Student privacy under scrutiny

<b>Shooting sparks national debate</b>

By: Eric Johnson, Senior Writer
Posted: 5/24/07

Congress is wading into the turbulent debate about campus safety in the aftermath of last month&#39;s shootings at Virginia Tech and is considering possible changes to federal laws governing student privacy.

A bill to loosen disclosure restrictions for campuses dealing with at-risk students is already attracting attention in the House, and similar measures are being drafted in the Senate.

Meanwhile, the UNC-system will consider during the next few months whether to back any move to alter long-standing federal policy about the disclosure of student health records.

"In Washington, there&#39;s a lot of attention on this issue," said Kimrey Rhinehardt, UNC-system vice president for federal relations. "I think that certainly now, more than ever, the university is going to be a part of that discussion."

The April 16 shooting of 32 students at Virginia Tech by a classmate with a documented history of mental instability has prompted colleges across the country to reevaluate their security procedures.

It has also drawn national attention to the vague guidelines that govern when and how campuses can respond to threatening or self-destructive behavior by a student.

Federal law prohibits universities from contacting a student&#39;s parents unless the student presents an imminent danger to himself or others, a standard that is open to wide interpretation. In recent years, campuses have been sued for taking preemptive measures against troubled students in some instances and for failing to take preemptive action in others.

As a result, most campus administrators have welcomed the opportunity to review the existing statutes.

"I think there&#39;s enough confusion now that most institutions would tell you that it could hardly get any worse," said Becky Timmons, assistant vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education.

"Institutions may assume that scrutinizing this legislation would lend some greater clarity to the issue," she said. "There are some very legitimate reasons for the laws we have the on books, but they do create grey areas for campuses."

The UNC-system has created a task force that will explore those grey areas, along with a whole host of other safety issues. The group will represent a variety of constituencies, from chancellors and legal counsel to students and staff members.

Only after the task force has weighed in with recommendations - scheduled for sometime in September - will the system consider lobbying for any changes to federal law.

"Because the issues of privacy and disclosure are so delicate, it&#39;s going to take a lot of people thinking about this to come with the right balance," Rhinehardt said.

In announcing the safety task force earlier this month, university officials stressed the need to avoid any hasty reactions.

Noting that UNC campuses are statistically far safer than North Carolina as a whole, System President Erskine Bowles said the task force would proceed cautiously with any recommendations.

"We have to really make sure we think through these issues and don&#39;t just react," Bowles said. "We have to do things that make good common sense."

It is unclear whether the task force will finish its work in time for UNC to weigh in effectively at the federal level. It will depend on how quickly Congress moves to revisit the privacy and disclosure issues.

The state of Virginia has formed its own high-profile commission to study the shooting at Virginia Tech, and Timmons said that might prompt federal lawmakers to take a more deliberative approach.

"I think there is a little bit of a sense of proceeding slowly out of a sense of respect for the Virginia Tech situation," she said.

--

Original Source: <a href=http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2007/05/24/StateNational/Student.Privacy.Under.Scrutiny-2907006.shtml>The Daily Tar Heel - May 24, 2007</a>

Sara Hood

2007-07-16

Sara Hood

Kevin Schwartz <kschwartz@unc.edu>

eng

Health service lacking funds, staff

By Elise Ma
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Since last week&#39;s shootings at Virginia Tech, officials at UCLA&#39;s Student Psychological Services have received many more calls than usual from people reporting concerns about other students.

While SPS has set up specific services to address the incident, it is also working to expand its general services in response to research suggesting college students require more mental health assistance than is currently offered.

And though SPS offers various services both in person and online, funding remains problematic, and some students said they are unsatisfied with both the quality of the staff and the availability of appointments.

"Short-staffed, we try to do what we can and are usually pretty successful in addressing the needs of most students who come in, but it would be easier for the staff here to manage if there were more of us," said Elizabeth Gong-Guy, SPS clinical director.

Christina, a first-year English student who asked to be identified by her middle name, said she was dissatisfied with her visit to SPS, specifically noting concerns about the conduct of the psychologist she met with.

She said at her appointment she was surprised to be met by a graduate student trainee, who immediately asked, "Do you mind if I record this? I want to study this later."

"It really turned me off because it seemed very unprofessional to me," Christina said. "I didn&#39;t want someone who is just 5 years older than me to use my therapy session for practice."

The environment made her feel uncomfortable, so she did not return to SPS. Instead, she decided to return to the therapist she went to at home, she said.

Gong-Guy said some students prefer one-on-one counseling with graduate student trainees, who are supervised by the professional clinicians on the SPS staff, and that students have the option of requesting a different counselor.

"A lot of psychotherapy is about the match between the clinician and client, and sometimes it takes one or two tries to get a good fit," she said.

Another concern some students had with SPS is the amount of time they had to wait to get an appointment.

Tiger Curran, a second-year communications studies student, said she tried to make an appointment during her freshmen year when she was feeling depressed and homesick, but could not get an appointment for three weeks.

"Those things should be taken care of within a reasonable amount of time," she said. "What if I was really suicidal or something? &#39;Come back in two weeks.&#39; Are you kidding me?"

Curran said by the time the appointment came around, she was asked to reschedule since SPS could not offer her the original time, though by then she was no longer in her "winter slump."

In an effort to make mental health assistance more available to students, SPS has in recent years introduced new services, including walk-in counseling, Gong-Guy said.

Since SPS began offering walk-in appointments, the number of students seeking counseling has jumped 30 percent, she added.

SPS also offers group counseling, couples counseling, stress clinics, Web resources, online brochures and urgent counseling services including walk-ins and crisis counselors available 24 hours a day via telephone.

And after the shootings at Virginia Tech, additional resources have been made available on the SPS Web site, including an online screening to check for symptoms of distress, suggestions for dealing with distress, and a discussion group to be held next week.

"An event like this, because it is so tragic and has national, local and personal implications, raises people&#39;s levels of vulnerability. It is important to reach out, and we&#39;re hoping people would come for that," Gong-Guy said.

Last quarter, the Undergraduate Students Association Council organized its first Mental Health Awareness Week.

One purpose of the week was to remove the stigma from psychological issues, said USAC General Representative Joline Price.

"The more students who feel comfortable getting help and knowing they are not alone, the better our campus is as a whole," Price said.

She added that she believes extending SPS&#39;s hours could help encourage students to use the services.

The University of California has begun diverting more resources toward its campuses&#39; counseling services.

