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This brief study reports on health center visits for psychotropic medication prescriptions and academic success. We analyzed records for students with mental health needs from 2000 to 2008. Building on previous research, we found two significant variables predicting post-treatment 6-year graduation among health center mental-health clients: returning for services beyond intake and utilization of psychiatric medication. Students who returned beyond their first health center contact graduated with better rates than intake-only students, and mediation utilization appeared especially beneficial. Although these results require tightly controlled replication, our findings support a beneficial role for psychotropic medication in promoting some students' academic success.

For several years now, the Old Dominion University community college leadership research team has been examining academic affairs and student affairs outcomes on community college student success. College student professionals on two-year campuses most typically provide a wide variety of supports and interventions across campus, in settings that include classrooms, study lounges, and orientations as well as in their offices and through traditional student affairs programming. The author's experiences illustrate the well-established role community colleges play in American higher education: to provide learning and development opportunities for an incredibly diverse range of constituents. But what does the research suggest to us about how college professionals who work on these campuses can help their students reach successful outcomes? The authors identified a set of three potentially important factors: knowing the population with whom you are working, catching students when they arrive, and reaching students in their classes. The authors believe that by following these guidelines, educators should be able to implement programming with the potential to support our learners' achievements, promote their academic performance, and help them accomplish their goals.

This article briefly reports on the needs of students with diagnosed psychological disorders who are enrolled in 2-year colleges and studying at a distance. A six-feature descriptive model was constructed that included three areas of need (Hurdle of Self-Disclosure, Hurdle of Personal Connection, Hurdle of Time Management) and three corresponding roles for counselors (Psycho-emotional Support, Relationship Support, Learning Support). We discuss the relationship between the descriptive model derived from the current study and the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, which historically has been applied to work with this population. Implications for the roles of college psychotherapists at 2-year institutions are presented.

The article discusses the growing mental health needs of college students (especially during the COVID-19 pandemic) and emphasizes the importance of early intervention and support. It highlights the fact that while the severity of mental health disorders may not have increased significantly, the complexity and disruptiveness of these disorders in students' lives has grown.

Everybody on campus is responsible for recognizing and responding to students in crisis. Sometimes the difficulty is knowing when to intervene. Being alert to students' mental health and wellness needs is an essential part of work life on today's campuses--even when it means stepping out of one's own narrow professional roles or risking leaving comfort zones. In fact, according to studies by Robert Gallagher, James C. Turner, and Adrienne Keller, about 2,000,000 students nationwide visit their college counseling centers, and millions more visit campus health centers each year. However, counseling and health center staff are only part of the support system for students' mental and physical well-being. Professors who notice strange behavior in class, residence life staff who respond to self-harm, Greek Life staff who arrange eating disorder interventions, and residence advisors supporting students with unplanned pregnancies all serve as reminders that being on the lookout for student wellness concerns, approaching students who appear in need, and following through--must be the gold standard.

This article focuses on counseling research in the community college context. The article suggests the need for a robust community college knowledge base, describes some limitations of the current community college literature, and suggests a framework for more effective work in this area. The authors' own experiences and selected examples of published studies are used as illustrations of the hurdles encountered and solutions available when examining counseling theories, practices, and outcomes in 2-year settings.

This article presents research and evidence-based practices for identifying, understanding, diagnosing, conceptualizing, and providing a continuum of treatment for the most commonly experienced types of eating-related counseling concerns--namely, eating disorders not otherwise specified--among the population most likely to present these types of needs: adolescent girls and young adult and adult women.

Community colleges often are catalysts for economic and workforce development in localities with high unemployment or large numbers of dislocated workers. Increasingly, dislocated workers--individuals who have experienced job loss due to occupational closings, reduced workforces, or severe local economic downturns--are enrolling in educational and retraining opportunities, career counseling, and other supports offered by their local community college in partnership with federal and state assistance programs. Although benchmarks for two-year college success include providing institutional supports to address students' academic, social, and personal adjustment needs, little research exists to help guide effective practices aimed at supporting dislocated workers' two-year college adjustment, retention, and success. To help fill this gap, this study collected data describing 117 dislocated-worker students' academic, social, personal-emotional, and institutional adjustment. Next we compared dislocated worker adjustment factors with those of 143 nondislocated worker students. Contrary to our expectations, the dislocated workers in our study actually reported better academic adjustment and better academic performance than other students. Also contrary to our expectations, we found no differences in adjustment needs between the two different groups on the basis of social support, goal-directedness, or barriers to employment success. We discuss implications for practice arising from our unexpected findings and present limitations of the study and directions for future research. (Contains 2 tables.)

This study examined the effects of on-campus residence, in comparison with commuter status, on academic performance, vocational commitment, self-efficacy, and perceptions of the college environment among female and male Iranian students at Shiraz University, Iran. The study sought to extend previous work investigating the effects of college residence on adjustment by testing these effects with a national population that has received relatively little attention in the extant counseling literature. Nearly all previously published studies exploring these phenomena have focused exclusively on college students in the United States. We found that residential living had positive effects on student adjustment and academic performance and that these effects were mediated by gender. Implications of these findings for the college psychotherapy and student development knowledge base, college and university psychotherapists working with international students and American students of Middle Eastern and Northern African descent in the United States, and college counseling professionals working in Middle Eastern and North African nations, as well as critical limitations of the study, are discussed. (Contains 2 tables.)

