Is this Public Safety Primer necessary?

It would have been helpful had the article cited even one smidgen of evidence that the issues at hand—suicide, violence, mental health problems, etc.—are disproportionately in evidence on college campuses, or, a possible alternative view, that they ought to be disproportionately smaller than in the general population’s similar age groups.

As it is, I don’t know whether the article is about a media-generated non-issue being exploited—not necessarily out of cynicism, but from a sense of being in the spotlight and needing to take that opportunity—by professionals in related fields like mental health and security.

I don’t know, and I daresay I’m not alone. So, how do rates of whatever this Primer was about (suicide, violence, etc.) compare to rates for the same age groups in the general population? More suicide among students than non-students? More violence? More drugs? If not, then on what basis should we presume that these rates *ought* to be lower in college student populations?

Rod Bell, Adjunct Professor at College of DuPage, at 10:55 am EDT on May 6, 2008

I really enjoyed reading this article, it was very intersting and appealing to me. I find mental health in students very intersting and have know some students like myself to have break downs, Though I belive my school is good with the councling situation I also agree that it could be alot better but because of finacial problems it cant. Please inform more people about this problem and put out more intresting articles about us, the College students.

Yolanda, Student at College of the Redwoods, at 8:55 pm EDT on May 7, 2008

when violence isn’t an issue but mental health is

I have a personal story that might be of interest to you regarding FERPA, parental rights, mental illness and several other related issues. It has not yet ended in tragedy although it is tragic.

Briefly, my son attended a small, private, expensive college in New York state last year and he turned 18 during the first semester. Shortly thereafter he began to display specific signs of mental illness and personality change. A compelling story begins here – Our biggest mistake was notifying school officials of our concerns and asking them for help. A minimum amount of counseling was mandated and then the school administrators insisted, because he did not pose a harm to himself or others he was fine and not only refused all dialogue with us but ordered us not to contact any staff member for information. They implied we were abusive, overly involved parents— not only a completely unfounded charge but one we were never given an opportunity to refute. We were abruptly and legally prevented from reaching out to help our son even though it was obvious to us, close family members and fellow students that he was suffering a mental change. With the advice and approval of college officials our son placed both his mom and dad on a Persona Non Grata list and the college threatened us with arrest if we stepped foot on campus. We were physically barred from campus and ordered not to contact any staff for information regarding our son.

Never once, during our initial conversations were we warned of the implications involving college officials in our problem and the potential and power they had to completely cut us out of our son’s life. They were waiting for an act of violence or suicide. Barring that they barred us from his life. They insist he was simply separating himself from abusive, helicopter parents and refused to specifically address any of the negative symptoms he was displaying or the alarmed nature of every family member. A beloved uncle visited him on campus and was so disturbed by our son’s behavior immediately went to the Director of Counseling to speak with her about it. The VP of Student Affairs had security escort him off campus for no reason other than he was visiting his nephew.

Our son, who was only last fall a sunny, outgoing person with many friends, has now dropped out and disappeared. Recent information implies drugs were readily available in the campus dorms and some students were expelled because of them. Our son may or may not have experimented with them which may or may not have affected his behavior. Could the school be trying to cover this up?

We have had an extremely eye-opening and emotionally wrenching first-hand experience which would be of great interest to a vast number of parents who, like us, enthusiastically send their kids off to college, entirely naive to the collegiate policies and officials that can completely usurp their parental role and—other than paying the bill—make them totally redundant in their child’s life. Parents have no rights as far as colleges are concerned.

I believe that our story is emblematic of a shocking reality that, despite recent campus occurrences that have brought these issues to national attention, most colleges remain unwilling, unprepared and unqualified to deal with student mental health issues. They use FERPA to effectively shut out the parents of students who develop issues while living on campus. The typical reaction of colleges is to use all their resources to cover this problem up and sweep it under the rug while maintaining an air of superiority and self-righteousness. They use FERPA to justify every action regardless if the law supports their policy or not and completely regardless of every other aspect of the student’s well being.

In light of the VA Tech disaster, the general heightened awareness of campus mental health and safety issues as well as the DOE’s latest recommendations on the interpretation of FERPA all of which affect so many families with college kids, I think this is a timely issue. We would never recommend parents involve any college official—especially the counselors or the dean of student affairs—in any concerns they have for their children. The President himself refused to intervene or bring some sort of common sense and human decency to the table. He relied solely on the advice of academics wholly untrained to diagnose mental illness.

Our motivation in bringing our story to the public is to make parents aware that their life long role as parent will be appropriated by uncaring college administrators whose sole concern are the legal privacy issues of an 18 year old student, not the human being who is their child. In both their eyes and the eyes of the law, mom and dad are superfluous.

ccb, at 1:35 pm EDT on May 12, 2008