THURSDAY, DEC. 3, 2015
IDS INDIANA DAILY STUDENT | IDSNEWS.COM
INVESTIGATIONS
PHOTOS BY RACHEL MEERT
BJ Toole, Abby Ridgeway and Emily (pictured in order from left to right) all have struggled with anxiety or depression during their time at IU. Each has sought out mental health services from hometown doctors, physicians at the IU Health Center or psychiatrists at Counseling and Psychological Services. Data provided by CAPS shows that anxiety diagnoses among IU students is on the rise, steadily surpassing depression diagnoses.
STATE OF MIND Depression and anxiety diagnoses for college students are up nationally. IU is no exception. By Emily Ernsberger emelerns@indiana.edu | @emilyernsberger
Abby Ridgeway should be a senior. Her first attempt at college lasted only two weeks. She cried, called her mom countless times and obsessed about the new possibilities college could bring her. She was alone for the first time and couldn’t figure out how to manage her new world by herself. Now, she is a year behind her peers.
It was the same nervousness that still makes her shaky and short of breath, the same anxiety that kept her from studying abroad and keeps her from going out on weekends. New environments — like the offcampus apartment she’s renting for the first time this year — make her anxious. She can’t help it; the anxiety she was born with dictates how she will react. Ridgeway knows the ins and outs of wrestling with mental health issues in college just as well as the
increasing number of students in the United States and on IU’s campus who struggle with anxiety and depression. College students’ mental health is a growing concern for collegiate mental health care providers. Data provided to the Indiana Daily Student by IU’s Counseling and Psychological Services indicates anxiety is catching up to depression as the top concern at IU for counseling and psychiatric clients. The Center for Collegiate Mental
mrabenol@indiana.edu | @maialyra
Not every musical or play cast has the opportunity to work with the writer to finalize the script of the show. This special experience is what University Players’ Virginal Works program offers to student actors and writers every year. The Virginal Works program is open to undergraduate students who are interested in writing their own plays and musicals. When the two pieces are selected, the writers attend the performances in order to make changes to the script and see how their creativity works onstage. This year, UP will perform a new song cycle, “Fight or Flight” by Casey Reed, and a new play, “Welcome to the Trash Heap” by Joshua Allen. “Fight or Flight” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. today and 11 p.m. Friday, and “Welcome to the Trash Heap” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 7:30 p.m. Saturday. All of the shows will be in the Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center A200. “‘Fight or Flight’ has a very interesting structure,” Director Devin May said. “There are musicals which have a plot and song cycles which are disconnected. This one kind of straddles the line.” The musical is a mostly unbroken stream of song with only brief moments of spoken words between lyrics and continuous piano and drum accompaniment.
SEE MENTAL HEALTH, PAGE 10
BASKETBALL
Virginal Works lets student writers see creative work on stage By Maia Rabenold
Health, a research center at Penn State University, gathered information on clients from 140 university health centers across the United States, including IU. Penn State found in their latest annual report, which was released in January and comprised of information from the 2013 school year, 55 percent of college students seeking help at campus psychological service centers are affected by anxiety.
‘FIGHT OR FLIGHT’ Free 7:30 p.m. today and 11 p.m. Friday Room A200 of Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center ‘WELCOME TO THE TRASH HEAP’ Free 7:30 p.m. Friday and 11 p.m. Saturday Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center The hour-long show is made of multiple minute-long scenarios where the four cast members portray different characters for every scene. Minimalistic set changes, like a bench switched for a desk — coupled with changes in the mood of the music — switch a character from mother to student to wife and back again. “There’s a theme behind it, the moments of fight or flight, of adrenaline and heightened emotion,” May said. Every brief scene depicts a different time in the characters’ lives in which a choice needs to be made, moments that define a person. There are snippets of a funeral, receiving a college acceptance letter and a hitand-run and a job interview, among many others. “Welcome to the Trash Heap” is a dystopian political play that involves SEE WORKS, PAGE 5
HALEY WARD | IDS
Freshman forward O.G. Anunoby watches the final minutes of play against Duke on Wednesday at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham. The Hoosiers lost 94-74.
IU falls flat to No. 7 Duke By Michael Hughes michhugh@indiana.edu | @MichaelHughes94
After four possessions, Duke had scored four times. There were 3-pointers and midrange jumpshots, some coming after an offensive rebound. But for each of their first four possessions, the Blue Devils scored. This stretch wasn’t the difference Wednesday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium. IU led for almost eight minutes in the first half. But in Duke’s 94-74 win, IU couldn’t consistently get stops on
94-74 defense, allowing Duke to shoot 52 percent from the field and gather 26 second chance points. “I’m sure they wanted to play better defense, but we were playing pretty good offense,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “A lot of times their offense was better than our defense. But for a period of time there we just kind of scored.” There were moments Wednesday where the unranked Hoosiers
Related Content, page 10 For more coverage of the IU game versus Duke check out two more articles on the Sports page. (5-3) looked like they might upset the No. 7 ranked Blue Devils (7-1). IU did also manage to shoot more than 50 percent from the floor itself, thanks to shooting 41 percent from behind the arc and getting easy field goals around the basket. There was the stretch of 12 SEE BASKETBALL, PAGE 10
IUSA forum facilitates discussion between organizations By Nyssa Kruse nakruse@indiana.edu | @nyssakruse
Members of the executive branch of the IU Student Association had a forum on student safety open for all students to attend at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Ten people attended the event, including Karis Neufeld, co-president of Raising Awareness of Interactions in Sexual Encounters. “I really wanted to hear what
other students were saying, other students who were dedicated to contributing to the safety of campus and making it a more safe place,” Neufeld said. “A lot of the people I talk to work with the specific issue of sexual assault, and I wanted other, outside perspectives.” Attendees mostly discussed the issue of sexual assault. Part of discussion centered on possible solutions to changing the culture of campus, as well as practices which could be put
in place to make students feel safer. One point made during the meeting was that the information presented in MyStudentBody, an online drug, alcohol and sexual wellbeing educational program required for freshmen, is not continually emphasized throughout students’ time at IU. Attendees were interested in extending such education throughout the four years most undergraduates are on campus as well as distributing
information on drugs, alcohol and sexual well-being that is more specific to IU. The issues of poor lighting off campus and ways to make students walking home feel safer were also discussed. Another idea mentioned was the creation of a hotline for students to call when walking late at night, since many students already call family or friends while walking home as a way to feel safer, IUSA Chief of Staff Sara Zaheer said.
The idea for the forum came out of a conversation about a month ago between Zaheer and Sarah Kissel, a junior who worked on the current IUSA administration’s campaign last year. Kissel is a former columnist for the Indiana Daily Student. Zaheer said one day she and Kissel, as well as IUSA Chief of Outreach Rebecca Yeakey, talked about how unsafe they feel in Dunn’s Woods SEE SAFETY, PAGE 2