In a 2006 student mental health report, the UC Board of Regents said counseling services on its campuses are understaffed and underfunded, even as campuses are seeing an increasing number of students with severe mental health issues.

In March 2007, the Board of Regents voted to set aside 43 percent of its revenue from a 7-percent increase of registration fees, accumulating $4.6 million to fund UC mental health services for the 2007-2008 fiscal year.

UCLA SPS plans to use the additional funding to increase its staff.

"With more clinicians, we could do more of what we need to do. We could reduce the amount of time in between appointments, offer more groups, more services," Gong-Guy said.

--

Original Source: <a href=http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2007/apr/24/health_service_lacking_funds_staff/>The Daily Bruin - April 24, 2007</a>

Elise Ma

The Daily Bruin

2007-07-15

Sara Hood

Saba Riazati <editor@media.ucla.edu>

eng

Forum looks at current issues

<b>Media&#39;s responses to Virginia Tech shootings spur discussion about ethnicity, mental health, violence</b>

By Eli Rosenberg
Tuesday, May 1, 2007

The issues of ethnicity, mental health, and violence in American society were some of the key topics addressed yesterday at a forum organized in response to the shootings at Virginia Tech.

The talk, titled "Media, Ethnicity and Public Response," was sponsored by both Student Psychological Services and the Dashew International Center, and was moderated by Elizabeth Gong-Guy and Bob Erickson, the directors of each organization, respectively.

"International students and scholars have great concern about issues of violence in American society, and this event gives them opportunity to participate in the discussion of this issue at UCLA," Erickson said.

He said Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus on April 16 before taking his own life, was originally reported erroneously to be an international student.

A few people expressed surprise that the issue of Cho&#39;s Korean ethnicity was such a focal point of debates that took place after the issue.

Gong-Guy described how she was brought to tears after listening to the apology of Cho&#39;s sister on the radio.

"(It was) the idea that she was apologizing not for herself or her brother, but for all Koreans and Asians on the whole," Gong-Guy said.

The discussion, which covered questions of violence, mental health and racial relations in American culture, highlighted some of the issues brought up in the media after the shootings.

Most of the seven participants seemed critical of the media&#39;s handling of the shootings, particularly in the early stages of the crisis.

"Media seeks to take the most sensationalized portrayal of issues in this era of 24-hour news," Erickson said.

The talk also touched on the changes and debates that UCLA has experienced in the aftermath of the attack.

"One of my first reactions is that it could have happened here," Erickson said.

The issue of mental health particularly was presented as a problem that affects college campuses nationwide.

"When something of this nature happens, it creates a ripple effect across the whole nation," Gong-Guy said.

Gong-Guy also spoke about the importance of simple mental health techniques for the prevention of such events.

"A lot of our efforts are focused on prevention - training students to use stress training techniques so resilience is higher, getting people to sleep better," Gong-Guy said.

Erickson spoke about how the university has tried to come up with a mass communication system to alert students, workers and faculty in the event of such a disaster.

Erickson also said universities have a responsibility to shift focus from students&#39; individual accomplishments to social and community involvement.

"Maybe we need to look more at community involvement (in admissions)," he said, adding that UCLA&#39;s new holistic admissions process was a step in that direction.

The talk, attended by a handful of people, lasted for about an hour. No undergraduate students were in attendance. While the numbers fell short of the organizer&#39;s expectations, a few people saw this lack of attendees as a positive sign.

"I&#39;m really happy that there&#39;s not that many people here" because high attendance would have been a sign of grief and anxiety in the student body, said local resident Hsuan-Shiang Wu.

--

Original Source: <a href=http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2007/may/01/forum_current_issues/>The Daily Bruin - May 1, 2007</a>

Eli Rosenberg

2007-07-15

Sara Hood

Saba Riazati <editor@media.ucla.edu>

eng

Big Red Flag

By Claire Readhead
Apr 30 2007

The paradox of mental health services, generally, hovers around the issue of consent. Most mental health services require voluntary participation from the patient, except in extreme cases. Thus, the question becomes, how can someone suffering from mental illness possess the wherewithal to seek help? Even those who are not clinically ill, but just unstable, may feel that the stigma attached to mental health services is a huge repellent. In light of the Virginia Tech Massacre, all educational institutions should begin to reconsider old notions surrounding mental health and seek to make services more accessible to students.

Issues of mental health are sorely misunderstood in this country, and not all medications and treatments are covered under insurance — emphasizing the cultural and political neglect of these matters. The fact that Cho Seung-Hui could fall through the cracks of a well-structured institution, such as a university, should be a Big Red Flag to all academic administrators to seriously address issues surrounding counseling services. The reality is that most students suffering from mental health related problems will not turn into Cho; however, they may fall through the cracks without such a "bang," if you will.

Counseling services at universities should not be reserved for the deeply troubled, but should be open and generally administered like the flu shot. Clearly, just as with the flu shot, counseling must be voluntary on the part of the students. Students should feel free to visit a counselor without fear of censure from peers. Hmmm ... this isn&#39;t so easy.

In terms of Gannett specifically, the first item of business should be that of privacy. For instance, I went in for a routine physical, and as I was walking away from the counter, the lady yelled out, "Oh by the way do you want to be tested for HIV today?!?!?!?" Wow, now that everyone in the lobby is staring at me, I really feel comfortable answering that question. I meekly replied, "Not today, thanks."

I did go back to get tested by the way, because I am vigilant about taking care of my health, and the HIV form was bright orange with "HIV testing" written in huge black letters. Cool, then for a normal exam there is a paper with a giant diagram of a vagina ... excellent. So clearly I just had to run into some guy I was vaguely interested in, clutching my vagina diagram and bright orange HIV testing form to my chest. Yeah, as if that&#39;s not obvious. Then to get the results, you have to go back to Gannett and have a long chat about sex with a nurse, or better yet, a peer-advisor — who you can run into at the bars (not a bright idea, Gannett). Dude, testing is the reality of any sexually active adult, and in my opinion, the less fuss made of it, the better.

In addition, Gannett ought to work on ensuring the privacy of its patients and should recognize that this issue is exceedingly important given that universities function socially like small towns, i.e. everyone is in everyone&#39;s business. Perhaps, for instance, you shouldn&#39;t have to give your name at the counter, but rather just the time of the appointment and the doctor&#39;s name. That&#39;s an itty-bitty step I know, but it would help. Also, don&#39;t play obnoxious rock music in the lobby — the students are either sick or feeling emotionally shitty. They need something soothing (damn it, I need something soothing). Okay, I&#39;m getting distracted by details ... soon I&#39;ll be asking for lattes to be served with my therapy session. Hey, not a bad idea.

