Campus Blues
What the University of Michigan is doing to support the mental health of its students
—By Melanie Lott and Julia Klein
It’s a gloomy winter day in Ann Arbor and social isolation is starting to wear you down. You decide it might be time to speak to a professional about how you are feeling. You pull up U of M’s CAPS website to schedule an appointment. Two week wait time…again.
What has the University of Michigan done to combat the increasing mental health issues students are experiencing? On top of the fact that the current generation of college students has higher levels of stress and depression than ever before, the pandemic has completely uprooted the normal functioning of universities, creating an increased uneasiness, isolation, and mental health concern for students. Hearing from several students at University of Michigan, experts, and UM mental health service resources, this article investigates what efforts the school has made to support students and their effectiveness.
Mental health concerns have increased over the last decade, especially amongst young adults. Interestingly enough, research in the Canadian Psychological Review shows that those who did not have preexisting mental health concerns have suffered more due to social isolation during the pandemic than those who did have preexisting mental health concerns. This research shows how widespread the effects of the pandemic are on people’s wellbeing. Many students have been more isolated in their everyday lives, altering their university experiences and worsening or even creating mental health concerns.
Student mental health difficulties
The University of Michigan has had a slow response to the pandemic, which has drastically affected the freshman year experience. During a typical freshman year, it’s essential that students meet all kinds of people so that they can make friends and be comfortable in their new independence. But in the pandemic, freshmen living in dorms were only allowed to hang out in groups of three or less, masked, socially distanced, and with no exception to outside guests (meaning anyone that does not live in their dorm building). Of course, University of Michigan had to implement safety precautions, but the effects were devastating for many freshmen, creating intense loneliness due to the near impossibility to make friends.
To add to freshmen students’ stress, after multiple outbreaks over the Fall semester, the dorms were closed for the Winter semester. This led to a scramble for off-campus housing and students returning home to their parents. Freshmen students discussed in The Michigan Daily their frustrations, financial burdens, and increased stress to figure out where to go. This change especially created increased pressure on students without the resources to live off campus or to study virtually at home. U of M allowed for some students to stay at the dorms for said reasons, but the overall stress from precarious living arrangements and inconsistent university policies certainly did not help.
The pandemic didn’t just negatively affect freshmen; many other students experienced the same feelings of isolation over the last year. In Fall 2020, there was a record breaking percentage of students at U of M struggling with mental health issues: 47%, screened positive for clinically significant symptoms of depression and/or anxiety, a 44% increase from last year. In a survey we conducted asking twenty U of M students if they experienced mental health challenges during the past year, eighteen said they had increased mental health problems. This is an astounding statistic and highlights the urgency for universities all over the country to make more of an effort to increase the wellbeing of students and prevent detrimental outcomes.
So, what is the University of Michigan doing?
The University of Michigan has a number of resources for students. The university offers CAPS, UHS, and a website dedicated to creating events for students’ wellbeing.
CAPS
University of Michigan’s main mental health resource for students is CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services). CAPS offers clinical services (which require initial screenings) for individual therapy, group programs, or couples counseling. In addition, CAPS offers peer counseling, where students are trained to meet with peers and help them with their struggles. CAPS has a comprehensive website full of virtual resources: apps (meditation, virtual therapy), lists that help students find therapists within their insurance database, online toolkits for tips on how to care for your mental health, and an entire website section with recommendations on how to cope with isolation and COVID-19.
A recent feature of CAPS is the ability for students to be reimbursed for seeking external clinical services. This is extremely beneficial to students as six of our survey respondents said it was somewhat difficult to schedule an appointment with CAPS. This new reimbursement may imply that CAPS recognizes their services are overwhelmed and they cannot accommodate such a large student body. Nonetheless, this will benefit both students who will receive the help they need and CAPS who will have less students using their services for long-term needs.
