On puppies and therapy

University Business, June, 2004 by Kathy Grayson

IN EARLY APRIL, NEW YORK TIMES EDUCATION REPORTER SARA Rimer wrote of the growing trend at colleges (mostly high tuition-ticket privates) to offer services that help students negotiate the mental angst of the college years. Now acutely aware that kids are arriving on campus with whole constellations of mental illnesses and issues, and that college life tends to exacerbate such ills, schools like Amherst, Washington University in St. Louis, Bowdoin, and Harvard are offering services that include everything from free counseling, group therapy and biofeedback, to free massage and puppy-cuddling--all in an effort to forestall student implosions. Not surprisingly, the increased sensitivity to the personal dangers students face during college years is being lauded by many mental health experts, but a comment Rimer makes in the Times story is also worth noting and pondering well:

"Some officials say that these services are not only driving up higher education costs, but some may also be an extension of a therapeutic culture gone too far."

Never one to toe the easy (and popular) line, I'd like to take that statement one step further: These services are not merely an extension of a therapeutic culture gone too far, they are an extension of an entire culture notorious for building castles on quicksand and then, down the line, hauling out the heavy machinery to keep the castles from slipping under.

In this case, the quicksand is the frenzied, competitive four years (and often more) through which we push college-bound adolescents. Why are we so darn surprised that the rate of adolescent mental illness, behavioral disorders, and self-mutilating and self-destructive actions has skyrocketed during this last generation of overly zealous and competitive parenting? As parents and demanding consumers, we have helped to create a society in which the fervor to get the best degree and the best job (and therefore the highest-paying or most prestigious career) knows no bounds. Our witting participants in this ever-escalating game (in which our children pay the price) have been the high school and college administrators who had little choice but to jump on board a speeding train. Now the train, careening, owns the race, and parents, high schools, colleges--and, of course, our children--can't seem to get off. Now, too, we have a society financially constructed around the Great Race.

Sadly, puppies and massages--even group therapy and biofeedback, as enlightened as these services are--are not going to save a generation of overwrought, overstressed, compulsive, perfectionistic, substance- and self-abusing young people who have lost sight of the true purpose of college, as have their parents.

I wish I could say that I have the solution to this conundrum of massive proportions which is now lunging to bite us in the you-know-what. I have no easy solution, but what I can offer is this:

Expensive band-aids are not the solution. If today I were the parent of a child about to embark upon the college-choice process (instead of being a veteran of the process), I would be helping my child seek a school or combination of schools (two-year, four-year, or otherwise) that has somehow found its way back to the true purpose of higher education: that forum for ideas and self-discovery in which a student can truly savor the process of learning for learning's sake, while searching for his calling. And I might be encouraging my child to take a year off prior to that commitment, to a) take a break from 13 years of relentless academic driving, b) gain some perspective in the real world, and c) regroup and destress before plunging into what should be the great adventure that precedes adulthood and the world of responsibilities.

As for higher ed professionals poised on the precipice of a system with band-aids about to fall away, this would probably be a good time to reassess core mission. It would also be a good time to straightforwardly address the gritty reality of one's own role in the perpetuation of the deep-rooted problems of America's college-bound youth. And it would be a good time to start Looking for serious solutions. Tacking on an extra $1,000 in semester fees for group therapy and puppy cuddling just isn't going to cut it.

You can reach Kathy Grayson at kgrayson@universitybusiness.com.

EDUCOMM LAUNCHES JUNE 9 IN ATLANTA

We're so delighted at the turnout for our first annual EDUCOMM conference, co-located with InfoComm04 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atanta, June 9-11. If you weren't able to join us this time to hear all about the rarest in "Smart Campus" technology and surrounding issues, make sure to join us at EDUCOMM 2005, co-located with InfoComm05, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Watch our Web site, www.UniversityBusiness.com/EduComm, for news.