well-being on campus.

One area we have significantly strengthened is suicide prevention. We’ve received a SAMHSA grant for our wellness center to work with faculty, staff and students in the QPR method of suicide prevention – Question, Persuade, Refer – to be able to assess and monitor suicidality.

We have seen a steep increase in the number of students who are seeking support and services for active suicidal ideation and behavior.

Another urgent need we are addressing is in the area of eating disorders. We now have a treatment team for eating disorders on campus.

This integrative team includes a nurse practitioner,

mental health counselor, consulting dietician, and consulting psychiatrist who work together to provide an integrative approach to support students.

This level of care allows students to stay in school and receive treatment and support, when they might otherwise have to seek treatment at home.

MCQ: Do you think the president’s agenda aligns with what you are doing in student affairs? Do these kinds of things make a difference?

MA: Absolutely. What is great about President Cornwell is that he champions and prioritizes the whole student experience. At Rollins, we talk a lot about how we prepare the whole student for who they are going to be upon graduation. It dovetails really nicely with our mission, which is to prepare students for global citizenship and responsible leadership so they can pursue meaningful, productive careers.

What does it mean to be a responsible leader and what does it mean to have a life of meaning? The work that we do with students ties in beau-

tifully with what we do in the classroom, with engagement experiences, with study abroad, and beyond.

MCQ: What is your background? What drew you to this work?

MA: I often tell bits and pieces of my story because it has defined why I entered the field.

My parents are immigrants from India. I grew up lower-income in a strict household, and with a cultural frame where you never spoke up against your parents.

Because of their struggles and sacrifices, they wanted a better life for my siblings and me, and their dream and expectation was that I would become a medical doctor.

When I started college, on a full scholarship, a low-income kid who didn’t know how to navigate the American higher education environment, I fell apart. I tried talking to my mother and she just told me to work harder and everything would be okay. I tried my best to seek help, but I didn’t have the navigational capital to advocate for myself.

Culturally, seeking counseling

35

was considered taboo, and perceived to be ‘shaming my family,’ as is common with many Asian cultures. Even seeking support from academic advisors was seen as showing weakness.

My college experience informs how I show up as an educator: I went to college, struggled, and had a breakdown emotionally and academically, and no one noticed. I completely slipped through the cracks. There is not a single day that I’m not thinking, “what are we doing to make sure no one falls through the cracks today?”

MCQ: As head of student affairs, what do you wish to be different or better?

ondary education.

We should know about their level of academic preparedness, class stratification, food insecurity, mental health and well-being needs, and beyond. How are we thinking about education for a healthy democracy in a broader ecosystem?

I’ll give you an example.

We admit talented, capable students at Rollins and I was shocked to realize that, in one of the courses that I taught last year, I had a student who did not know how to write a research paper.

Meanwhile, I had been reading an article about the No Child Left Behind legislation, passed in 2001, which bases its metric of success on student performances on standardized test performance, often multiple-choice tests with limited critical thinking assessment capability. So, in the case of my student, she was certainly smart, and ca-

MA: I’ve been thinking a lot about how much we don’t know about the students who are entering higher education today. I think we need to be in better partnership and relationship with PK-12 systems and educators, because we actually have the ability to anticipate what our As an educator, I feel it students will need by the other people’s children. time they enter post-sec-

36

pable, but for her and for this cohort of college students, all of their assessments of academic excellence have been based on things that they’re actually not prepared to do to be successful in a learning environment like ours.

is my job

We have a responsibility as educators to know this, and to be sensitive and responsive to what our students need.

I think about parenting trends in the early 2000s and what we might have observed in elementary school that would give us a window into how students are showing up in 2019. In what ways have parenting trends in the 2000s impacted coping skills, ability to deal with conflict, and social engagement skills of today’s college student?

This may not be very scientific, but it is what I think about.

Ultimately, as an educator, I feel it is my job to believe in other people’s children, and I feel deeply grateful to serve our young people to believe in and honor their souls on their college journey.

Analysis: Forced Medical Leaves of Absence Are they discriminatory?

By Adam C. Powell, PhD by the student and university, in other circumstances, students may disagree with their university’s request.

Adam C. Powell, President, Payer+Provider Syndicate

A

cross the nation, students are being asked by universities to take medical leaves of absence due to issues with mental health, physical health, and substance use. Such leaves of absence are often justified by their potential benefits to the student, the university, or both.

While in some circumstances, leaves of absence may be mutually viewed as beneficial

There are two potential goals of medical leaves of absence: to provide the student an opportunity to recover from an illness without being subjected to the rigors of university life, and to remove the student from the university to decrease the likelihood that the student will be a direct threat to others on campus.

