About 12 percent of UM's student body has participated in a national health assessment conducted every two years since 2000. The numbers show UM students experience depression at a higher rate than the national average, President George Dennison told the Montana Board of Regents on Thursday morning.
“It is an alarming trend - almost a quarter of our students said they were diagnosed with depression this year, in 2006,” Dennison said.
According to the survey results, about 45 percent of the UM students who responded reported they felt so depressed, it was hard to function; 23 percent said they had been diagnosed with depression; 10.4 said they seriously considered attempting suicide; and 1 percent said they had attempted suicide.
On the national level, 44 percent felt so depressed it was hard to function; 14 percent reported being diagnosed with depression; 9.3 percent said they seriously considered attempting suicide; and 1.3 reported they had attempted suicide.
The health assessment included more than 95,000 students at 117 colleges nationwide.
Dennison aired the issue during a time set aside by the regents to hear from campus administrators about specific matters at their institution, including major issues and challenges.
The reports are generally a time used by campus administrators to talk about grants and faculty awards, faculty publications or student achievements, and to broach topics such as housing shortages, faculty salaries and retention challenges.
Dennison forged a new path Thursday because it was a good opportunity to shed light on a difficult issue that deserves more attention, he said.
“It's a very serious, difficult issue,” he said, “and one of the ways we have sought to respond to it is to put a psychiatrist on our staff at the Curry Health Center in an effort to get our arms around this issue.”
Mental health issues have taken a toll on student enrollment, Dennison said.
According to a chart he presented to the regents, 232 students withdrew from classes at UM due to medical issues. Of those students, 129 withdrew because of mental health issues during the 2005-06 academic year.
The chart shows those numbers have steadily increased since the 1999-2000 academic year.
What to do about it?
“We don't know all the answers, but we are working hard to find some of them,” Dennison said.
Addressing mental health issues and working to reverse the unsettling trend is not only in the best interest of students, but the entire campus community, the regents agreed.
For his part, Dennison said he's been reading up on the issue, including Thomas Wolfe's novel about the college freshman experience, “I Am Charlotte Simmons.”
“It is about how debilitating this depression syndrome is,” he said, “and it is too easily written off.”
Dennison said he's come to one conclusion about the matter. It's no coincidence the increase in mental health issues follows the increase in student enrollment.
As he sees it, one of the contributing factors is anonymity.
“People don't know people - no one knows anybody,” Dennison said.
To prove his point, Dennison spent a day walking around campus asking students if they knew who he was.
After several encounters, Dennison said, there was “not a glint of recognition in an eye anywhere.”
UM's plan to address student mental health issues is still under discussion with faculty and staff, Dennison said. At the regents' next full meeting in Helena in January, UM will have a more detailed report and better sense of how the plan is unfolding, Dennison said.
One thing is certain, he said. “We have to make certain students aren't lost in the crowd.”
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