After the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, and the national reckoning that ensued, CCMH immediately began to explore ways students could share recent experiences of discrimination when they seek services at college counseling centers. This initiative was deemed critical by the collective collegiate mental health community given the CCMH measures at the time did not adequately capture experiences of discrimination from the student’s perspective, and there was cautious optimism this awareness raising effort would help clinicians more effectively comprehend the contextual environments of students and enhance the support services they provide. Moreover, research emphasizing that discrimination is connected to increased mental health distress, social isolation, and suicidality (Oh et al., 2018; Paradies et al., 2015) further highlighted the need for this endeavor.

The CCMH 2023 Annual Report describes 185,114 unique college students seeking mental health treatment, 4,817 clinicians and more than 1.2 million appointments from the 2022-23 academic year. This is the 15th year the report has been produced.

College fraternities and sororities (referred to collectively as Greek life) are a long-standing component of higher education in the United States. Greek life can frequently intersect with treatment and outreach at university counseling centers (UCCs), as certain concerns such as alcohol abuse and sexual assault are reported at higher rates among students in Greek life than students in the general student body (e.g., Zimmerman, 2022). However, less is known about how Greek-affiliated students seeking college counseling services compare with non-affiliated students.  For example, while non-clinical Greek-affiliated students report lower depression and anxiety symptoms than non-affiliated students in the general student body (Grace et al., 2022), it is unclear whether this is true among treatment-seeking students as well. A better understanding of Greek-affiliated clients’ symptoms and presenting concerns when they begin counseling could help colleges/universities and UCCs identify intervention, outreach, and general support needs for these students. As such, this blog explored four questions about Greek-affiliated students seeking counseling at UCCs:

College counseling centers serve the needs of diverse student populations, including students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The demands faced by students at these various stages of their academic careers vary, which may result in differences in symptoms and presenting concerns between graduate and undergraduate students. It is also possible that graduate and undergraduate students systematically differ on other demographic identity variables that could lend insight to their presenting concerns. An understanding of potential differences between these groups could help inform the support services provided by academic institutions and college counseling centers. As such, this blog examined the following questions:

International students in the United States consistently report higher rates of social isolation than their domestic peers (Prieto-Welch, 2016; Smith & Khawaja, 2011). Some research suggests that this disparity has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the transition to online learning, fewer opportunities for in-person social activities, and increased discrimination faced by international students (Al-Oraibi et al., 2022; Koo & Jiang, 2022; Maleku et al., 2022). As colleges and universities transition to more sustained post-pandemic operations, understanding recent changes in social isolation among international students could help institutions provide them with appropriate support. Additionally, examining changes in social isolation among international students at college counseling centers could inform recommendations for students who are struggling the most and clarify impacts of social isolation on mental health symptoms. In this blog, we explore three questions about social isolation among international students attending colleges and universities within the United States:

The Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors (AUCCCD) and the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) share and collaborate on data regarding counseling center trends. This blog, the first featuring our partnership, focuses on counseling center staff turnover. As part of the annual renewal process, CCMH requested turnover data from its member centers in Summer 2022 while AUCCCD requested turnover and recruitment data from its membership during the Fall of 2022. The data reflects information from the 2021-2022 academic year.

The Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) 2022 Annual Report highlighted that Social Anxiety is the area of distress that demonstrated the largest 12-year increase among students seeking services at college counseling centers nationally. Social anxiety has been found to be prominent among college students and linked to mental health problems later in life (Purdon et al., 2001; Schry et al., 2012). Clients with higher social anxiety symptoms utilize more UCC services (Kilcullen et al., 2021; Janis, 2017) and experience stigmatization (Anderson et al., 2015). Thus, it is important to better understand current trends in social anxiety for students seeking college counseling services to provide clinicians and institutions with nuanced information that may inform care and programs. In the current blog, we further explored the trends in social anxiety, including information from clinicians’ assessments, as well as co-occurring problems that are associated with social anxiety. Specifically, the following questions were answered:

In recent years, there has been increased attention on discrimination and its negative effects on well-being, including both physical and mental health. Students on university and college campuses are not immune from experiencing discrimination. According to data from the National College Health Assessment (NCHA), 7.9% of students experienced discrimination, and this rate is even higher in students who identify with minority identities.

2022 Annual Report

The Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) is the largest practice-research- network of its kind in the world, focusing on the research of college student mental health. More details about CCMH history and our mission is described here in a prior blog. This particular blog zooms in to focus on the benefits of CCMH membership, as membership with CCMH gives a counseling center access to various tools and resources. Whether you are a current member, or someone interested in membership, this blog is designed to review each of the membership tools/benefits available and expand a bit to share how members use them in their centers.

This blog post is dedicated in loving memory of Nora Maginnis (1963 to 2022). Nora, who served as a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner at Penn State Counseling and Psychological Services, was a beloved colleague and trailblazer in providing affirming care for individuals who identify as transgender and non-binary. Nora, your tremendous work and impact will always be remembered.

CCMH Membership Growth

CCMH operates and exists thanks to our membership of over 750 colleges and universities! Since 2013, membership has grown substantially, which has allowed us to offer new tools and conduct more research that, in turn, supports college counseling centers and the clients served. All of our members contribute to research by providing center level characteristics and Clinical Load Index (CLI) information. This vital data contribution from members supported the development of the Clinical Load Index (CLI) and three years of subsequent national CLI distributions.

This blog is a summary of a CCMH peer-reviewed study that examined predictors of suicide behavior amongst student clients who received services at counseling centers nationally.

This blog is a summary of a CCMH peer-reviewed study that examined the utilization rates, presenting concerns, and treatment outcomes of varsity athletes who seek services at college counseling centers.

This blog highlights findings from an exploratory study currently in preparation that seeks to characterize student clients who report paid employment compared to those who don’t.

CCMH is celebrating Pride Month by taking a closer look at the population of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, Questioning, and other (LGBQQ+) student clients with diverse sexual identities who received care at university and college counseling centers (UCCs).

This blog is a summary of a CCMH study on the effectiveness of treatment in college counseling centers published in 2019.

The April 2022 CCMH blog post has been guest authored by Jonathan C. Cox and E. Shannon Neeley-Tass at Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.  Dr. Cox and Dr. Tass have graciously written April's post to share their findings for Autism Acceptance Month.  CCMH is incredibly grateful to Dr. Cox and Dr. Neeley-Tass for conducting this important research, using the CCMH dataset, and for share their findings with the CCMH community.

In February 2021, CCMH released a 5-part blog series that examined the initial impacts of COVID-19 on college students seeking treatment for mental health concerns. In Blog 2 of 5, CCMH compared student distress levels before and after the onset of COVID-19 using data from Fall 2019 and Fall 2020.  This blog expands on those analyses and explores the following questions using updated data from Fall 2021.

The recent racial uprisings in the U.S., coupled with the Covid-19 pandemic, have given renewed attention to the daily manifestations of racism and racial inequities that operate in American society. Race, which is a human invention lacking a valid biological basis, has very real consequences for people from historically racially marginalized groups. Public perceptions of the presence and importance of racism suggest that racism is wide-spread and affects people of color disproportionately, particularly Black people (Pew Research Center, 2016). Indeed, recent data from the FBI found that in 2020, Black people accounted for approximately one third of people targeted by hate-based crimes due to their race (FBI, n.d.). Anti-Black racism, which describes the historical dehumanization of Black bodies, is particularly pernicious and has been shown to make Black people acutely susceptible to the harmful impacts of racism, particularly on mental health.