Wooster’s Dean of Students speaks with TODAY Show about supporting college students’ mental health
College of Wooster Dean of Students and Vice President for Student Affairs Myrna Hernández discussed Wooster’s early alert systems for mental health awareness and advised parents of college-bound students to encourage self-advocacy in an article for the TODAY show. After Stanford senior Katie Meyer’s death by suicide and citing increasing rates of major depression and thoughts of suicide in college students, TODAY Parents asked Hernández how parents can support their own children.
“While they are still in high school, figure out whatever it is your child is dealing with, whether it’s academic, mental health, or anxiety,” Hernández said in the article. “Then start building their self-advocacy skills. Ask them, ‘What do you want to do about that, and how are you going to accomplish it?'”
Hernández outlined the resources available at Wooster to students including the Care Team of faculty, staff, and students that focuses on proactively identifying and responding to potential risks and collaborating to promote the health and safety of students. Allison Slater Tate, a freelance writer for TODAY specializing in parenting and college admissions praised Wooster as “one of the best in this sphere!” on Twitter. The article also discussed Wooster’s counseling services through the student wellness center and emergency mental health support available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Noting the changing dynamics between parents and their children as they go away to college, Hernández also highlighted the importance of communication and asking questions after students begin school. “Ask them, ‘Who, besides your friends, is supporting you?'” said Hernández. “Make sure they can point to someone. Even just one connection, like a coach or a professor or someone in the academic resource center is enough, but they need to be connected to someone.”
Posted in News, Uncategorized on March 9, 2022.
