‘We are hurting.’ Student deaths prompt mental health task force at UK.
University of Kentucky students aren’t more depressed or anxious than students around the country. The upticks in mental health issues can be found on college campuses all over the country.
But in the wake of two student suicides just this semester, UK President Eli Capilouto has convened a new task force to look harder at what UK is doing to help students who are anxious, depressed, suicidal or simply overwhelmed.
“We know this issue, we’ve had tragedy this semester, we are wounded, we are hurting,” Capilouto said Friday at the UK Board of Trustees meeting.
On Jan. 8, Taylor Rae Nolan, 19, died. Nolan was a member of the Chi Omega sorority and had been part of student government on campus. On Jan. 23, freshman Sean Culley, also 19, died in an incident at Jewell Hall. Coroner Gary Ginn has defined both deaths as suicides.
UK has a wide range of resources, from the counseling center and behavioral health services to a reporting service, the Community of Concern, that allows faculty, staff and students to file an alert on people they’re worried about. The number of counselors at UK has increased 64 percent since 2010. Visits to the counseling center are up 91 percent.
But, as Capilouto said, “you can’t simply staff your way out of this problem, there’s much more we have to do together.”
Suicide rates went up 28 percent nationally between 2010 and 2016, according to the National Institute on Mental Health. In Kentucky, it was 36 percent. Fayette County Schools have recently had several incidents with children younger than 14.
UK’s size of more than 30,000 students can make it easy for students to feel isolated and alone, experts said. Many students come to the UK Counseling Center with anxiety and think they need individual therapy, said Mary Bolin, the center’s director. Instead, sometimes they benefit from meditation, a relaxation room, yoga or chair massages.
Resilience is key, too.
“Many students who arrive here are so high achieving and expect to be successful at everything,” she said. “Common life experiences of failure are not common to our students.”
The mental health task force will be set up as a long-term commission to look for gaps in access and capacity, Capilouto said.
“The things that keep people alive are hope and a sense of interconnectedness,” said Mary Bolin, director of the UK Counseling Center. “I hope that will continue to be a focus amid all we do on campus to reach out and embrace people.”
