Student mental health challenges persist
They can’t quite describe it, but something feels different this semester.
Sophomore Issie Ventura is normally stationed in the Froiland Science Complex where they said they often find their peers stressed and overwhelmed. As they have visited their friends with social science and humanities majors recently, they’ve noticed a similar state.
“Across the board, everyone’s taking a hit mentally,” Ventura said. “I can’t pinpoint what it is. It’s a cause for concern.”
Many national statistics point to the worsening mental health of college students over the past several decades, a trend some Augustana students have experienced and seen on campus.; however, several Augustana initiatives are hoping to provide students with support in a time of global uncertainty.
“In the last four years we've noticed a more dramatic increase in what students are reporting they're experiencing, but then also what faculty and staff are also noticing that students are struggling with and students are disclosing,” Angie Hummel, Augustana’s mental health and wellness specialist, said.
According to the Healthy Minds Study, over 60% of college students met criteria for at least one mental health problem in 2020-2021. That amount had increased by nearly 50% from 2013.
In the Healthy Minds Network’s most recent data report, 41% of college students reported symptoms of depression, 36% reported experiencing anxiety and 14% said they have seriously considered suicide.
The report surveyed 75,000 students from 135 higher education institutions between September 2022 and June 2023. The percent of students going to counseling or therapy increased by 6% in that time from 2020’s 30%.
“I feel like in college I’ve kind of lost my internal motivation to do things like I did in high school,” senior Sara Grimes said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I just need to do this because I’m supposed to do it.’ I do it because it’s just something I need to check off.”
Both Ventura and Grimes said balancing academics, a social life, work and their personal life has been difficult in college with just 24 hours in a day. Ventura said students can talk with professors and ask about extensions or support, but it is difficult to ask, causing tasks to stack up.
“I feel like that’s kind of become the culture of college,” Ventura said. “It’s just getting stuff done instead of taking care of yourself.”
According to the 2022 Lumina Foundation-Gallup State of Higher Education Study, 40% of respondents said they frequently experience emotional stress in their programs of study, and 46% said they experience it occasionally.
Hummel said college students experience many different stressors. She cited one of those stressors as social connectedness and belonging, a need for healthy, supportive and quality relationships that don’t exist on social media.
“It can be a very disorienting, tumultuous time, and that means there’s going to be a response to those stressors that then might lead to heightened anxiety and depression,” Hummel said.
Doug Anderson, the director of clinical services at Sioux Falls Psychological Services, said more students come to college “compromised,” meaning they have undergone trauma, PTSD and other stressors before their time at Augustana.
Depression in 16-17 year olds increased by 69% from 2009 to 2017, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. A Center for Disease Control study found the amount of high schoolers feeling persistent sadness or hopelessness increased to 44% in 2021, up from 2009’s 26%.
Once in college, Anderson said students can also encounter homesickness, basic text anxiety, relationship problems and more.
World news
Part of the reason for heightened rates of anxiety and depression is the current world scene, Anderson said, which has included the COVID-19 pandemic, fears about climate change, mass shootings, global wars and conflicts, an upcoming presidential election and more.
“Even walking around campus and seeing all the sidewalk chalk,” Grimes said. “You’re just like ‘Oh my god.’ You’ll see one thing, and then right next to it you’ll see another viewpoint.”
Anderson said the world news simmers under students’ daily stressors.
“We haven’t even started talking at that point about your own history and experience,” Anderson said. “We’re just talking about what’s going on.”
Anderson said one has to also consider students’ family backgrounds, financial situations, medical circumstances, relationships and other, more routine aspects of life.
Grimes, who is from Minnesota, said coming to Augustana was her first time being away from home for a long period of time.
“It’s the first time you have to tackle all of it on your own,” Grimes said. “And then you layer on top of that like classes and being in a new environment and making new friends and being in a new city. And then I started during COVID, so if you put COVID on top of everything, it just piles so high.”
Anxiety avoidance
Some psychology professors on campus have pointed to anxiety avoidance as part of the reason for students’ heightened feelings of stress and anxiety, which technological devices have furthered.
“We’ve spent the last 18 to 20 years without actually developing the ability to respond to stressors in an adaptive way,” psychology professor Ben Jeppsen said. “It’s a recipe for anxiety and depression.”
Psychology professor Lucas Hamilton said coping can largely be grouped into avoidant and approach-oriented strategies, which further break down into problem- and emotion-focused strategies. Emotion strategies would deal with one’s feelings while problem strategies would deal with the source of stress, Hamilton said.
“‘I feel anxious about an exam. Well, I could watch Netflix and laugh at a comedy show and now I don’t feel anxious anymore.’ That’s emotion-focused,” Hamilton said. “‘Or, I could study for my exam and feel capable of being successful,’ which is more problem-focused.”
The anxiety avoidance cycle starts with anxious thoughts that trigger negative feelings. A person then begins to avoid those negative feelings by, for example, scrolling through their phone, and finds immediate relief; however, that relief reinforces one’s behavior of avoiding things that cause anxiety, which, as Healthline reports, can decrease self confidence, increase anxiety and lead to more avoidance.
Jeppsen said much of the current technology, which is supposed to make life easier, feeds this cycle.
“It’s a natural, generational process,” Jeppsen said. “I think that’s happening where we see college students who have grown up in the information age, who have grown up at a time where you can get answers immediately, and the world revolves around entertainment and pleasure seeking. They are a victim of these global developments.”
Ventura said they have not been using social media as of late, which has helped them to stop scrolling.
“I don’t think it’s the scrolling that is directly affecting people,” Ventura said. “It’s that it takes up time, and then they have to catch up on work and stuff all at once and then that’s what gets associated with the stress and stuff.”
Sioux Falls Psychological Services
One of the ways Augustana hopes to support students’ mental health is by offering free, unlimited counseling services at Sioux Falls Psychological Services.
The organization’s mission statement is, “We meet you where you are, offering hope.”
“That means anybody gets to walk in our door,” Anderson said.
According to Anderson, when Augustana established a partnership with Sioux Falls Psychological Services in 2005, the counseling center saw anywhere from 400-600 student sessions a year. Now, the center sees about five times as many student sessions annually.
Currently, Augustana students make up about 10% of Sioux Falls Psychological Services’ business, Anderson said. The group has more than 30 professional therapists and eight graduate students.
President Stephanie Herseth Sandlin said data from 2010 to 2017 had shown more students were using Sioux Falls Psychological Services. That data also showed more students were coming to Augustana who had some experience with counseling.
However, one of the reasons for that increase could be Sioux Falls Psychological Services’ move to Norton Avenue in 2009. In 2021, the building became home to the Welcome Center, too, so Augustana logos are now visible on the outside of the building. Additionally, Hummel said telecounseling, therapy sessions over zoom or other virtual services, has also changed people’s access to mental health services.
“That has totally shaped the ability to be able to provide more support and services to people just because we’ve now been able to sort of eliminate that barrier of having clients get to us,” Hummel said.
Anderson said students come to Sioux Falls Psychological Services through various ways: the Dean of Students Office, where Hummel is housed, professor referrals and student referrals.
“It really has been a great match, and you’re not gonna find another university anywhere in this country as small as Augie that has access to 35 to 40 therapists,” Anderson said.
Ventura said when they began as a freshman at Augustana, they didn’t know the university funded therapy for students.
“The fact that people who might not be able to afford it, people who maybe don’t have insurance can go through the school and not take any sort of financial hit for it, I think that’s really nice,” Ventura said. “And I’m sure it’s just a little bit of stress off of people’s backs just to be able to enjoy life.”
Mental health and wellness specialist
In 2021, Augustana hired a full-time mental health and wellness specialist within Student Affairs. Hummel has held that position since fall 2023.
Herseth Sandlin said this position facilitates collaborations with offices across campus to help provide training, education and programming that furthers the university’s well-being model.
For example, Hummel said she met with one department this April to develop guidelines to help support students in varying levels of distress. That same day, she also met with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to discuss a panel event with clinicians who provide “culturally responsive care.”
Hummel said her role also focuses on helping reduce the stigma “around what it means to be a human who experiences mental and emotional health.” She said that comes, in part, through having conversations with students, which can include questions about what communities are doing — or not doing — that could better support mental health.
Hummel said the university is always looking for effective ways to communicate with students, such as what events and programs students are interested in and willing to show up to to learn more about mental and emotional health.
“So if it feels like, ‘Oh, this is something that I think would be interesting or I think would be helpful,’ then by all means, my door is open, and I am eager and ready to have conversations,” Hummel said.
Augustana also shifted to a new governance model in fall 2022, which includes a well-being committee. Herseth Sandlin said that the committee is tasked across faculty and administrators to inform and help monitor what the university is doing around the dimensions of well-being.
Herseth Sandlin said the committee and Hummel work together to “enhance awareness, enhance services [and] more readily identify gaps in services.”
Lost&Found
Students are also taking initiatives to support their peers and their mental health. Alumna Hailey Nold, ‘21, brought a chapter of Lost&Found to campus in 2019, a South Dakota nonprofit that has a mission of preventing suicide among young adults.
The club regularly hosts events aimed at raising awareness about mental health issues and providing students with resources, like a Friday-night painting event, for example.
Lost&Found also offers a peer-to-peer mentoring program, where students can talk to other students about “navigating university life and the stresses that come with this time,” Jeppsen said. According to Lost&Found’s website, the program gives mentees access to a listening ear, helps them gain skills in goal setting and learn about the mental health resources available on campus.
Jeppsen said anyone can sign up to have a mentor and those who are interested in becoming a mentor can receive free training to do so.
This year, Ventura is the club’s secretary. Ventura joined the club as a member last year because they liked Lost&Found’s mission.
“I’ve always been an advocate for supporting mental health for just my friends around me and my family and just making sure people felt validated in the things that they were experiencing,” Ventura said.
Having that community support is key to getting help, Grimes said.
“When someone’s going through a mental health struggle or a mental health crisis, people say, ‘Oh, just reach out. Just reach out. Just communicate,’” Grimes said. “It’s a lot harder than that when you feel like you’re in that dark space.”
If students are in crisis or feel unsafe, Hummel said they should call 988 or 911.
“If you are experiencing that moderate range of emotional distress, maybe you’re not going to class or if you’re feeling pretty unmotivated, you feel super on edge and just fearful, like a plate’s going to drop, that awareness is really important,” Hummel said. “And let that awareness then be guiding you toward asking for help.”
