The class of 2024 enrolled in college six months after the world shut down.
Isolation, anxiety and depression were common among people of all ages.
Four years into the pandemic, we’re witnessing an ongoing mental health crisis that some are calling a new public health threat.
Feelings of depression are far more common among teenagers today than they were a decade ago, according to the CDC’s Youth Mental Health Survey, which has surveyed high school students every two years since 2011.
The report found that 42% of high school students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2021, up 28% from 10 years ago.
“Pre-pandemic, students were engaging and interacting with one another, but since 2020, that level of engagement has dropped significantly,” said Megan Kersting, director of the College Mental Health Initiative at William James College in Newton.
While rising concerns and awareness about mental health began before the pandemic, 2020 and beyond has seen an increase in demand for services.
Colleges and universities across the state are taking notice, with some leading the way in innovation by taking a holistic approach to mental health, encouraging members of their school communities to take proactive steps in times of crisis and training faculty and staff to be better first responders.
Kersting’s role at William James College (William James College is a private college specializing in education) The program, which specializes in psychology, aims to help faculty at universities across the state learn how to support their students and themselves during and after the crisis.
“Teachers are often the first to respond to student behavioral health crises,” she says, “but there’s been little attention paid to how teachers can self-regulate their own emotions.”
The College Mental Health Initiative is based at William James College, but serves faculty and staff at other Massachusetts colleges and universities.
Since launching last December, the initiative has worked with 25 universities across the state, from Boston University to Williams College in Williamstown.
The university has partnered with the Ruderman Family Foundation, which works to eliminate stigma associated with mental health, and donated $250,000 to the effort.
Each school paid $1,000 for each pair to attend the training, Kersting said, although the foundation would cover the costs if a school was experiencing financial difficulties.
“Higher education institutions are struggling to retain faculty and staff at the moment,” Kersting said, explaining that higher education institutions have faced criticism for fostering unhealthy work cultures that prioritize work over family and personal well-being.
The initiative offers two training programs: Basic Support Skills and Caring Boundaries. “We teach faculty about emotional intelligence and emotion regulation, and the importance of knowing when to say yes and when to say no,” Kersting said.
The idea grew out of Kersting’s decades of experience working as a psychologist in higher education and the calls for training she heard from faculty and staff, she said.
“Too often, faculty would feel uncomfortable and end the conversation midway,” she said.
Kersting also supports other colleges through Mental Health First Aid, an early intervention course that teaches students how to identify and address the signs of mental illness and substance use disorder.
This is one of the intervention techniques currently being implemented at Western New England University in Springfield.
Christine Goodwin, the university’s chief experience officer, oversees several departments at the university, including the health and wellness center.
Mental Health First Aid follows a public health model, Goodwin said: if at least a third of a school’s students know when to intervene during a mental health crisis, more people will receive care.
“We want to teach people how to be ‘stand-up people,’ how can we help people help?” she said.
The college also provides mental health first aid training to the Springfield area, she said.
The Health and Wellbeing Centre has a range of doctors and clinicians available to support students.
She said there is a high demand for counselors but limited resources.
“We anticipated the challenges of recruiting and shifted to a model where we train clinicians for a year to learn how we do things before they are hired,” she said.
In the past three years, Western New England University has hired three counselors.
In Worcester, it took one university to leverage the student experience on campus to create change.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a STEM-focused research university, saw seven student deaths between mid-2021 and early 2022, including four confirmed suicides, two suspected suicides and one from illness, according to the New York Times.
In response to these losses, the university has hired Paula Fitzpatrick as the first director of a new Center for Wellbeing, which will use evidence-based practices to promote a healthier campus environment.
At the time, the university said Fitzpatrick would work closely with the Mental Health and Wellbeing Task Force to implement their recommendations while addressing the needs of the community.
Fitzpatrick declined a request for an interview. She said the center is now focused on healing the community from the inside.
The year before the pandemic began, the University of Massachusetts Amherst hired Betsy Cracco as the university’s first executive director of health, access and prevention.
Even before the pandemic, demand for mental health services was on the rise: A National Institutes of Health study published in 2022 found that the majority of people who commit suicide have never seen a mental health professional or been diagnosed with a mental illness.
“To make a difference on campus, change has to happen at every level,” Cracco said. “We have to treat not just the frogs, but the water.”