Until the Department of Justice revised regulations for implementing Title II of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) in 2011, students could be removed if they constituted a direct threat to themselves, as well as a direct threat to others.

lead to a loss of financial aid to fund current expenses (e.g. food, housing), and also trigger the beginning of loan repayment. Individuals may not be able to recover the cost of tuition, room, and board for the semester in which they disenrolled.

The financial implications of lost tuition are so substantial that some families opt to purchase insurance against the risk. Departures also have the potential to impact an individual’s lifetime earnings, as they typically delay graduation, and may reduce the likelihood that the student ever graduates. Individuals that do not return to school may have difficulty repaying their student loan debt.

A student’s departure from campus can have a number of financial implications for the student.

From a nonfinancial perspective, a forced leave of absence can cause hardship to a student, as it inherently removes the individual from the campus community.

A leave of absence can create a difficult situation, as it can

Individuals on a leave of absence, if previously residen37

tial, will need to relocate and may experience a weakening in their social ties.

They likewise will need to restructure their daily schedules, and to find new forms of daily purpose, other than being a student.

The perception of this burden is so great that one Yale student cited concerns about being asked to withdraw and not allowed to return shortly before committing suicide.

Such concerns, whether real or imagined, are a barrier that students face in accessing mental healthcare.

Universities, too, experience financial and nonfinancial impacts which influence their decisions to require students to take medical leaves of absence. Student absences result in a loss of tuition and ancillary revenue, although the impact may be blunted if the university has a waiting list of potential transfer students and the tuition is nonrefundable.

From a nonfinancial perspective, universities must balance the rights and interests of an unwell student with the rights and interests of the others on campus.

38

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, in which a psychologically-troubled student murdered others on campus, the Association of American Universities released a document summarizing a safety survey that it conducted with its constituent members. The findings highlighted that universities may request students to take a voluntary medical leave of absence or a mandatory administrative withdrawal to obtain treatment.

Given the potential negative financial and nonfinancial impacts that an involuntary medical leave of absence may have on a student, a number of students have filed suits against universities claiming that their removal constituted a violation of the ADA. The ADA defines a person with a disability as having a physical or mental impairment which limits one or more major life activities.

This includes people who have a record of an impairment but who may no longer

have or perceive they have an active disability. The ADA’s definition does not specify all the impairments which are covered by the law. Public schools, as well as private schools not directly operated by religious institutions, are covered by Title III of the ADA, which requires public accommodations to comply with the ADA’s nondiscrimination requirements.

Thus, the ADA applies to universities, and students placed on involuntary leave have grounds for considering their removal to be potential discrimination.

An investigation by Ronan Farrow identified 22 students at 10 schools that were placed on forced leaves of absence, and were unhappy about their departures.

Nonetheless, students placed on forced leaves are a subset of the students who take leaves of absence for mental health reasons – a population which is itself somewhat small. During the 2017-2018 school year, schools with 10,001 to 15,000 students had

a mean of 27.3 students take leaves of absence (sometimes voluntarily) for psychological reasons; about a quarter of a percent of the student body.

been “disruptive to her classmates and academic program and that her needs exceeded the resources the university could provide.”

There have been a series of lawsuits by individuals against universities, alleging that their forced leaves from their studies constituted a violation of their rights under the ADA. Plaintiffs include six students placed on medical leave at Stanford, a student at Harvard, a student at Princeton, and a student at Yale.

In at least one instance, a student has been successful in litigating an ADA complaint.

Northern Michigan University reached a settlement in 2018 with the Department of Justice over an ADA complaint that was filed in 2013.

While a leave of absence can provide respite and time to recuperate, it can also be a source of financial and nonfinancial hardship. In circumstances where students are required to leave involuntarily, the student likely perceives the hardship of disenrolling to outweigh the benefits.

One of the students that was a plaintiff alleges that the university threatened to disenroll her, required her to undergo a psychological assessment, and required her to sign a behavioral agreement that prohibited her from discussing her suicidal thoughts with other students.

It is in these situations in which the student and university do not agree upon the best course of action that conflicts can arise. While universities do have obligations to protect all students, they must make sure that they do so in a non-discriminatory manner.

As a consequence of the settlement, the university was required to draft an ADA non-discrimination policy, change the language on its webpage, create a training program for faculty and staff, and pay $173,500 in damages to the four students alleging discrimination.

Adam C. Powell, Ph.D., is President of Payer+Provider Syndicate. He holds a Doctorate and Master’s degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied Health Care Management and Economics.