Wolverine Support Network
Wolverine Support Network (WSN) is one of the largest peer groups offered through CAPS. Lexi Posey, a senior at UM is in her fourth semester as a leader for WSN. Posey meets with a group of students weekly to discuss how each of them are doing. She admits that what the group discusses is mostly surface level, as this is not an alternative for professional help. Though the conversation may not be deep, each leader undergoes training from CAPS staff on how to run weekly meetings with students. Posey noted that leaders must attend meetings with guest speakers or CAPS representatives to learn about how to address important issues like LGBTQ, race, pronouns, and more if they do arise in a small group meeting.
“While we are still able to run during COVID, the intimacy that WSN creates has been completely lost over Zoom.”
Posey believes that while WSN does not provide professional help it allows students to find a group of people that they can form deep relationships with, which is beneficial to one’s mental health. Over Zoom these formal relationships that are formed through weekly meetings cannot happen, which has hindered the effectiveness of the group.
Additional Resources
In addition to CAPS, U of M also contains a database of resources to help students, providing links for virtual stress relievers at wellbeing.studentlife.umich.edu. The school has implemented well-being events on campus for students to mediate, do yoga, hang out with dogs, etc. which has been moved online this year. Another service, U of M’s University Health Services (UHS), implements screenings for depression, ADHD, and alcohol/drug abuse. UHS then refers students to other resources like CAPS, UHS Psychiatry clinic, wellness coaching, or the collegiate recovery program if they prove to be struggling.
New world of Telehealth
Worldwide, in-person clinics have been shut down and nearly everything has moved virtual. To no surprise, resources like CAPS have also moved virtual. CAPS even recommends external telemedicine like Talkspace. Talkspace is an online therapy company that is completely virtual—hoping to be more convenient and less costly, making therapy more attainable for everyone. This new way of conducting medicine is supposed to be more accessible; however after speaking with University of Michigan Social Work Professor Ethan Park, we understand this is not always the case.
“The word accessible is controversial. [Telehealth] is accessible for those with resources… This is based on the assumption that everyone has access to stable WIFI, Smartphone, or Laptop.”
Park also mentions that there is not enough evidence to understand if virtual therapy/clinics are as effective as in-person services. It is most definitely more difficult to form a relationship with a professional. Additionally, it may be more difficult for individuals to find private space that they can have these conversations with. Overall, telehealth is not as beneficial as many originally thought it would be.
Student Experience
Out of the eighteen students who said they struggled with mental health issues during the pandemic in our survey, only six sought help through U of M, nine sought external help, and five did not seek help at all. Out of the six students who received help through U of M, none said that the services were “very helpful,” while about half and half said they were “somewhat helpful” or “not very helpful.” Most survey participants said it was somewhat difficult to seek advising through U of M. This data points to the lack of effectiveness in Michigan’s mental health services and their potential to create more difficulty for students already struggling.
Kurt, a sophomore at Michigan, sought help through U of M by joining a BIPOC SMTD wellness group in February. Last month, he also decided to receive counseling through CAPS. Kurt found the services to be overall pretty helpful, being “a great outlet to have and a nice resource.” He also expressed ease when seeking out CAPS for a counseling appointment.
“I just had to go to the website and it was pretty straightforward. I filled out a form and they got back to me within a week or so.”
With reluctance to compare Michigan to other schools and not wanting to speak for other students’ experiences, Kurt said his personal experience caused him to believe that University of Michigan had certainly attempted to provide increased support during the pandemic and that that support was “pretty decent.”
It seems that students have a wide range of opinions and experiences with U of M’s mental health services during the pandemic, meaning the services could be generally inconsistent depending on the time of the year and how many students are seeking help. Experiences may also vary due to the extremity and/or urgency of an individual’s mental health issue. While we attempted to discuss this discrepancy in experiences with a CAPS representative, we were redirected back to FAQ link. Yet, there is one thing that University of Michigan did that students agreed definitely did not work: wellness break days.