Okay, and then we have Counseling and Psychological Services ... ohhhh CAPS — this is located in the basement of Gannett. The actual counselors and doctors are generally good. I just find that the process is bad. Even at CAPS — and yes, I see a shrink and I&#39;m proud of it! — there is absolutely NO privacy in the waiting area. The receptionist asks for your name really loudly over horribly peppy music. But to assuage feelings of inadequacy and depression, they have lots of lollypops, hot chocolate and inspirational posters!

Plus, CAPS is omnipresent. For instance, when I had pneumonia last winter, someone at CAPS found out, which led to an anonymous member of the clinic repeatedly calling me and asking, in a chirpy voice, "Do you plan on killing yourself today?" Yeah, that wasn&#39;t helping — an anonymous person calling to check to see if I had offed myself was not particularly comforting ... but enough about me.

Really, university administrators (or whoever is in charge of this sort of thing) have got to do something to minimize the stigma associated with counseling in order to encourage students to seek help ... even if it is just to talk about the pressures of beer pong. Seriously, seeing a shrink is chic. I can talk about seeing a shrink openly because I&#39;m from L.A. and it is considered weird not to go to therapy. My mom had a brilliant idea — a personal trainer/shrink.

But I shouldn&#39;t trivialize this matter, because the lack of empathy and support surrounding mental health is an extremely serious problem. Unfortunately, mental health issues are not well understood, even by professionals, and treatment is still in the embryonic stages. But seeing as universities may not be able to a) stop the NRA b) install metal detectors in every classroom or c) change mental health care globally, they may as well start by reanalyzing their own facilities. Also, professors should be informed as to how to spot unhealthy behaviors and how to successfully refer students to counseling services, as students often look to faculty for help before consulting a trained therapist. Granted, the Virginia Tech Massacre is an anomaly, but there are plenty of students who suffer from mental illness. They will not go to the extremes that Cho did, but may end up harming themselves in some way. Universities should step up and address issues surrounding mental health and lead the way for acceptance, understanding and treatment.

<i>Claire Readhead is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at clr39@cornell.edu. Silk Blue Stockings appears alternate Mondays.</i>

--

Original Source: <a href=http://cornellsun.com/node/23257> Cornell Daily Sun - April 30, 2007</a>

Claire Readhead

Cornell Daily Sun

2007-07-10

Sara Hood

Jonny Lieberman <jdl46@cornell.edu>, <lieberman.jonny@gmail.com>

eng

Student Mental Health Problems Rise at C.U.

By Gallagher Hannan
Sun Staff Writer
May 3 2007

The tragedy at Virginia Tech has put the entire college community on edge. Although it is clear that this incident was isolated, it has raised important questions about the prevalence of high stress and depression on college campuses.

In an interview with Cornell&#39;s President David Skorton last week on mental health, he addressed the importance of these issues.

"I am very, very concerned about depression, pressure on campus, suicide, homicide, violence; it&#39;s an enormous issue," he said.Ample Advice: Pamphlets line the walls of Gannett Health Clinic offering advice to students on a number of topics.Ample Advice: Pamphlets line the walls of Gannett Health Clinic offering advice to students on a number of topics.

According to a recent study completed by Kansas State University, mental health issues like those described by Skorton are becoming increasingly prevalent on college campuses. The study indicated that since 1994, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of students seeking help for depression and suicidal thoughts. Greg Eells, director of Cornell Counseling and Psychological services, said that these trends are apparent Cornell as well.

"We&#39;ve seen a doubling of people coming in for counseling over the last ten years," he said, "but we&#39;ve doubled our staff size as well, so we&#39;ve tried to keep up."

The question then, is whether mental health issues are actually increasing, or if students are just more willing to seek psychological help.

"It&#39;s hard to know whether the increase in demand is about increased stress, or is about increased knowledge in campus [about mental health services] and [their] de-stigmatization," said Matt Boone, interim assistant director of CAPS.

"While there have been claims that mental health problems among college students are on the rise, the data is not consistent," said Tim Marchell, director of Mental Health Initiatives and the Council for Mental Health and Welfare, "[But] we do know from surveys that there are many students who experience significant levels of stress for which they don&#39;t receive help."

So what can universities like Cornell do to help combat these problems? Aside from increasing the staff size of CAPS, Cornell has been trying to implement other ways in which students can have access to counseling and support if they need it.

"I think Gannett is at the forefront of these issues," said Boone. "[We have] eight staff members devoted to outreach and nine &#39;Let&#39;s Talk&#39; sites where you can walk in without paying a fee. Those staff members conduct those walk-in hours as a way to engage people who wouldn&#39;t usually come into counseling," he said.

Gannett has also been working to make faculty members and students more aware of what the warning signs of mental health problems may be.

"We are educating faculty and staff and students how to recognize issues...[and] helping them understand what are the indicators that might suggest that a student is having a problem. We [also] provide online mental health self-assessments on our website," Marchell said.

There are also lots of places that Cornell students can find support on campus outside of CAPS, if they need it. Empathy and Referral Services, a peer-counseling group, is another resource for students if they want to talk but feel that they do not require a therapist.

"Not all issues are therapy issues," said Alice Green, director of the EARS program. "If you have a breakup with a significant other, it&#39;s a normal life passage, it may not require therapy but it may require some support and reflection...I really hope that people who come to EARS will see that some issues that don&#39;t require therapy can really benefit from just talking with someone."

There&#39;s a lot of talk about Cornell being an especially stressful university. While it is clear that workloads can get heavy, there may be other reasons why Cornell students feel so much pressure.

"If you look at national college health assessment surveys, Cornell tracks right a long with other schools. However, I think if you look at people&#39;s perceptions, there is a cultural component of Cornell that [says] you&#39;re supposed to be stressed here...There are things about Cornell&#39;s structure, it&#39;s size, being a teaching institution that add to that perception of stress," said Eells.

"There&#39;s a long standing tradition of talking about how stressful it is here," said Marchell. "[In some cases] talking about how stressful it is may even add to the stress."

It is because of these problems, many mental health professionals agree, that it is important to relax at places like Cornell.

