Editorial: Tufts should expand on mindfulness, mental health initiatives

Rocks a high GPA. Volunteers on weekends to tutor children. Performs in a Tufts ensemble. Plays a club sport. Works 15 hours a week. Gulps coffee each morning at the Rez. Frequents late night study at Tisch. Skips lecture to finish another assignment. Squeezes naps in between classes.

Maybe this sounds familiar. Maybe because it was (or is) you at some point during college, trying to meet unrealistic expectations and facing that all-too-familiar feeling of stress.

When psychologist Christopher Willard came to Tufts on Feb. 21 to speak at the ASEAN auditorium, he made the point that this is not a Tufts-specific problem. College and high school students experience the most stress compared to any other age demographic. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention reports that one in 12 U.S. college students makes a suicide plan.

At Tufts, the number of visits to Counseling and Mental Health Services has increased by 27 percent in the past year, a sign that Tufts must focus on how to better address the mental health needs of its student body. Mental health is a gravely serious issue that impacts college students in uniquely harmful ways.

Given the seriousness and scope of the problem, how might Tufts combat the problem most effectively? The event at which Dr. Willard spoke was advertised across campus as “Positive Procrastination,” and only a few dozen people were scattered around the auditorium. This brings up the question of whether all students who need help are getting it and how the university, given its role in facilitating a stressful and competitive culture, can play a role in ensuring that its students are prioritizing mental health and have adequate support and resources. It seems that lecture-based discussions may be beneficial for leaders trying to help students deal with stress, but these types of events do not always reach a large base of students. 

The small discussion groups organized by Tufts Health Promotion and Prevention's new mindfulness initiative are completely booked, and the organizers are currently looking to accommodate more students by increasing the number of groups and extending the initiative to next year. It is reassuring that if students recognize that they need help dealing with stress, they can attend these groups. Hopefully, these groups can continue to grow in size in future semesters.

An issue this important requires collaboration and long-term commitment, starting with when Tufts students first arrive on campus. Perhaps more attention given to mental well-being during orientation as well as more programming integrated into the first-year residential experience could help guarantee a greater degree of student support. Nonetheless, Tufts would greatly benefit from continuing the mindfulness initiative beyond the spring 2017 semester as well as from considering new approaches to make sure that students not only have the tools they need to support their mental health but are actually encouraged to use them. Changing an issue this ingrained will not be fixed by a single semester of mindfulness.