SUBJECT: Provost Roundtable Series - Understanding Students' Mental Health Challenges

Understanding Students' Mental Health Challenges

Please join us on Tuesday, April 11th at 12:30 p.m. at the Mardigian Library (1st floor) as our colleagues present their research and insights on this important topic.

Please register, as space is limited.

Our Roundtable Panelists

Sara Byczek, CAPS Director
"Our Students' Mental Health Experiences"

The University of Michigan-Dearborn has participated in the Healthy Minds Survey four times between 2017 and 2021. This nationally recognized online survey examines mental health, service utilization, and related issues among undergraduate and graduate students. It also allows participating colleges to compare their scores on certain areas to other participating colleges with similar demographics and enrollment. The Healthy Minds Survey and participation in the JED program has provided hundreds of pages of data that CAPS has utilized to assist in expanding programming and services.

In this presentation I will review key findings from the Healthy Minds data.

Pam Aronson, Professor, Sociology

"The Transition to Adulthood and the Long-term Effects of the Pandemic"
The pandemic has had pervasive implications for our students and will continue to do so in the future. The new level of economic insecurity and uncertainty that characterizes the current period has already had negative consequences for the educational aspirations, attainments, future career trajectories, and well-being. Young adults in particular have deepening mental health problems and we have been seeing this with our students. Inequalities in the transition to adulthood, already problematic before the pandemic, have deepened. Our students, who are disproportionately first generation, working class, and from immigrant families, are especially vulnerable to these challenges. Based on my research on the transition to adulthood during the pandemic, I will explain how the larger social context has the potential to profoundly impact our students, especially those who are the most vulnerable. Based on my research on Gen Z and social media, this presentation will also consider the theme of generational conflict and mistrust (that is, how young adults view educational institutions and professors). Taken together, this research suggests that we need systematic and consistent methods of supporting students, who are very much dependent on institutions during this critical period of life.

Junghee Yoon, Lecturer III, Psychology

"Paths to Resilience Among College Students of Color"
College students often experience marginalization based on their social position factors such as race, ethnicity, and gender. Many studies have documented that the racial-ethnic minority students consistently face negative racial/ethnic stereotypes, prejudice, and microaggression on their campuses and that these experiences are detrimental to their psychological and academic adjustment outcomes (Harper, 2015). In particular, the concept of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) captures the unique interlocking system of marginalization for women at the intersection of race and gender. Based on the resilience framework, my research program has investigated the psychosocial risks and protective factors in the lives of young adults in college from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds (Asian American, African American, Latinx, refugees and immigrants). This presentation will explore the experiences of marginalization among the college students of color, their coping mechanisms, and the resilience resources. Developmental challenges and competencies will be discussed to show paths to resilience among diverse young students as they develop a strong self-system and achieve successful adjustment in college.