Before moving to Massachusetts, Cracco served as director of counseling and mental health services at the University of Connecticut. Then, in the fall 2022 semester, UMass Amherst became the 14th university in the nation to join the Okanagan Charter, an international network of universities that aims to make their campuses “health-promoting universities” based on a holistic approach to health.
At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, well-being is integrated into the curriculum and emphasized throughout all areas of student life on campus.
For Trishul Paula, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, “it’s all about health.”
Paula, who moved to the U.S. from Hyderabad, India, last January, said the pandemic has been really hard on him: He and his sister lost their mother, a single mother, to the virus during India’s second wave.
“There was no point in me staying in Hyderabad any longer,” he said. “I was constantly feeling depressed and anxious.”
Paula explained that moving to Amherst came with a number of challenges, including rising housing costs, paying off more than $50,000 in student loan debt, and not having any community or family nearby. “I’m working full time to survive,” Paula said.
But he finds joy in dance, especially hip-hop, and uses it as a form of expression.
“Health is about thinking good, eating good, exercising well and having a good job that supports you,” he said.
Returning to normal life after the pandemic will be difficult, Cracco said, and part of the reason is that students have grown up with social media.
“Initially, mobile phones were seen as a way to connect with other people,” she says, “but we’ve seen that that’s not working. People are feeling more isolated than ever before.”
The university has been hosting students on wellbeing retreats as part of a pilot program for the past two years as part of the Okanagan Charter. Up to 25 students can attend the retreat, with seating available on a first-come, first-served basis.
The retreat format is small group sharing and instruction. “It’s important to do a digital detox,” she says. “Being in nature and not using your phone can feel so relaxing.”
The goal of Wellbeing, Access and Prevention is to create spaces on campus for students to reconnect with each other, she said, and the school recently introduced a wellbeing course to spread knowledge across campus, not just to those seeking help.
“Student-led meditation, self-control and the science of thriving are just a few of the courses offered,” she said. “I’ve seen many students derive a sense of fulfillment.”
Maggie Norton, who will be a college senior, was a high school senior when the pandemic began and said she can’t remember that time in her life or what it felt like.
“It was a strange time,” she said. “I was trying to figure out how to adapt to a new environment.”
The journalism and anthropology major said since coming to Massachusetts, socializing on campus hasn’t been as difficult as it was in high school.
“The people on my floor my freshman year became my core group of friends,” she says. “They’ve been a great help throughout my time at university.”
Norton took a semester off college during her sophomore year for mental health reasons, but when she returned to campus, she was able to take classes at the University of Massachusetts on topics like managing obsessive thoughts, which she says helped her to improve her coping skills.
Now in her senior year and looking ahead to life after college, Norton said, “Mental health is always a concern, but it’s something you learn to manage, not cure.”
Three years before the pandemic, Marcella Runell, dean of students and vice president of student life at Mount Holyoke College, founded the college’s wellness program, “Be Well,” which launched during fall orientation in 2017. Two years after its conception, Be Well won “Program of the Year” from the National Association of Student Affairs Directors.
From orientation through graduation, all students participate in Be Well, and the school connects students to campus activities, provides peer educators and provides safe spaces on campus where people can meet and study.
“The concept of this program not only focuses on healthy minds and bodies, but also on creating a healthy community,” Runell said.
It means “being able to have dialogue, to have restorative practices, to learn, to grow, to be with one another in celebration and education,” she said.
Depression and anxiety among college students are on the rise, and “we’re seeing the same thing here at Mount Holyoke,” Runell said.
Reasons include the effects of chronic social media use, feelings of isolation during the pandemic and desensitization to the state of the world.
“These events can add up and create a generation-specific trauma because it’s happening in real time and we’re involved in it,” she said.
On June 17, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy wrote an essay saying Congress should “mandate warnings that social media use can harm teenagers’ mental health,” The New York Times reported.
“Why are we failing to address the harms of social media, which are as urgent and pervasive as those caused by unsafe cars, planes, and food?” Murthy wrote. “These harms are not a failure of willpower or parenting, but the result of unleashing powerful technologies without sufficient safeguards, transparency, and accountability.”
Mental health issues become more pronounced at this stage, especially for college students, Runell said.
“That’s why our approach is holistic – it’s not just about doing physical activity or getting counselling, it’s also about finding a group of like-minded people and finding a safe place to rest your head every night,” she said.
