Campus ministries, counselors join to tackle mental health

ST. PAUL, Minn. — As student anxiety skyrockets, campus ministries are trying to help by not only offering the comforts of faith and community, but also creating collaborations with mental health professionals. “We’re good partners, and routinely refer back and forth,” said Calvin Chin, Princeton University’s director of counseling and psychological services, which a third of students use. “We’re really thinking holistically about how to support a student, what they need to lead successful and satisfying lives.” On a spring Saturday afternoon close to finals week, Sadaf Shier, the Muslim chaplain at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, oversaw a celebration for the end of Ramadan where students of all faiths, or none, did stress-reducing activities like flowerpot painting and henna hand decorating. “That’s directly supporting mental health.” Ellingson also saw a direct connection between faith and mental health: Belief in a higher being leads students to feel that “you’re loved by the cosmos and you matter in this big sense.” But he added the challenge is to broaden ministry’s outreach. It found everything from sadness to suicide plans increased by more than 40% in the decade before COVID-19 — and that the pandemic’s further impact was “devastating.” Counselors are seeing distress become more widespread and more severe — particularly anxiety, which overtook stress and depression among students, according to the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors.