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W.Va. universities refocus on student mental health as pandemic continues

Times West Virginian - 9/5/2021

Sep. 5—FAIRMONT — COVID-19 and the complications it has brought have been felt in most aspects of life, but more so in education.

Fairmont State University recently launched its Falcon Mental Health Awareness program funded with a grant from the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission.

College and higher education is already a stressful part of life for students, and over the last year that stress has been compounded by COVID-19. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 25% of 18- to 24-year-olds have seriously considered suicide over the past few months, as a result of the pandemic.

In the 2020 fall semester, Fairmont State held classes without the usual days off, in order to shorten the time spent potentially spreading COVID. West Virginia University was in a similar situation.

While trying to serve as a preventative measure in terms of COVID, the truncated semester put extra pressure on students and faculty, with many professors offering the students unofficial holidays and extended weekends to lighten the load.

Both Fairmont State and WVU are implementing similar programs to hopefully ease the burden on students and break the stigma surrounding mental health.

"We want everybody to know that you don't have to suffer in silence," Fairmont State Director of Student Health Chelsea Collins said. "Students have a lot of fear and anxiety, not just about the pandemic, but about changes in this time of their lives."

Fairmont State's programs will involve such component as wellness fairs, yoga classes, educational programming in the dorms and support groups. This will add to the counseling and guidance services that are offered to students free of charge. Those services are also getting a boost from this grant.

WVU will be taking a similar route and expand the programs and services it offers to help students improve their mental health. The program mainly focuses on bolstering its existing programs, especially in its Carruth Center for Counseling and Psychological Services.

"Not only have we scaled up our in-person appointments to better accommodate the influx of students seeking assistance and crises intervention, the Carruth Center has been intentional about hiring a staff of diverse counselors to support our ever-changing student needs," Anne Hawkins, director of the Carruth Center, said in a statement.

The push for mental health awareness became prevalent in recent months after the April death of a 20-year-old business major, which was ruled a suicide by WVU police.

In the weeks after his death, WVU's student newspaper and student groups came together to begin an open dialogue about student mental health and the stresses students face.

In February 2021, Boston University published a study featuring a nationwide survey of college students and their experience with mental health during the 2020 fall semester that was ravaged by COVID-19.

The survey, which screened 33,000 students across the country, found that, "83% of students said their mental health had negatively impacted their academic performance within the past month, and that two-thirds of college students are struggling with loneliness and feeling isolated."

"We want our students to know that they are not alone, that there is help, that there are resources on campus and that we want them here," Collins said. "We want to keep them safe and keep them healthy, in both mind and body."

Reach David Kirk at 304-367-2522 or by email at dkirk@timeswv.com.

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