"[It&#39;s important] to just notice that we have a this culture of pressure and be brave enough to say &#39;I&#39;m going to try to relax and I&#39;m going to try to bring that to whoever I encounter&#39;," said Green, "You can be clear and intelligent and successful and not carry that atmosphere of driven-ness."

Nevertheless, the University is trying to ensure that there are always counseling alternatives if necessary.

"For those who are experiencing stress that is interfering with their ability to function it can be important to seek help from professionals or peers," said Marchell. "And similarly I would say for those of us who may be aware of someone else who&#39;s undergoing significant stress its important that we reach out to those individuals...All of us need to play a role in making Cornell an even more caring community."Student Mental Health Problems Rise at C.U.

<b>Comments</b>


The Most Likely Reason for Seung-hui Cho&#39;s Problems

Lies with the age of his father at his conception, between 38 and 39. I would guess that the resilence of today&#39;s college students to stress and depression is diminished in some of the population whose father&#39;s, following the trend during the last 20 years, were older at their conception, over the age of 32. There is a great ignorance in this country of the science of the past 50 years concerning the effects of the male biological clock called the paternal age effect. The increase in today&#39;s children of the incidence of non-familial autism and schizophrenia is a demonstration of that effect. The Male Biological Clock: Advancing Paternal Age = Genetic Disorders.

The most obvious major cause of the increase in depression, lack of resilence to stress, and at the extreme end, autism and schizophrenia, in young people are mutations to the genes that control myelin development.

A note, from a expert in the field to myelin research, Dr. George Bartzokis to me contained this explanation:

"The issue is that the older man will have sperm that has undergone more divisions and therefore had more chances to have mutations.
The COMPLEXITY of the myelination process makes it more vulnerable to mutations. I am not talking of one specific mutation. Many things could MANIFEST in the myelination or myelin breakdown process because it is so vulnerable - something going slightly wrong will impact it while it will not impact bone growth or the heart. A good example is ApoE4 - whatever else it may affect, it manifests in the reduced capacity of myelin repair and earlier onset of AD."

Knowledge of, and acceptance of, the science of the male biological clock must be forthcoming.

At all levels of education, students and teachers must study and integrate the paternal age effect findings and the knowledge of what ages it is advisable to father children learned. There is also the option of cryobanking sperm in ones mid 20s to 30 for fathering babies past the age of 32. If men are older than 32, and do not have a client depositor sperm bank account, there might be the possiblilty of adoption or use of healthy sperm from a donor aged 25-30.

For more information about the paternal age effect please spend a great deal of time reading and absorbing the scientific abstracts that I have collected:

http://ageofthefatherandhealthoffuture.blogspot.com/

http://how-old-is-too-old.blogspot.com/

http://fathersageandsinglegenedisorders.blogspot.com/

--

Original Source: <a href=http://cornellsun.com/node/23362>Cornell Daily Sun - May 3, 2007</a>

Gallagher Hannan

2007-07-10

Sara Hood

Jonny Lieberman <jdl46@cornell.edu>, <lieberman.jonny@gmail.com>

eng

Looking Forward

By David J. Skorton
May 2 2007


I had intended this final column of the academic year to be one mainly of gratitude to my colleagues at The Cornell Daily Sun and to readers of the newspaper for permitting me this space and for the tremendously helpful feedback I received as a result of these "From David" columns. I look forward to another year of useful interchange through this column and in many other fora in 2007-08.

I believe we have made progress as a campus this year in confronting important issues, ranging from violence, to mental health, to what it means to be part of an inclusive campus community. Although we have not resolved some issues of importance to this campus, I believe we have learned a great deal together about how to have the sorts of conversations we need to have in order to create change. I am especially heartened by the progress we have made on diversity issues, and I look forward to continuing our progress with the support, leadership and encouragement of the University Diversity Council and through the self-governance processes underway to foster greater community involvement.

As Cornellians, all of us can take pride in the achievements of our colleagues and friends this year. Some have won major national and international awards and many more have demonstrated a great willingness to share their skills and talents with the campus and the world — in the classroom, laboratory and studio; on the playing field; through public service; and through music, dance, theater and art. Eli Northrup &#39;07 and Joshua Raff &#39;07 have even come up with a rap to update the Alma Mater, which I heard performed last week by Pants Velour. Whether you are moving on to the next stage of your life or continuing on at Cornell, you have helped make this a vibrant and engaged community, and I congratulate you and thank you for your efforts.

Unfortunately, the end of the academic year has brought with it the incomprehensible, horrific tragedy at Virginia Tech University. In the best Cornell tradition, we have shared the sadness of the moment, extended our sympathy to our colleagues at Virginia Tech, their friends and families and also taken action to improve our systems for dealing with emergency situations that may arise on our own campus.

At least two areas require our continuing attention:

• the mental health and wellbeing of students, faculty and staff.

• the state of campus security and communications and the regulation of firearms and other weapons in the context of our campus communities.

In earlier columns I have touched on the issues of stress and mental health, as well as on violence on campus. In the sphere of mental health services, a balance must be achieved between the rights of privacy of the individual and the more general public interest. As mentioned in my earlier column, at Cornell we are experimenting with a range of approaches for reaching students, including serious efforts to locate counseling and mental health services where students live and gather and to establish effective "early warning systems" that permit us to identify colleagues in distress and to intervene as appropriate. Last week&#39;s op-ed in the Cornell Chronicle by Gregory T. Eels, associate director of Gannett Health Services and director of counseling and psychological services, described what Cornell is doing in this area and also what counseling can and cannot do.

Campus security also requires a delicate balance — one that enhances the safety of our campuses without destroying the openness of either our built environment or the intellectual environment, both of which make the university experience what it is. While we cannot shrink from doing what we can to enhance the safety of our campuses, we also cannot and should not turn the learning environment into a high-security, gated community, where fear trumps openness and threatens the grand experiments that universities offer in what historian Carl Becker called "freedom with responsibility."

For the past several years, long before the Virginia Tech tragedy, those responsible for safety and security at Cornell have been working to optimize emergency procedures and communications through an institution-wide approach. We already have in place a variety of methods for mass notification in the event of an emergency, ranging from telephone trees to message-blaster e-mails, and we are examining additional ways of reaching large numbers of people during the middle of the day through text-messaging, enunciation panels in individual buildings and expanded alarms. In the weeks to come, we will share with the campus the results of accelerated deliberations on these safety and communications issues.

