Reweaving the Safety Net

A Conversation with Faculty and Staff
On Recognizing and Responding to Troubled Students

As stated in the College’s mission statement, Rhode Island College strives to promote the intellectual development of its students, “ensuring that each student experience academic life in a caring community…” College campuses, Rhode Island College included, are generally safe environments, where learning is truly a social phenomenon, “informed by serious inquiry, civic engagement, and open discourse.”

However, as made salient by the events at Virginia Tech last spring, and closer to home, the loss of two Rhode Island College students to suicide within the past 18 months, no institution of higher education is immune from the violence and suffering that exists in our larger society. These tragic incidents are only the far end of a spectrum of social and emotional distress that is much more pervasive than we perhaps care to acknowledge. In recent national studies, 58% of students surveyed reported feeling hopeless at times; 45% felt depressed to the point it was difficult to function; 95% felt overwhelmed at times; 55% reported suicidal thoughts and 8% had made suicide attempts.

If the College is to fulfill its intentions to retain and graduate its students so that they can lead productive and satisfying lives, we must pay attention to the well-being of the whole person, including their mental and emotional health. This must be the responsibility of the entire campus community.

To that end, I have directed Dr. Thomas Lavin of the Counseling Center, in collaboration with other key services and resources on campus, to develop and to offer to the College community a series of workshops to help us more effectively recognize and respond to students in distress. Many faculty and staff already do an excellent job in this regard, but as with any system, there are gaps in our safety net that we can and must repair.

The focus of these workshops will be to educate and to remind faculty and staff regarding:

• Recognition of early warning signs of students in distress
• How to respond to and/or approach these students in a helpful manner
• How best to refer students to mental health and other services on campus
• The availability of consulting services for faculty and staff in dealing with particularly complicated or difficult situations involving students
• Guidelines for responding to mental health emergencies

This workshop will be offered on 3 dates, listed below, at different times. I want to encourage all faculty and staff to contact the Counseling Center to register for a workshop that best fits your schedule. Certainly, no single workshop will be sufficient to solve these problems once and for all. However, this workshop can be the beginning of an ongoing conversation that we must have to reinforce and to reweave the safety net that our students and our community needs and deserves.

Sincerely,

John Nazarian
President

“Reweaving the Safety Net” will be offered on:

• Wednesday, January 16, 1 - 2:30pm, Alger 110
• Friday, January 18, 10:30am - Noon, Faculty Center
• Tuesday, February 12, 4 - 5:30pm, Alger 110

Please register by calling the Counseling Center at 456-8094 or send an e-mail to Ms. Patricia Patrick at ppatrick@ric.edu.