OPINIONS

Students Should Participate in Improving Campus Mental Health Services

Josie Rosman

Last semester, I had many conversations with my friends about times they were failed by the mental health support services here at Oberlin. I knew friends who had been unable to make appointments in the first place, who had received insufficient support, or who had been turned away in times of crisis. I got so upset about this that I wrote a letter to Vice President and Dean of Students Karen Goff. I was surprised when she wrote me back to set up a meeting with herself, Executive Director of Student Health and Wellbeing Andrew Oni, and Counseling and Psychological Services Director John Harshbarger. I was struck by their level of concern and engagement with the issues I had brought up and the clarity of their vision. I went away from the conversation feeling hopeful and was further encouraged when I saw that they were hosting a Student Mental Health Open Forum.

The forum provided a rare but important opportunity for direct dialogue between students and staff; both parties, I believe, came away with new knowledge. Students learned about mental health resources that they had never heard about, including Early Alert, a texting-based wellness bot, and Protocall, the crisis support telephone line (reachable at 855-256-7160); staff learned that students were largely unaware of these resources. Students also brought up new ideas, most notably incorporating awareness of the mental health resources into new student orientation, perhaps through the Peer Advising Leaders program. Students also had the opportunity to bring up environmental concerns that negatively impact student mental health.

Perhaps most importantly, students learned valuable information about what to do in a crisis situation. One student spoke up about being turned away at a crisis moment, like many of my friends. This student had to leave school for the rest of the semester because she could not get the support she needed. The panelists recommended some specific lan- guage that they advised students to use to get the help they need:

“I need immediate help,” “I need to speak to someone today,” “I am in a crisis,” “I am feeling unsafe,” and, “I need a crisis appointment.” While I personally think it’s a little silly that there are magic words we need to say to unlock mental health support, it is clear that we do, so it is important that we know what those words are.

A final important topic of conversation was that communication between administrators and students at this school is really hard, and that is a problem. Not everyone reads the Campus Digest, the Review, or the Student Senate emails; not everyone reads all the posters, follows all the Instagram accounts, or comes to these open forums. This is something that I think students and administration alike should work on. If we want Oberlin to be an engaged and active community, students need to be informed about and involved with the things happening around us.

Beyond these more practical elements, I came away from the forum thinking more about the nature of mental health support at Oberlin. The fact is that mental health issues are a huge problem here, like they are everywhere, and we the students need the people taking care of us to do a better job. It feels important to note that the administration — specifically Dean Goff — cares deeply about our mental health, and is actively working to make our support structures stronger. There are a lot of systems in place that simply don’t work, and so many of the adults who have control over our lives are overwhelmed with the work they’re being asked to do, or else see students as numbers instead of people. Both issues need to be addressed, but we should also acknowledge and celebrate when the opposite is true — when people really care and are really trying.

We have to acknowledge that the administration can’t know when things are wrong or if systems are failing us if we don’t tell them. It would be great if the resources we have worked perfectly for us already, but we’re clearly See College, page 12

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Editorial

Dependence on Visiting Professors Contributes to Unstable Academic Environment

For several budgetary and administrative reasons, institutions of higher education are rapidly shifting toward higher percentages of visiting assistant professors as opposed to tenure-track positions. According to College Factual, 11 percent of Oberlin’s total instructional personnel is part-time but not faculty, or non-tenure track faculty, otherwise grouped together as adjunct faculty. Thankfully, Oberlin has a significantly lower percentage of adjunct faculty compared to the average across higher education, but that may change in future years. Given the financial exigencies outlined in the One Oberlin report and ongoing concerns with faculty pay, it might only be a matter of time before the College considers remaking its faculty composition — if it isn’t doing so already.

There are three factors that deserve higher consideration when hiring faculty members: students benefit from an abundance of long-term faculty; faculty benefit from the freedom to conduct research and the ability to build their careers; and both of these factors benefit the institution by attracting young, competitive academics who are looking for long-term positions.

