Dartmouth to Spend $17 Million on Increased Mental Health Services
“part of an effort to “transform the residential life experience”
We see a story like this at different schools every once in a while. Are college students really this distressed?
The College Fix reports:
Dartmouth to spend $17 million on mental health services
Dartmouth College recently announced that it will spend almost $20 million to increase mental health services on campus, though the Ivy League school declined to specify just how that enormous sum will be allocated.
The initiative, part of the elite Hanover, New Hampshire school’s “The Call to Lead” capital campaign, is part of an effort to “transform the residential life experience,” according to campaign materials. The total amount slated to be spent on student mental health resources is $17 million. The overall campaign is expected to cost $3 billion and it includes a wide variety of strategic priorities.
School officials, however, declined to elaborate on how specifically the substantial investment in mental health services will be spent. Dean of the College Rebecca Biron did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The College Fix.
Reached via email, campus spokeswoman Diana Lawrence also declined to comment.
“Thank you for the opportunity, but we are going to decline to comment beyond what has been shared in our news release,” Lawrence told The Fix.
Lawrence did not respond to a subsequent request from The Fix for a copy of the news release to which she was referring. The school’s official online news release webpage does not mention the Call to Lead plan or the planned investment in mental health services. The strategic priorities webpage simply states that student mental health services will be given a $17 million allocation under the plan’s goal to “transform the residential life experience.”
Thus far the breakdown of new mental health spending has largely been vague. According to the student newspaper The Dartmouth, the increased funding of mental health services will cover three distinct areas: “improving timely accessibility to mental health services, providing ongoing support to help students and offering education and prevention programs for faculty, staff and students.
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Comments
I have an idea – give them hard but doable projects/jobs/assignments that do not focus on themselves. Let them learn that they are not snowflakes but that they can handle hard things, and 90% of their stress and mental health issues will go away.
When you make everything safe (translated as easy and without consequence) all the way to age 18 then you set up a high risk of existential crisis when confronted with sudden challenge. High school and college as a whole are dysfunctionally married at this point. They barely talk to one another and the methods have become highly disparate even within each body. Some variability is desirable to create a versatile workforce, but not under the same name IMO. It just creates confusion, resentment, anxiety/depression, and in some cases open hostility.
I suspect the vast amount of money will be spent on life-affirming art projects. People just love to rename stuff to make it more palatable to those who they are asking to give money.
When I was in graduate school at UNC I was on the student health advisory committee. To me, it was a preview of Obummer Care at the University level. Although the supplemental insurance was optional, those in charge decided to make it a Cadillac plan which increased their bottom line. IIRC, the annual fee was $500 in the late 80’s, whereas now it is $2,500! But what was interesting is that the budgeted cost per woman was $600 vs men at $400, so I was in effect being asked to underwrite others. My objections regarding separate charges for women and men were noted and ignored, but, some of us knew a local agent who could write us guys suitable plans for only $350/yr, so a bunch of us left to use the alternative, which of course sucked $$$ out of the system, forcing major cutbacks. In a way, we were countering the higher education bubble by effectively reducing an enrollment 3 decades ahead of the big event.