Colleges See Rise In Student Mental Health Problems

Accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner pleaded not guilty to 49 felony counts, including murder and attempted murder, in connection with a January shooting rampage in Tucson that killed six people and wounded 13, including a congresswoman. (AP/U.S. Marshal's Office)

Jared Lee Loughner, charged gunman in January's shooting rampage in Tucson, Arizona. (AP)

Accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner pleaded not guilty to 49 felony counts this month, including murder and attempted murder, in connection with January’s shooting rampage in Tucson that killed six people and wounded 13, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

The shooting has led Arizona lawmakers to debate whether to require community colleges and universities to inform local mental health agencies whenever a student or faculty member is suspended or expelled because of threats of violence.

We speak with Boston University Chief of Police Thomas Robbins about ways that colleges handle threats from students, including using a computer program called MOSAIC to evaluate their potential for violence.

We also hear from Daniel Hess, director of counseling services at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

BU Today: After Tucson massacre: what a university can—and cannot—do

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

Anonymous

Do we want every concern reported to the government? I prefer a system that requires the presumption of innocence and due process.

Greg Camp
Springdale, AR
http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/
Anonymous

So now our rights will be submitted to a computer for evalutation? How much liberty will we surrender for safety?
Uffagusmr@gmail.com

I am listening to the program, and so far all I am hearing interviews with “traditional” colleges. I attended Pima Community College. (Class of 2001) Pima is a community college. It is not a traditional, paternalistic, university where the students live on campus and are typically still kids. Pima is a great community college, with excellent programs. It should not be compared to a traditional college, because it is not one. Further, Pima did quite a bit with regards to Laughtner.
Bygones

Once again we, as a society are drawing the wrong conclusions. Institutions of higher learning are just Corporate Trade Schools now. They are themselves run like Corporations instead of organizations of learning and enlightenment. It’s the human aspect that has been neglected. If anyone who hasn’t been in an Academic environment in the last 20 years attended one, I feel that the majority would see the depths of corruption, incompetents, and in-human operation shocking. Professors are mostly arrogant, immovable, uninspiring, and power mad. Administration is a behemoth in it’s Borg-like hive-mind, and crushing red-tape. Money will buy your way through. Total submission will get you buy, but if you are of average wealth or poor, and have a mind of your own, the current system is ruthless in their crushing efficiency to drive out all independent thought, and punish anyone who questions them one iota. The nation is dying because of this. Original thought–that which the institutions were originally created to serve–has been banned. Monitoring students even more will only serve to drive out what’s left of our best and brightest, and the violence will increase, not decrease.
Private Sector Frog

It is good to hear a thoughtful examination of mental illness, Jared Loughner and how institutions are stuggling to handle the problem. However, the title of the story was “Colleges See Rise In Student Mental Health Problems” I would also be interested in the question of “Why” there is a rise in student mental health problems. What in our society is causing this rise? Are there any statistics to back up that there is a rise in mental health problems?
IBart111

As somebody else notes, I wonder “why” there is a rise in mental problems. I always cringe when I see how so many kids are now medicated as a quick fix because they are “too active” …. and I wonder what the damage is going to be down the road ….
http://appzguru.com/ Sair

Poor guy! And he’s still so young and so much can be achieved in this life