Although the nuances of every student’s situation differ, the Stanford students filed a class action lawsuit against the university due to the substantial overlaps between their experiences.

The class action lawsuit alleges that Stanford violated the ADA, the Fair Housing Act, and the Rehabilitation Act, in addition to California civil rights and housing laws in its actions towards the students.

The suit alleges that one student was told that he “had caused his dormmates psychological harm” and “had been a disruption to the community,” and that another student was told she had

mental illnesses and towards other students on campus.

When determining policies for forced leaves of absence, universities should consider their legal obligations towards both students with

39

Science Summary A recap of research worth noting.

By Dana Humphrey

1.

Report on Alcohol and Drug Use Urges More Support from Higher Ed Leadership

A report from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) calls for a new level of awareness and collaboration by college presidents and trustees to address college student alcohol and drug use. “Addressing College Drinking and Drug Use: A Primer for Trustees, Administrators, and Alumni,” jointly authored by Dr. Amelia Arria, professor and the Director of the University of Maryland School of Public Health’s Center on Young Adult Health and Development, and Greta Wagley, ACTA’s editor and research associate, is intended to help trustees and administrators understand the growing problem of substance use on campus, providing the latest data on substance use among college students as well as evidence-based best practices.

The report reframes prevention efforts around the university’s academic mission, and guides trustees and university leadership to change their campus cultures through evidence-based practices. The report cites statistics that show the harmful impact of alcohol and drug use on academic achievement and mental and physical well-being, including diminished cognitive ability, critical thinking, dropout rates, and limited likelihood of employment post-college.

Addressing College Drinking and Drug Use follows the recommendations of the National Institutes of Health College AIM framework, 40

which endorses a multi-level, multi-component strategy that includes both environmental and individual-level interventions to address substance use. Effective environmental interventions include enforcement of underage drinking laws, social host laws, responsible beverage service, and use of campus and local media to promote awareness and enforcement of these laws.

Effective and feasible individual-level interventions include widespread screening to identify students at high risk for developing problematic substance use patterns, and clinical interventions for unhealthy alcohol use and substance use. The authors emphasize that policies that work to strengthen the academic mission, re-norm the campus culture, improve screening, deploy evidence-based clinical interventions, and provide alternatives to consumption are all important components of a comprehensive strategy that is required to reverse the trajectories of substance abuse. Policies must address each campus’s particular student body and culture, and prevalence of substance abuse. According to the report, to be successful, approaches require coordination at various university levels, full support from the president and trustees, and collaboration with the community, other universities, and state government.

2.

Examining Free College Programs

An analysis by The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, found that many “free college” programs, despite “astonishing” growth, are falling short of expectations.

Authors Jen Mishory and Peter Granville wrote that there are 22 free college programs spread across 19 states, and funding for the programs has risen by an average of $107 million per year over the past three years. According to the report, “Policy Design Matters for Rising ‘Free College’ Aid,” in some states, there has been a reluctance to commit to truly universal “free college,” and this has meant that as few as five percent of all students may actually qualify for program benefits.

Often, the report states, the students most in need are left out because of the eligibility requirements. In a 2018 analysis of free college programs, Mishory wrote, “states often describe their programs as universal, in reality they include extensive eligibility requirements intended to either ration the benefit to bring down costs” or target a specific group of students.

3.

According to a briefing paper by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, despite the fact that twenty percent of college students in the United States are raising children, free college initiatives often “unintentionally exclude” these students. The institute’s analysis pointed out various restrictions and requirements in the college Promise programs that exclude students who may be most in need of support.

Among the more than 300 college Promise programs in 44 states, the majority exclude students over the age of 25 – making many students who have started families ineligible for Promise financial assistance. “College Promise programs that just cover the cost of tuition and fees also may not do enough to allow students with children and others with high financial need to afford to enroll,” the paper stated, and recommended allowing aid to help students cover other costs including housing, childcare, food and transportation.

Increasing Representation of Ethnic Minorities in STEM Fields

Ethnic minorities are underrepresented in fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and efforts to increase diversity in STEM fields have not had a significant impact. The Meyerhoff Scholars Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County provides a promising model for increasing retention and academic performance of underrepresented minority undergraduates in STEM and for preparing those undergraduates to pursue graduate and professional programs.

A new report describes how the positive outcomes from the Meyerhoff program can be replicated at other universities.