The subject of firearm regulation is, of course, extraordinarily controversial throughout our country. New York State law prohibits anyone from possessing a rifle, shotgun or firearm (or pellet guns, spring guns and certain other weapons) on a school, college or university campus, without written authorization from the institution. The Cornell Police takes that law very seriously and is committed to its enforcement.

Nonetheless, the more general issue of the easy availability of lethal force is one that must be faced squarely in order to reduce the likelihood of other gun-related tragedies, whether on a college campus or in another venue where people feel relatively safe, such as a shopping mall or sporting event. And the interaction between the regulations regarding mental health record privacy and the background check process for weapon purchase requires constant attention.

Whether this marks the conclusion of your time at Cornell or a brief hiatus, I leave you with three messages. First, let&#39;s remember this year for its achievements, but also with new empathy for those who are struggling with the challenges of alienation and loss. Second, please make your own views on gun regulation known to our elected leaders in order to encourage the discussion we, as a nation, need to have in the wake of the most difficult circumstances in Blacksburg, Virginia. Please report acts of violence to those in a position to help, and also express your thoughts about mental health and campus security to me and to others on campus who help shape our policies and procedures. Third, thank you for making my first year at Cornell so enormously rewarding and productive.

--

Original Source: <a href=http://cornellsun.com/node/23320> Cornell Daily Sun - May 2, 2007</a>

David J. Skorton

2007-07-10

Sara Hood

Jonny Lieberman <jdl46@cornell.edu>, <lieberman.jonny@gmail.com>

eng

Mental hygiene weighs tough options

Published: Friday, April 27, 2007

Maggie Reid
Staff Reporter

In her sophomore year at Yale, Naasiha Siddiqui &#39;07 found herself facing more problems than just the sophomore slump. Siddiqui was severely depressed, and when she checked into the Mental Hygiene Department at University Health Services, she was forced to leave school on medical withdrawal. Ever since, she has struggled to balance manic depression with a college career — taking three forced withdrawals and one voluntary leave of absence, and applying for readmission five times.

"I was really frustrated," she said, referring to her first forced withdrawal in the fall of 2001. "Their attitude was, &#39;She&#39;s unstable, we don&#39;t want her at school right now.&#39; In one respect, it seemed like discrimination because I was doing all I could to try to stay in school. But on the other hand, the administration should have some say over when students aren&#39;t fit to go to school."

Mental illness has long been a hot-button issue on college campuses, but in the wake of this month&#39;s shootings at Virginia Tech, even greater scrutiny has been placed on university support systems for students with psychological illnesses. At Yale, the Mental Hygiene Department specializes in counseling and crisis intervention for suicide and depression cases. But in seeking to protect the psychological health of its students, Yale&#39;s mental health services must walk the fine line between enabling students to receive treatment while remaining in school and protecting the student&#39;s health and safety — or the health and safety of others — by sending seriously depressed students off campus.

For the most part, universities across the country find themselves in a sticky situation with regard to mentally ill students. Universities may be found liable if they fail to detect and respond to cases that result in suicide or murder. But privacy and anti-discrimination laws limit the amount of information about students&#39; mental health to which administrators have access, and the laws may prevent administrators from forcing students to take involuntary medical leaves.

In general, the laws forbid universities from disclosing information about a student&#39;s health records to parents or administrators, including residential college deans and masters, without the student&#39;s consent. The exception comes when health officials believe that the health and safety of the student or of others are at risk. But Yale administrators said the definition of such an emergency is often blurry.

Because of the subjectivity of such cases, the decision whether or not to force a student to withdraw is made on a case-by-case basis, YUHS Chief Psychiatrist Lorraine Siggins said.

"Most students who take a medical withdrawal ask for it themselves," Siggins said. "However, occasionally a student who had attempted suicide and is considered to be a danger to self and others is asked to take time away from school for treatment and to get their mental health issues stabilized."

According to University policy, if a student is forced to withdraw for mental health reasons, he or she may not reapply until two semesters have passed, including the one during which he or she left. With such serious consequences, administrators said, withdrawal cannot be forced simply based on strange behavior or a possible diagnosis of mental illness, Siggins said.

Yale officials said the forced withdrawal policy serves the best interests of vulnerable and potentially reckless students. When students are severely mentally unstable, Siggins said, they can lack the presence of mind to voluntarily seek the medical help and time away from campus that they need to resolve health issues.

But Siggins said students are expected, as dictated by University regulations, to return to school as soon as doctors confirm that they have recovered.

The YUHS Mental Hygiene Department seeks to address mental health problems before they reach the point of necessitating a forced withdrawal. It offers mental health and counseling services to all enrolled students throughout the year, Siggins said, and because mental health issues can be dangerous and pressing, the department makes a concerted effort to be easily accessible, providing an on-duty psychiatrist 24 hours a day.

"In the course of an academic year, we see between 16 percent and 20 percent of the student body," Siggins said. "For students who have continuing mental health problems, we can provide treatment throughout the year."

But although officials say Yale&#39;s mental health counseling program focuses on reaching students before they reach a crisis point, Yalies who have gone through counseling at the Mental Hygiene Department said that Yale could do a better job of removing barriers to getting help.

Susan* voluntarily entered the counseling program at YUHS during the first semester of her sophomore year. Although she told them she needed immediate attention for urgent anxiety and depression, she had to wait over a week before she was allowed to see a therapist, instead meeting first with a clinical social worker.

"Unless you are suicidal, they make it very difficult to see someone," Susan said. "This is particularly scary when it comes to mental hygiene problems."

Susan said the narrow-minded focus on suicide detection to the exclusion of other problems deterred her from using campus psychiatrists and led her to consult a therapist in a different state whom she can only visit once a month.

But she added that though it can be difficult to get an initial appointment, once a student has made an first visit to the YUHS clinic, it becomes easy to get further appointments with a therapist.

Siddiqui said the prospect of being forced to withdraw can also prevent students from going to seek help.

"Mental hygiene can be very alienating," Siddiqui said. "Since I had my experience, a lot of my friends have been afraid to go to mental hygiene because they don&#39;t want to get kicked out of school. It&#39;s not a very welcoming place."

Some students said the mental health department is too quick to act in cases of suspected depression. One student who had been referred to a YUHS psychiatrist said that fear of liability in the event of a suicide or murder makes Yale administrators move too swiftly to hospitalize or force the withdrawal of a student.

