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WALKING THE WALK: Denise Yarbrough, director of religious and spiritual life at the Interfaith Chapel, performs a walking meditation on the chapel’s indoor “labyrinth.” She and other chaplains offer meditation walks there several times a month. With a view of the Genesee River just outside, “[walking] the labyrinth is a calming and restorative practice,” she says.

Everything hit Karenrose Kamala ’24 at once last fall. The stress. The anxiety. The feeling that she didn’t belong in college.

“I was taking classes online back home in Tanzania due to COVID-19, and it was incredibly difficult,” she says. “My sleep schedule was off the rails, and I found it hard to connect to whatever was going on around campus. One economics class was really challenging, and I worried that economics wasn’t for me. I felt very discouraged.”

A classmate mentioned UR Connected, a peer-to-peer network run by University Health Service. The program pairs students who are feeling distressed with an undergraduate or graduate student who has received specialized training in how to support students who may be struggling. The students meet to discuss the issues, and the coach then directs the student to one of the University’s appropriate mental health resources.

“My peer coach made me feel validated when it came to my academic capabilities,” says Kamala, an economics and data science double major. “The resources I learned about were incredibly valuable, and the program helped me feel more comfortable about speaking out when I’m struggling. That’s a big deal, because coming from an African background, speaking out when struggling is seen as taboo.”

UR Connected made such an impact on Kamala that she’s now a peer coach in the program, helping others overcome the kinds of stress and anxiety the sophomore felt a year ago.

“Mental health is often ignored, even though it literally affects every aspect of someone’s life,” Kamala says. “If we are truly about being ever better, we have to do what we can in supporting students when it comes to mental health.”

Coping in the Time of COVID-19

The University has long-standing programs to help students who are facing stress, anxiety, or other mental health concerns.

But the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic created new stressors that affected the mental health of college students: closed campuses, mask mandates, physical distancing, and in many cases, a shift to online learning—not to mention concerns about the health and safety of family and loved ones. Amid the disruptions, the University has prioritized new programming and outreach to help address the mental health and well-being of its nearly 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

“Mental health has always been an important area of concern, but now more than ever our students need support,” says Amy McDonald ’99, ’07N (MS), associate director of the UHS Health Promotion Office.

In recent years, the number of college students seeking help for mental health issues has steadily climbed across the nation, including at Rochester, according to Susan McDaniel, a clinical and family psychologist and the Dr. Laurie Sands Distinguished Professor of Families and Health in the University’s Departments of Psychiatry and Family Medicine.

“It’s due to many factors—political and social unrest, a greater awareness and willingness to report student mental health issues, and the role of social media in creating unrealistic social comparisons and amplifying problems,” McDaniel says.

“With the pandemic came rapid change, remote learning, health anxiety, and social isolation for many. It has definitely been a stressful situation.”

A 2020 study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research looked at the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on the mental health of college students. A majority of the surveyed students—71 percent—reported increased stress, anxiety, and depressive thoughts. Many reported experiencing stressors such as difficulty concentrating, disrupted sleep, decreased social interactions, or increased concerns about academic performance.

Similarly, a 2020 National College Health Assessment of Rochester undergraduates conducted by UHS found that almost half of all students reported moderate levels of stress; a quarter reported high stress levels; and 42 percent said stress was having an impact on their academic performance. The numbers were slightly below national averages, but still significant.

Graduate students are also experiencing high levels of stress, though they face different challenges from most undergraduates. Graduate study is “a very intensive, focused path,” says Melissa Sturge-Apple, vice provost and University dean of graduate education. Graduate students typically live off campus from the get-go and spend much of their time in labs or libraries. Some are juggling careers and raising children. Those who arrive at graduate school on their own “come to a place like Rochester and don’t necessarily have roots here. They can feel alone.”

Opening Up about Mental Health

The University Counseling Center has been at Rochester in some form since the 1960s. Today, UCC offers full-time students comprehensive initial assessments and individualized treatment plans. Those can include individual and group therapy, medication management, case management, and support for off-campus referrals. Therapists are licensed professionals from a variety of mental health disciplines, and there are also about 25 graduate students, interns, and postdoctoral fellows in training from psychology, social work, and psychiatry.

Anxiety has been the main mental health problem facing college students for years—and the pandemic exacerbated it. In response, UCC launched a Counselor in Residence program in September. Trained and supervised by UCC—licensed staff, counselors in the program provide mental health support during evenings and weekends when UCC is closed.

“Students are open to seeking services,” says UCC director Brigid Cahill, who estimates that UCC sees 15 to 20 percent of Rochester students each year. “In fact, often [students] have been in therapy before coming to Rochester or have friends and family in therapy.”

One such student was Caitlyn Ascencio ’20, who is pursuing a master’s in school counseling at the Warner School of Education. Five years ago, she was “an overwhelmed, culture-shocked” first-year student on the day she spilled water on the brand-new laptop her parents had saved up to buy her. It’s an accident that would be upsetting to most students, regardless of circumstances. But for Ascencio, “my error consumed me and led me into a downward spiral I had never experienced before.”

Ascencio’s roommate grew concerned and recommended she visit UCC. That visit began a therapeutic journey that lasted through Ascencio’s undergraduate career.

“My therapist took on a cognitive-behavioral approach, which caused me to come face-to-face with many childhood traumas, life-altering events, and toxic thought patterns meant to be replaced with wholesome thought patterns and behaviors,” she says.

Ascencio’s roommate, in getting Ascencio to seek help, reflects a culture in which students are taking active roles in supporting their classmates and helping to open up the conversation about mental health.

Rachel Chen ’23, a neuroscience major from Seattle, Washington, is the president of the Rochester chapter of Active Minds, a national student organization geared toward increasing awareness of the mental health of college students.

“I joined my first year because I cared about destigmatizing mental health but wasn’t sure what I could do about it on campus,” Chen says. Active Minds has helped her “think more critically about my own mental health, and how I can support friends and family.”

The chapter’s Active Minds membership—about 25 College undergraduates—meets weekly. “We want to create a community where help-seeking is encouraged, and students feel comfortable speaking about mental health concerns,” Chen says.

Increased attention on student mental health means that people on campus who have long offered forms of counseling—though not mental health counseling as understood by clinicians—are realizing the important role they, too, play in supporting student mental health. The University’s Interfaith Chapel, for example, is staffed with chaplains ready to meet the needs of students, including those who are not religious or don’t belong to faith groups affiliated with the chapel.

“We offer a place of compassionate listening to anyone who walks through the door,” says Denise Yarbrough, director of religious and spiritual life at the chapel. “I’ve counseled students dealing with the emotional trauma of a romantic breakup, students who have just learned of the death of someone close to them, and students wrestling with the aftereffects of sexual encounters. Given the intense stress that many students experience, the chapel offers a place to relax and be nurtured.”

A Mindful Campus

“We recognize the stress that our students are facing—the pressure to do more, to excel academically, and to be ever better,” says Rebecca Block ’18, a health educator at UHS.

Block also oversees the Mindful University Project, an initiative founded in 2018 to offer classes, retreats, and workshops on mindfulness practice. This past summer, the project launched a series of workshops for faculty and staff geared toward improving and supporting student mental health. Although voluntary, 166 people took part in the workshops, which are being offered throughout the year.

Katherine Schaefer, an associate professor in the Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program, says it was helpful to share experiences with other faculty members facing new challenges in the COVID-19 era.

“I absolutely found that the pandemic forced me to be a more accessible teacher,” says Schaefer, who has been at the University since 2005. “Nobody who is stressed learns as effectively as they could. The reality of dealing with online teaching, sudden illness, and internet outages caused me to build in a lot of alternate ways for students to participate and catch up.”

Robert Loughridge, an instructor in the Program of Dance and Movement, also took part in the workshops. “Students seem more anxious these days,” he says. “The pandemic brought restrictions and cancellations of basic life structure, like attending class in person and graduation ceremonies. The losses resulted in a lot of grief.”

’Be the Best We Can Be’

In May, the University Coalition for Student Mental Health was formed at the recommendation of President Sarah Mangelsdorf and Sturge-Apple to assess the current state of mental health among Rochester students and make recommendations for improvement. A preliminary report is due to Mangelsdorf by December.

The coalition’s members, including two students, represent key administrative and academic units with the goal of enhancing both the mental health resources available on campus and students’ knowledge of them. That awareness is crucial.

“We have a lot of good things going here,” says McDaniel, who serves as coalition chair. “We want to make sure people can access us and know what their possibilities are.”

Mangelsdorf’s mission for the coalition is clear, McDaniel says. “We need to do our very best to understand students’ needs in our current challenging environment—what services are meeting students’ needs, where are the gaps, and where can we do better.”

With virtually all University students vaccinated against COVID-19, McDaniel hopes the stress and anxiety posed by the pandemic will ease. “Kindness and connection with each other, and a significant dose of self-care, can result in resilience as we move through this challenging period and learn all we can from it,” she says. “We want to be the best we can be.”