The outcomes for African-American STEM majors in the Meyerhoff Program have been extensively documented. Previous research has shown that students who qualified for the Meyerhoff Scholars Program but declined the offer and attended other universities were half as likely to graduate with a STEM degree, and approximately five times less likely to pursue or complete STEM graduate degrees.

41

Despite this documented success, no other predominantly white institution has achieved similar outcomes.

The authors of “Replicating Meyerhoff for inclusive excellence in STEM” explain how an interinstitutional partnership approach can help enable similar outcomes at other “majority universities” with different geographies, sizes, cultures and proportions of underrepresented minority students. The Millennium Scholars Program at Pennsylvania State University at University Park and the Chancellors Science Scholars Program at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were designed to replicate or closely adapt all major components of the Meyerhoff program, including establishment of key administrators and senior faculty as program champions; allocation of space and funding for staff, scholarships, activities, and assessment; recruitment of diverse staff who can serve as effective mentors and bridge cultural divides; targeted student recruitment and selection activities; cohort building, including intensive pre-matriculation summer education and mentoring activities; intensive academic advising and counseling; community service; and regular program evaluations.

4.

Recently, a report from the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), “HBCUs Punching Above Their Weight,” found that HBCUs are strong producers of black STEM graduates, providing around one-third of those degrees across the study population. The report also noted that HBCUs enrolled and graduated about one-fourth of all black undergraduates across 21 states and territories in 2016, despite accounting for less than 10 percent of all fouryear institutions.

College Matriculation and Graduation Increasing, but Completion Gaps Persist

According to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center, the number of low-income undergraduates has increased “dramatically” over the two decades from 1996 to 2016, and now makes up nearly a third of the overall student population. Using data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, Pew researchers found that community colleges and the least-selective four-year colleges have seen the greatest rise in poor and minority students. The most selective, private fouryear institutions have not seen as much of an increase. The report also found that more non-white undergraduates are attending 42

Outcomes from the initial cohorts at the PSU and UNC programs closely paralleled those of the Meyerhoff program, and minority participation in both programs grew from approximately 65 percent (cohort 1) to approximately 80 percent (cohort 4). The report authors identified several keys to success which included: a commitment to the entire Meyerhoff Scholars Program model; sufficient and sustained administrative support; recruitment of full-time program staff; immersive up-front interinstitutional training and sustained guidance; and breadth of faculty participation.

college. However, data released by the National Center for Education Statistics show a 50-percentage-point gap in college-going rates between students who come from the highest-earning families and the lowest earning.

According to the data, among students who entered ninth grade in 2009, 78 percent of those from the wealthiest 20 percent of families were enrolled in college seven years later (in 2016), whereas just 28 percent of students from the lowest quintile were enrolled.

A third report by the Center for American Progress showed that while college-degree

attainment rates have improved over the past decade in the United States, with the share of young adults with at least an associate’s degree rising by 20 percent, gains are unevenly distributed geographically and by race.

According to the report, 35 percent of white adults in the US hold a bachelor’s degree or

5.

higher, while only 18 percent of underrepresented adults do. Overall, just 8 percent of bachelor’s degree-holders live in rural counties.

University Food Insecurity and Academic Performance

Recent data indicate that nearly half of college students at community and public colleges are food insecure. According to, “College and University Basic Needs Insecurity: A National #RealCollege Survey Report,” released

by Temple University’s Hope Center for College, Community and Justice, 45 percent of student respondents from over 100 institutions said they had been food insecure in the past 30 days.

The survey found that rates of basic needs insecurity are higher for marginalized students, including African Americans, students identifying as LGBTQ, and students who are independent from their parents or guardians for financial aid purposes.

Students who have served in the military, former foster youth, and students who were formerly convicted of a crime are all at greater risk of basic needs insecurity, as are those receiving a federal Pell Grant. Rates of basic needs insecurity are also higher for students attending two-year colleges compared to those attending four-year colleges.

The report concludes with recommendations for colleges and universities, which include: appointing a Director of Student Wellness and Basic Needs; evolving programmatic work to advance cultural changes on campus; engaging community organizations and the private sector in proactive support; and developing and expanding an emergency aid program.

Another recent study published in the Journal of American College Health, “University student food insecurity and academic performance” found that food insecurity is associated with poor academic performance. Using an online survey distributed to 13,897 undergraduates at a mid-sized, New Jersey public university, researchers found that food insecurity increased the odds of being among the lower 10 percent GPA and reduced the odds of being among the upper 10 percent GPA. The study also showed that 48 percent of students were food insecure, and that rates were higher for women, African Americans, Hispanics, students with partial or no meal plan, commuters, and students receiving financial assistance.

43