During a psychiatry session, Ryan,* a junior at Yale who has withdrawn because of his bipolar disorder, said the therapist kept asking him if he ever had suicidal thoughts, and specifically if he was drawn to sharp objects or tempted to hurt himself. Ryan said that though he ultimately was given a choice whether to withdraw, officials pressured him to do so.

While the attention to suicide might be helpful in preventing crisis situations, Ryan said, the manner in which it was addressed was unhelpful.

"I might have been suicidal, but I wasn&#39;t looking to withdraw," Ryan said.

Ryan said that he has seen private psychiatrists who never mentioned hospitalization, but that college doctors are more ready to hospitalize their patients because of the fear of liability in the case of a suicide.

Outside the examining rooms of health services departments, universities often find it difficult to determine when psychiatric help is warranted, since it is difficult to know when a student&#39;s erratic behavior stems from mental illness rather than the vagaries of ordinary college life. Though Yale prides itself on providing many levels of supervision, from peers and professors to the residential college system, some students worry that this method of observation and personal counseling is not necessarily effective.

"I talked to my master and dean about my problems, but they didn&#39;t even notice anything was wrong before I brought it up," Susan said.

In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, deans and freshman counselors have discussed the protocols already in place to deal with students who may seem to have psychological problems.

Freshman counselors in Branford and Silliman said they discussed mental health risks at their weekly meetings with their deans last Monday. But their rules about watchfulness or guidance did not change in the aftermath of the shootings, counselors said.

"We talked about the incident, but we did not get any official instructions," freshman counselor Amy Broadbent &#39;07 said.

Although there is no specific protocol for the freshmen counselors to follow if they become aware of a possible mental health issue, they said they are trained to talk to students who come to them with problems and to take them to see professionals at YUHS. Counselors said they deal with mental health issues on a case-by-case basis, and have confronted problems ranging from severe depression to slight anxiety over classes or relationships.

"We have liaisons in the mental health department if we have any questions or to help us navigate the bureaucracy," said Howard Locker &#39;07, a freshman counselor in Silliman. "The dean did not specifically tell us to be more on the lookout [after Virginia Tech], it&#39;s something I think most counselors are innately attuned to do in the wake of such a tragedy."

Siggins said that although 90 percent of the students who come in for therapy do so on their own, the rest usually come to the clinic at the suggestion of their deans, coaches or friends. But she said there is no difference in the amount of attention paid to students based on how they were referred.

"We always take student peer concerns very seriously," Siggins said. "We treat each student on an individual basis."

*The names of some students have been changed to protect their medical information.

--

Original Source: <a href="http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20991"> Yale Daily News - April 27, 2007 </a>

Sara Hood

2007-06-11

Sara Hood

Editor-in-chief, Yale Daily News - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>

eng

The vanity of reason: making sense of the Virginia Tech tragedy

Gene Koo - Thursday, April 19th, 2007 @ 5:52 pm

Soon after an initial outpouring of shock and grief at the senseless murder of 32 members of the Virginia Tech community, we began seeking explanations for the tragedy. By all accounts Seung-Hui Cho, perpetrator and 33rd victim of this rampage, was a severely disturbed young man; the snippets of video released so far by NBC reveal profound paranoia. Inevitably our questions turn to what would lead him to commit such a heinous crime. We yearn for insight into his motives. Why did he do it? What was he thinking?

These questions are familiar to me. I have asked them myself about my own mother, who probably developed paranoid schizophrenia some 15 years ago. I write "probably" because, like water filling a tub, the disease crept over her, imperceptibly, until suddenly it spilled forth in a flood. And somewhere in that tub, the loving woman who had been my mother drowned.

I cannot know, but looking at the face in the video aired by NBC, I would guess that the real Seung-Hui Cho, someone capable of the kind of laughter and anger you and I would understand, perished long before he pulled the trigger on himself.

People of sound mind often assume that individuals with mental illness think like we do: therefore, they must be misinformed, wrong-headed, or just pretending. We are, essentially, in denial. We delude ourselves into believing that we can figure these people out, and in so doing, learn how to "fix" them. In the first few years of my mother&#39;s illness, I challenged her claims that the "Chinese mafia" were spying on and stealing from her. Using lawyer&#39;s logic, I repeatedly demonstrated why it made no sense for criminals to go to such great lengths to inflict such petty wounds upon her.

She would always win these fights, because madness is not susceptible to reason. What I lacked in communicating with her was not logic, but rather imagination.

--

"Did you want to inject as much misery in our lives as you can," asks Mr. Cho in one video segment, "just because you can?" My mother asks these sorts of questions, too. She believes that clerks at the local store overcharge her and divert the money to her oppressors. Pedestrians stare at and spy on her. (The first part, at least, is now true due to her disheveled clothing and behavior). Vandals break into her home and move her papers around to prevent her from working. The invisible device in my ear tells her I am aiding and abetting "them."

These ludicrous accusations infuriated me, but my logical counterattacks could not breach the walls around her mind. Exhausted, I learned to stop fighting her reality and to accept that she truly believes what she says. Only through imagination - a willing suspension of disbelief - could I see her world.

A few years ago my mother was driving her brother around town when she unexpectedly pulled over so that the three black town cars following them would drive past. There was no one behind them, my uncle reports. But I no longer doubt that she indeed saw, in her mind, enemy agents in hostile pursuit.

--

In responding to the tragic massacre Mr. Cho wrought, the public seeks criminal intent, a "motive." The media presume they can understand and explain him; the FBI believes the hateful package sent to NBC will shed insight into his motivations. I have given up that quest. The search is vanity, a misplaced faith in reason.

Our criminal justice system assumes we can peer into mens rea, the criminal mind, and presumably extract thoughts and motives. Mental illness and the "insanity plea" have never fit well into this system because crimes committed by the mentally ill defy reason - and reason, it turns out, underlies our concept of justice. Like Job&#39;s entourage, our pundits and lawyers see tragedy and deduce the presence of sin. For if there is justice on Earth, then evil must have a logical human cause.

But we cannot seek solace in reason when dealing with mental illness. My mother is as logical as you or I, maybe more so. Her stratagems for thwarting the spies and thieves and vandals who plague her life are subtle, cunning, and carefully executed. The only piece out of place is that you and I cannot see these tormenters. They are entirely in her own mind.

