This year marks my 15th year as a professor of political science. Over that time, I’ve witnessed tremendous changes from lectures with overheads and transparencies to interactive Prezis and SMART Boards, from Scantron tests to computer-based exams given to an increasing number of students for whom a #2 pencil seems like a foreign object.
Perhaps the most dramatic change has been the marked increase in students facing mental health challenges.
Simply put, our students are suffering. Not because they’re not tough enough. Not because they’re entitled. Not because they’re spoiled. Our students are suffering under the weight of a crushing social context that constantly challenges their worth. They are confronted with a collective ignorance toward the scope of mental health conditions and the underfunding of effective resources to address them. They are silenced by political rhetoric quick to attribute acts of violence to the “mentally disturbed” with little regard for the reality that those battling mental illness are more likely to be victims rather than perpetrators of crime.
Many students battle the increasing uncertainty of whether they and their families can afford their education and how their pursuits may make things more difficult back home. And for a growing number of students, they fear losing their families to threats of permanent separation. Today’s students face the ubiquitous presence of social media and technology that provide a 24-7, 360-degree arena to constantly measure themselves against impossible standards.
These collective stressors often become magnified by civic and political realities.
At a community discussion on the aftermath of the 2016 elections, I listened as a Muslim student recounted her mother pleading that she not wear a hijab on campus out of fear that she would become a visible target for others’ ignorance. I heard the pain in her voice as she calculated how to prioritize safety over her faith.
We watched as another student expressed outrage that her brother, a young gay man living in a conservative town, had been the subject of threats on social media. I left the podium to console an undocumented student pondering whether to drop out and return home to be with her family in case they were deported.
