ONE BIG QUESTION

ERIN HOFFMANN HARDING (ACCT '97) NOTRE DAME VICE PRESIDENT FOR STUDENT AFFAIRS

Q: With concerns about the mental health challenges of college students gaining attention nationwide, how is Notre Dame addressing the needs of its students?

A: Every Wednesday morning, I step out of my Main Building office and walk over to O’Shaughnessy Hall where I meet the 19 students in my Moreau First Year Experience course.

I love this brief departure from my routine of administrative meetings, events, planning and decisions that constitutes so much of our work in Student Affairs. For 50 minutes, it’s my job to talk with students about what it means to be part of the Notre Dame community, about the old challenges they brought with them from home and the new challenges of adjusting to college life.

Once each week throughout the academic year, we’ll discuss topics in health and well-being, contemplate paths to academic success or spiritual growth, or explore concepts that might help them navigate both the increasingly diverse community they’ve embraced in choosing to study here and the steps that can lead them toward a constructive, satisfying career once they leave.

In my three years as a Moreau instructor, I’ve been blessed to meet bright, talented and motivated young men and women, and I’ve seen this wonderful side of them, the beginnings of a new period of personal discovery and growth. I’ve also seen up close some of the difficulties that endanger their progress, and have tried to help them when they need it.

What I know about the students in my section even before we convene in August is — if they are representative of their Notre Dame peers and of college students all across the United States — four or five of them will visit the University Counseling Center (UCC) at least once during their undergraduate career.

Anxiety and depression are on the rise, and the numbers at Notre Dame are consistent with this grave national trend. So are efforts to find help. The UCC had 1,642 individual clients in the 2016–17 academic year, up 68 percent from a decade before.

Why? Beyond the intensifying stresses of young life that may compromise mental health, a blend of hypotheses may best explain the help-seeking trend. Changes in awareness and attitudes toward therapy have reduced the stigma once attached to counseling. Psychiatric medications have made it possible for more students to access college. Universities themselves have become more proactive in encouraging students to seek help early, rather than waiting too long and resorting to behaviors that too often, and at their most extreme, threaten to be fatally harmful to themselves and others.

These numbers, and the lives, stories and struggles behind them, really do keep me awake at night.

Student safety and welfare are my top concerns, and meeting these needs has become increasingly complex through the years.

If the story stopped there, I would be losing even more sleep. However, I am glad to say, we are blessed with a caring community at Notre Dame and the resources to support students. The efforts of hundreds of my colleagues in Student Affairs, among the faculty, and in virtually every corner of the University, ensure that Notre Dame students, within days of their arrival on campus, encounter a community and a culture of relationship in which each one of them understands they are known and cared for personally.

The Moreau course, a partnership between Student Affairs and First Year of Studies (FYS), is only one component of our comprehensive response to the mental health challenge, but it is a very important one. All first-year students take this year-long course, no exceptions. This year, that means 2,050 freshmen.

Class sections group students with peers from their own and neighboring residence halls in the hope that important peer conversations will continue outside the classroom. The 125 instructors include faculty and staff from nearly every department on campus from vice presidents to graduate students, to Holy Cross priests and brothers and ROTC instructors, all of them trained not only to teach the curriculum, but to be able to refer students to appropriate campus support and services as individual needs arise. Similar to residence hall rectors and FYS academic advisors, Moreau instructors have the opportunity within the first days of freshman year to become trusted and helpful figures in a student’s life.

If they’re going to thrive and achieve the integrated education of both heart and mind that we strive for at Notre Dame, students need to start from a baseline of physical and emotional well-being. The McDonald Center for Student Well-Being provides wellness assessments, a sleep program, alcohol education and restorative spaces where stressed-out students can study, pray, meditate or even pull out a board game and have some fun. Campus Ministry offers retreats, faith sharing and opportunities for communal prayer appropriate to students of all faith traditions that encourage them to share their authentic selves and, every now and then, admit to each other not everything is always perfect.

When problems take a serious turn, we are fortunate to be able to refer students to our Care Consultants. Professionals trained in counseling or social work, Care Consultants are first responders to student stress and difficulty who know how to steer young people toward the care they need, and who are prepared to accompany them along the way, even when treatment requires off-campus hospitalization or a leave of absence. For students who are able to address their needs and stay in school, the UCC and University Health Services stand among the best in the country with an excellent psychologist-to-student ratio and an enviable on-staff psychiatry rotation. The staff of the Sara Bea Learning Center for Students with Disabilities is ready to assist young men and women with demonstrated mental health conditions who need accommodations to succeed in the classroom.

I won’t stop worrying about our students or seeking better ways to ensure their emotional health while they complete their educations. But I can say with confidence that Notre Dame, by virtue of its people and the culture we have created together, is as well-equipped as any school in the country to confront this issue.

Thanks to the Moreau course, I’m proud to say that starting with the Class of 2019, not a single Notre Dame graduate will leave campus without understanding the “art of completeness” and the five pillars of mind, heart, zeal, family and hope that Father Basil Moreau wrote about, the distinctive essence of a Holy Cross education. “The mind will not be cultivated at the expense of the heart,” he often said. We stand by his commitment.

“One Big Question” invites Notre Dame leaders to discuss topics related to student life, campus events or the University mission.