--

Insanity is not stupidity, incompetence, or folly. Neither should we confuse it with evil. An important factor distinguishes my mother from Mr. Cho: while she manifests her paranoia through fear, he chose mass murder.

Or is "choice" a concept that we cannot ascribe to Mr. Cho? Perhaps one day science will answer that question, reveal the origins of madness, and demonstrate which faulty wires put voices in my mother&#39;s head, or what lethal mix of hormones induced Mr. Cho to massacre. Science may yet strip the fa���§ade of free will from every one of us, revealing nothing but seething masses of neurons. And we would be farther than ever from finding the source of evil.

Lawyers have a formula for calculating guilt that accounts for mitigations like provocation or insanity. That formula may be readjusted now and then, but its ultimate function is to balance the equation of justice and ensure that criminal debts are paid. But we cannot so easily cancel the pain we all feel when a man guns down innocents, or when a mother neglects her family. It is more than the pain of our immediate loss. We suffer because we are separated from mortal understanding; we have peered over the edge of reason and seen the whirlwind beyond.

--

Original Source: <a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/anderkoo/2007/04/19/the-vanity-of-reason-making-sense-of-the-virginia-tech-tragedy/">Anderkoo - The vanity of reason</a>

Permissions: <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/">CreativeCommons-Attribution-Sharealike 2.5</a>

Gene Koo

2007-06-07

Sara Hood

CreativeCommons-Attribution-Sharealike 2.5

eng

Cho Seung-Hui: A Lone Deranged Gunman?

<p>Thursday, April 19. 2007</p>
<p>As all of America mourns the deaths which occurred on the Virginia Tech campus, bloggers are drawing comparisons to the body count that issues daily from Iraq. See a particularly poignant post from Floyd Rudmin of <b>commondreams.org</b> titled "32 Senseless Deaths: A Chance for Empathy, Change of Heart, and Change of Course" which concludes:</p>
<blockquote>The tragedy at Virginia Tech was caused by lone gunman, probably deranged. It was a one-time event. It is finished. The tragedy in Iraq was caused by the US government, with the over-whelming support of the US Congress, most of the US media, and much of the US population. This war was planned and executed by rational men and women, none of them deranged.</blockquote>
<blockquote>The US decided to start the war against Iraq.</blockquote>
<blockquote>The US decided to destroy the infrastructure of Iraq.</blockquote>
<blockquote>The US decided to destroy the Iraqi government and to disband its police and army.</blockquote>
<blockquote>The US decided to send too few soldiers to secure the nation after doing these destructive deeds.</blockquote>
<blockquote>And the tragedy of Iraq is not a one-time event. It is not finished. It continues, apparently without end.</blockquote>
<blockquote>By many reports, the US is now preparing to start another war, this time against Iran.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Americans feeling the shock and grief of the tragedy at Virginia Tech should look into their hearts and realize that they through their government are bringing this same tragedy again, and again, and again, and again, and again, endlessly and needlessly, to other people in the world who also have hearts that can be torn out, who also feel grief and loss when family and friends are suddenly killed when doing ordinary things of life, like going to school.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Tragic deaths force us to feel our humanity and to see we are similar to others in the world. The tragic deaths in Virginia might serve to motivate Americans to curb their militarism and to minimize the tragedies of sudden death that they have been bringing to other families in the world.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Read the <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/18/593/">full article</a>.</blockquote>
<p>It is heartening to witness a vigorous debate emerging online as people come to terms with these killings and their significance, not only for the victims and their families and friends, but for an entire culture. As Americans draw comparisons to Iraq, we who are not American are reminded that America is a house divided. I sometimes catch myself drawing hasty generalizations, styling all Americans as arrogant war-mongerers. But the comments I read online remind me that, in fact, those who share the president&#39;s world view stand in a minority. I must pause to recognize that most Americans grieve for the state of their country and fear for their safety abroad. As non-Americans, our generalizations merely implicate us in the sins we condemn.</p>
<p>Perhaps a more difficult task comes in moderating the generalizations we make as we consider Cho Seung-Hui who was the perpetrator of these killings. Every account I have read thus far refers to him as "deranged." Doubtless a person who commits mass murder is mentally ill. But the use of this particular epithet continues the media habit of drawing a causal connection between violence and mental illness. This is an oversimplification, much like the suggestion that American troops are in Iraq to stabilize a country that has no infrastructure of its own.</p>
<p>The media&#39;s continuing association of violence and mental illness perpetuates the stigma which haunts millions of people who suffer from major mental health issues. In fact, mental illness is <b>not</b> a significant indicator of violence. See this pdf document from the <a href="http://theoblog.ca/serendipity/archives/www.camh.net/education/Resources_communities_organizations/addressing_stigma_senatepres03.pdf">Centre for Addiction and Mental Health</a>. Indicators which are more significant include: youth, male gender, and history of violence or substance abuse. Let me make that a little clearer: if you are a male, that fact alone is a stronger predictor of violent behaviour than if you suffer from schizophrenia. A non-clinical list of indicators might also include such factors as availability of weapons and exposure to desensitizing materials (e.g. video games, movies, media that televise a killer&#39;s manifesto and cell phone video of shots being fired, etc). From the CAMH document comes this quote:</p>
<blockquote>"While it is true that some people who have a mental illness do commit crimes, public perceptions of mentally ill persons as criminally dangerous are exaggerated. In fact, 80 to 90 percent of people with mental illness never commit violent acts. <i>They are actually more likely to have acts of violence committed against them</i>, particularly homeless individuals who may also have a mental illness." (Italics added.)</blockquote>
<p>If the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of violent acts, then it is possible that Cho Seung-Hui only became a risk <i>after</i> he was, himself, victimized. Following the shootings at Columbine, it was revealed that the shooters, Harris & Klebold, were victims of significant bullying. The same is probably true in this instance. See here for a <a href="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070416/school_shootings_070415">profile of Cho</a>.</p>
<p>Let&#39;s not perpetrate a generalization about mental illness. Let&#39;s seize this moment as an opportunity to put an end to a cycle of violence by putting an end to our fears of mental illness. I would invite Floyd Rudmin and <b>commondreams.org</b> to revise their post. There were 33 senseless deaths. To state that there were 32 reveals a stigmatizing bias that we must reckon with. Otherwise, our generalizations merely implicate us in the sins we condemn.</p>
<p>Posted by <a href="http://theoblog.ca/serendipity/authors/1-David-Barker">David Barker</a> in <a href="http://theoblog.ca/serendipity/categories/8-HealthMental-Health">Health/Mental Health</a> at <a href="http://theoblog.ca/serendipity/archives/248-Cho-Seung-Hui-A-Lone-Deranged-Gunman.html">23:08</a></p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Original Source: <a href="http://theoblog.ca/serendipity/archives/248-Cho-Seung-Hui-A-Lone-Deranged-Gunman.html">http://theoblog.ca/serendipity/archives/248-Cho-Seung-Hui-A-Lone-Deranged-Gunman.html</a></p>
<p>Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5</a>.</p>