Wellbeing Breaks
During the fall semester, University of Michigan removed all vacation breaks for the 2020-2021 academic year to prevent travelling, causing an uproar and instituting two “wellness breaks” to be included in the Winter semester. These wellness breaks consisted of two days over the entire semester, Wednesday February 24th and Tuesday March 23rd, where class was to be cancelled. According to students quoted in The Michigan Daily, some professors assigned twice the amount of work so that students could take the wellness day to do homework. An overwhelming majority of students that participated in our survey said that the wellbeing breaks were not helpful at all. According to Lexi, the wellbeing breaks were useless. Like most students, these mid-week break days were used to catch up on work or continue for what was due for the week as most professors did not change workload. Most students felt that the two “wellbeing” days were a very dismal response to taking away an entire week of break. Kurt thought if the breaks were implemented differently, possibly with more days or attached to a weekend, it would have been much more beneficial to students’ wellbeing. He also found the wellbeing breaks put in place were not helpful.
“I don’t really think overall that they were helpful in terms of giving us a break, I think they just ended up being days that people used to catch up on stuff.”
While it is suspected the university did this in hopes of limiting students’ travels, for students, the whole thing felt more like an inconveniently timed excuse for the university to say they gave students a break, slapping on the title “wellbeing” to performatively make a statement that the administration cares about students’ mental health. Virtual classes are incredibly straining and the lack of breaks is leading to faster and more detrimental burnout for students’ motivation and mental health.
Discrepancy among professors
In addition to offering an increased amount of services for student’s mental health, the University made a number of academic changes to accomodate students. These changes included extended drop deadlines for class and changing grades to Pass or No Covid Record after receiving their final semester grades. Overwhelming, 75% of students that responded to our survey agreed that these changes were incredibly beneficial. A different problem, however, was individual professors. While some professors mentioned that colleges like LSA encouraged them to be more accommodating to students, there was no rule of what these accommodations should look like. From the students that were surveyed, we found that Professors have been more accommodating on smaller assignments, however not on larger assignments that carry more weight on a student’s grade. In our personal experience, STEM professors have not changed their policies at all: late assignments will not be graded and no excuse allows for one to submit work late, period. Lexi mentioned, “my workload this semester has not changed—however many of my professors have been more understanding on deadlines.” All of this is to say, students who have found their teachers to be more lenient with work may have gotten lucky while other students may not have reaped those benefits.
Comparing Michigan
Evident in Kurt’s experience in which he benefited from U of M’s mental health services, University of Michigan has made efforts to address and support increased mental health issues among students, helping them to deal with the increased stress and isolation in a pandemic. However, expert Park told us a lot of universities in Europe tend to have a “co-production” approach where they involve students, themselves, in the decision making process for mental health services, like who gets helped and what services are offered. At U of M, CAPS has a Student Advisory Board (SAB) which allows a panel of students to voice ideas directly to CAPS leaders. SAB allows this panel of students to speak for the student body – hopefully addressing matters that represent the problems students face with CAPS. There is not, however, any additional ways for students to voice their concerns/ideas to CAPS.
Competitive Culture
While the University of Michigan has begun to increase the services it offers its students for supporting their mental health, one thing has not been addressed: the environment of the university. UM has been known for its “work hard, play hard” mentality for decades. Yet, this is oftentimes too stressful for students to keep up with. In addition, the academics are rigorous and competitive. The University does not create consistent rules for professors to follow for grading or work policies, which can lead to very strict class rules that do not account for any personal life—wellbeing, illness, or just having a bad day. The combination of brutal course loads and the pressure to have a social life does not promote positive student mental health. To really succeed in having a University that prioritizes mental health and positive student experience, the University needs to begin working on preventative measures, and not just educating students about mental health. There needs to be structural change that ensures a more positive college experience, balancing class with social activities. Changing Michigan’s competitive culture would help set students up for success and feel comfortable asking for help, even when unexpected events occur.
Michigan has greatly improved services offered to students in support of their mental health. While there may be some discrepancy in the effectiveness and ease of these services, students agree the University is making strong attempts to offer aid. Yet, there is still work to be done as students’ mental health concerns have increased drastically over the last year. University of Michigan officials need to closely examine the causes of this increase and address them to benefit the students for years to come, or unfortunately students’ health will continue to pay the price.
Featured Image: Doctor logging onto virtual therapy. Photo Credit: National Cancer Institute @nci on Unsplash