Oberlin’s low student-to-instructor ratio naturally allows professors to give more attention to their students, both in and out of the classroom. This is a large selling point for the College as a whole. Some students decide to come to Oberlin because of the benefits reaped from close relationships between students and faculty members. During the semester, this means more detailed feedback on papers, more personalized advice during office hours, and accommodations that are better tailored to individual needs. Often, students take multiple courses with the same professors, which translates into a long-term rapport. Students often ask their recurring professors to be their academic advisors or write letters of recommendation. In addition to building a relationship, students benefit intellectually from the opportunity to immerse themselves over several semesters in their professors’ specialized fields. This can translate into doing credited research with professors, which is invaluable in securing offers from graduate schools, or individual research in the form of capstones or honors projects.

An additional concern with adjunct faculty is the short-lived nature of their course offerings due to their limited time at the institution. If a student were to become especially interested in a field of study that a visiting faculty member specialized in, the sudden departure of the professor teaching that course could derail the student’s long-term plans and negatively impact their academic career.

First-years have also expressed specific concerns with being assigned faculty advisors who are visiting professors. It is difficult for faculty to advise students on unique institutional requirements and provide them with targeted advice regarding courses and faculty they have little experience with. Incoming classes are increasingly disillusioned with the quality of Oberlin’s faculty. It has become more difficult to ask upperclassmen for advice because the professors they know may not be at Oberlin anymore. This year’s course selection has brought this issue into particularly clear focus, with desires to take specific courses stunted by, “Oh, actually, I think they were a visiting professor.” For faculty, the opportunity to stay at one institution for more than two years gives them a secure place to work on their research and fine-tune their courses. Getting published in journals and writing books is what enables faculty in the humanities to develop an edge. Meanwhile, professors in the sciences need resources, students, and time to work on lab experiments and data collection — all of which demand a steady base of operations. The ability to invest time and energy in research will no doubt incentivize up-and-coming academics to accept positions at Oberlin, which is a longterm investment in the success of the institution.

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Oberlin College Should Follow Proposed Standards For Alumni Salary Disclosure

Selena Frantz Columnist

As the 2023 college admissions cycle continues, many high school seniors are making a stressful yet exciting choice: where to spend the next four years of their lives. In an attempt to increase yield, colleges are courting their possible first-year classes with an overwhelming intensity. Oberlin College is no stranger to this, as demonstrated by the lengths gone to make its All Roads Lead to Oberlin program a resounding success. Still, even with all the attention the College pays to incoming students, Oberlin somehow manages to overlook one of the most important factors in a future collegianʼs decision: money.

It’s no secret that many college students end up deciding to pursue higher education based on the possible financial and career advantages of a degree. We go to university to expand our earning potential or bolster job security. It is therefore incredibly important that the institution a student attends can provide this. After all, what is the point of spending up to $61,106 a year on tuition alone at Oberlin if the financial strain might outweigh the possible benefits?

Recently, the Ohio House of Representatives introduced a bill that would require all Ohio state colleges to “provide financial cost and aid disclosure forms” to newly admitted students. This also includes sharing “the qualifying student’s expected monthly education loan payment upon graduation” as well as “the income range between the twenty-fifth and seventy-fifth percentiles for each of the following:

(a) The state institution’s most recent cohort of graduates;

(b) The state institution’s cohort of graduates who graduated five years prior to the qualifying student’s admission to the institution.”

In an interview that I conducted with Representative Adam Mathews from Ohio State District 56, who is one of the primary sponsors of the aforementioned House Bill 27, he discussed how important this bill is for students.

“The general feeling is, if you get accepted by a good college and you show up for class, you do your work, you’ll be fine,” Mathews said. “But that is never defined for you — what fine looks like. How are you going to be able to make rent, get your life or family set up, be able to get your first down payment for a mortgage? Is that even a reality? We want students, especially when they’re making what’s probably either the first- or second-largest financial decision of their life, to have that in front of them.”

While this bill may not directly apply to Oberlin, as it is a private institution and not a state college, there is no reason why the school should not start adopting these practices on its own. According to one 2014 New York Times study, Oberlin is ranked 63rd out of 64 for median student income when compared to other “elite” schools. Oberlin graduates made an average of $38,900 at age 34 at a time when the national average was $48,257.83. When looking at this data, to be as fair as possible, I must note the lack of defined age range in the second study and the fact that these statistics are almost ten years old. Still, I think any possible inflation of data would be offset by the fact that the second study looked at all workers, not just those with See Students, page 12