David Barker

2007-06-06

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5

eng

Mental Health is Everyone&#39;s Business

4-30-07

<b>Mental Health is Everyone&#39;s Business: Historical Reflections on the Virginia Tech Shootings

By Heather Munro Prescott</b>

<i>Ms. Prescott is Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University. Her book, Student Bodies: The Influence of Student Health Services on American Society and Medicine will be published by University of Michigan Press in Fall 2007.</i>

<i>A man&#39;s college days, collectively, are usually his happiest. Most of mine were not happy. </i>--Clifford Whittingham Beers, <i>A Mind That Found Itself </i>(1908)

Clifford Whittingham Beers&#39;s words came to mind as I followed the news coverage of Cho Seung-Hui&#39;s shooting rampage at Virginia Tech last week. I empathized with the victims and their families and for the community; it was a tragic and terrible loss of life. As the days wore on, I began to have another reaction to the events. Since I am a historian and a client of mental health services, the heated discussions about what to do with "deranged" students like Cho that appeared in various mainstream media seemed all too reminiscent of earlier incidents of discrimination against mentally ill individuals. One especially troubling article by crime novelist and psychologist <a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009977">Jonathan Kellerman in the Wall Street Journal</a>, placed the blame for the shootings on the anti-psychiatry and deinstitutionalization movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He argued for stricter laws for involuntarily committing students exhibiting disturbing thoughts or behavior, declaring it was better to "err on the side of public safety rather than protect individual liberty at all costs." This cavalier attitude, combined with the sensationalistic footage of the "madman" on NBC, seemed to me a step backward in a century-long battle to safeguard the civil rights and enhance the public&#39;s understanding of mentally ill individuals.

<i>A Mind That Found Itself</i> represented a landmark in this struggle. Likened to <i>Uncle Tom&#39;s Cabin</i> in its vivid description of the horrors of asylum life, the book launched a nationwide movement to reform institutions for the mentally ill. Beers, along with other Progressive Era reformers such as Jane Addams and Julia Lathrop, went on to form the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (NCMH). This organization aimed to take psychiatry beyond the asylum walls and use the discipline to address problems in homes, workplaces, schools, and other institutions. Like other public health organizations at this time, the NCMH aimed their preventive efforts at youth in schools and colleges, believing intervention was most effective during adolescence when the personality was most malleable.

Supporting the work of the NCMH were studies of psychiatric problems among soldiers during the Great War. According to Dr. Stewart Paton, a lecturer in neurobiology at Princeton University and a former member of the American Expeditionary Forces Medical Corps, "Peace no less than War produces &#39;shell shock.&#39; " By the late 1920s, Princeton and at least twenty other private and public colleges and universities had added mental hygiene to their health services on at least a part-time basis.

Establishing counseling services on the college level was not easy, however. Despite the efforts of Beers and the NCMH, mental illnesses, even minor ones, still carried an overwhelming social stigma. Indeed, it was during the 1920s that many states passed laws calling for the involuntary sterilization of "mental defectives." Another formidable obstacle was opposition from faculty members, who believed that mental hygiene services were simply coddling students who could not meet academic standards. Yet diligence by college mental health experts, as well as a high incidence of psychiatric problems in the military during the Second World War, provided additional justification for counseling programs for the nation&#39;s young people. The 1947 report issued by President Truman&#39;s Commission on Higher Education lent further support, arguing that these institutions should not only train the intellect, but also foster emotional growth and social adjustment. Dana Farnsworth, Director of Harvard University Health Services, argued in 1954 that mental health was not only the responsibility of health care professionals, but was everybody&#39;s business. This included students themselves, whom he believed should play a role in planning and organizing health services.

Farnsworth&#39;s call for a student-centered health service would have unintended consequences in the ensuing decade, as students demanded freedom from "institutionalized paternalism," which permitted campus health centers to release confidential patient information to other campus officials, parents, and prospective employers. At this time, homosexuality was still considered a mental illness, and grounds for dismissal from many colleges as well as exclusion from the U.S. military and civil service.

Some campus psychiatrists, including Farnsworth, blamed student uprisings on permissive parenting that caused a growing gap between intellectual and emotional maturity in late adolescence. Robert Coles, a research psychiatrist from the Harvard University Health Service, and Joseph Brenner, a physician from the M.I.T. health service, who served as medical staff for the Mississippi Summer Project in 1964, challenged this viewpoint. They found that the student volunteers were far from "immature" or "psychopathic." Rather, most student volunteers displayed extraordinary bravery in the face of constant danger, serving as exemplars for mental health professionals on how to advance human dignity and freedom. This activism by students and sympathetic professionals contributed to the passage of the Family Educational and Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to protect students&#39; rights to privacy.

The passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 provided further protections for mentally ill students. Earlier this year, Virginia became the first state in the nation to pass legislation prohibiting colleges and universities from expelling or punishing students "solely for attempting to commit suicide, or seeking mental-health treatment for suicidal thoughts or behaviors." Last week&#39;s tragedy has caused many to consider revoking this law. If accomplished, this measure would be a major setback in the history of mental health services on college campuses. Not only is it impossible to predict which emotionally disturbed students will commit violent acts, the threat of sanction would deter mentally ill students from seeking treatment. It also overlooks larger structural problems, including cutbacks to student counseling services, lack of insurance coverage, and most importantly, persistent cultural myths about mental illness that prevent troubled individuals from obtaining the help they need. The time has come to heed Beers&#39;s call, cease stigmatizing the mentally ill, and provide full access to the supportive mental health services that all Americans deserve.

<b>Related Links</b>

<a href="http://hnn.us/articles/37806.html">HNN Hot Topics: School Shootings</a>

--

Original source: History News Network
<a href="http://hnn.us/articles/38250.html">http://hnn.us/articles/38250.html</a>

Heather Munro Prescott

2007-06-06

Heather Munro Prescott

eng