AJC publishes op-ed by President Ladany: “Campus mental health crisis is real”
Read full op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opinion
by Nick Ladany
We’re facing a mental health crisis, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
The U.S. Surgeon General in December issued an advisory on the mental health emergency among children, adolescents and young adults that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. A 2022 Centers for Disease Control report discloses nearly one in five high school students has seriously considered suicide.
The problem is amplified on college campuses, where a 2020 CDC report revealed about one in four adults between the ages of 18 and 24 had seriously considered suicide. The demands for more mental health resources were already climbing on the campuses of our higher education institutions before the global shutdown, and now students are reporting heightened stress, anxiety and depression as a result of rising isolation, grief and economic uncertainty.
The tail of this pandemic is long and we must actively prepare now. We must make providing effective mental health services a priority and invest in the resources that will help us do so.
Meeting a student’s mental health needs are foundationally as important as meeting their nutritional needs. As educators, we can’t support student academic success without seeing to their health needs first…