Objective: This article builds on earlier discussions about college health research. The author suggests a 5-step framework that research practitioners can use to build models of practice that accurately address the needs of diverse campus populations. Methods: The author provides 3 illustrations, drawn from published research examining college women with eating-related concerns, making the case for the importance of the Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified Diagnosis; examining African American students' social adjustment, making the case for an innovative model of needs; and examining minority sexual orientation students' identity development, making the case for a specialized developmental model. Conclusions: Following the illustrations, the author offers implications for practice and limitations of the proposed framework. (Contains 1 table.)

Student affairs educators and academic faculty continue to respond to demands that they become more accountable; conduct better assessments of learning outcomes; and demonstrate, through evaluation, the contributions they make to institutional missions. In this article, the authors bring together multiple resources selected for their potential to assist educators with the important tasks of evaluation and assessment of student learning. The selected media resources include two recent books, Web-based survey tools and Blackboard evaluation components, and spreadsheets and statistical packages. The authors also explain how to use a theory of action as a road map when designing evaluation and assessment projects. (Contains 7 notes.)

Counseling in the college setting comprises preventive, developmental, and psychotherapeutic services, as well as consultation, supervision, and teaching. The college counseling field responds to continual changes in client demographics, contemporary practices, counseling center mission, and institutional direction. Professional conversation about the issues college counselors face and the practices they use allows them to more effectively adapt to these changing contexts. The Journal of College Counseling (JCC) publishes critical examinations of pressing professional concerns and descriptions of newly emerging practices. Professional Issues and Innovative Practice submissions allow college counselors an avenue for sharing within the professional community and making a contribution to the scholarly literature. The purpose of this article is to provide suggestions on how to communicate successfully when writing manuscripts for the Professional Issues and Innovative Practice sections.

College psychotherapists and student development professionals need to better understand which students utilize available supports on campus, when positive outcomes are due to intervention effects versus participant self-selection, and whether supportive experiences have different effects depending on developmental differences among participants. This article reports on an ongoing research program investigating interventions for a diverse range of college clientele, including: first-year experience classes, peer mentoring for African Americans at predominantly White institutions, mandated counseling for at-risk financial aid students, adult distance learners, and women counseling clients with eating disorders. Findings from the ongoing research suggest three tentative themes: (1) support services tend to be most utilized by developmentally low-risk students; (2) participants tend to prefer programs providing high social support, versus self-directed, less engaging interventions; and (3) regarding intervention effects, interactions cause a "curvilinear relationship" between self-development, provision of support, and program outcomes. Counseling implications and directions for continued research are discussed. (Contains 1 table.)

This article provides information and several recommendations that the authors (the journal's editors) believe will be helpful to researchers and practitioners who wish to contribute to the college counseling knowledge base by submitting research manuscripts to the Journal of College Counseling (JCC). The authors hope that the comments made in this article will encourage more of JCC's readers to also become its writers.

Old Dominion University's distance learning program, called TELETECHNET, brings the main-campus college experience to geographically distant learners at sites across Virginia and as far away as the state of Washington, as well as to military personnel on Navy bases, carriers, and submarines. In an interesting turnabout, the Summer Institute for Distance Learners is now bringing students to the main campus. Many institutions invite distance learners to campus for a long weekend. What makes this program different is that students participate in courses on campus for at least a week, and some stay for an entire month. Over the years, administrators, faculty, and staff have discovered that adult learners arriving for the extended institute face concerns similar to those of traditional-age students. As a result, the program has been reshaped over time to offer support beyond the classroom. Participants deal with college transition issues, confront intellectual and developmental challenges, and leave campus with a shorter version of the traditional collegiate experience. (Contains 4 notes.)

The use of clinical supervision is central to mental health work. In this article, the authors propose using practice cases drawn from characters found in literature, popular fiction, biographies, television, and movies as one method for clinical supervision and professional development in the mental health skill areas of client assessment, case conceptualization, diagnosis, and treatment planning. The method is illustrated with clinical formulations pertaining to four practice clients: Scarlett O'Hara; Maya Angelou's Marguerite Johnson; the fairytale character, Hansel; and the Wicked Queen of Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Applications and limitations of the method are discussed.

This qualitative study combined descriptive written instruments and focus group data to investigate heterosexual college students' current attitudes toward gay and lesbian peers, a distinctly at-risk population. Overall, participants were generally supportive, but participants felt public pressure to hide or shield the support they felt for gay male and lesbian civil rights and tone down privately held religious views antagonistic to gay males and lesbians. In addition, participants appeared more knowledgeable than they actually were about gay male and lesbian issues. Suggestions and limitations are discussed.

Examined the college adjustment demands and developmental tasks unique to college women with eating disorders. Their issues included problematic perfectionism associated with academic and personal adjustment; managing the health consequences, dysfunctional behavior, and stress of eating problems; and social support needs. They also tended to share a history of early psychological issues and family dynamics. (EV)

Human service educators face increasing pressure to design programs that respond more directly to students' needs. This article reports on service learning as one strategy for more actively engaging students in the learning process and for applying theory to practice. Methods for designing, implementing, and evaluating a service learning experience are described. (Contains 20 references and 2 tables.) (Author)

Student personnel professionals are beginning to have key roles and increased involvement in distance learning programs. This article presents a work sample exercise for use when interviewing and hiring college student personnel administrators for professional positions in distance learning programs. (Contains 20 references.) (GCP)

Using qualitative research methods, the authors investigated African American college students' social climate experiences. Results expanded upon previous research on the college transitions and counseling needs of African Americans in predominantly White campus environments. Advantages and limitations of using qualitative designs to examine African American student issues are also discussed. (Author/GCP)

The effects of personality construct, goal instability, peer affiliation, and teacher support on undergraduate distance learners' quality of learning experiences and academic outcomes was examined. Participants demonstrating high goal instability had more positive learning experiences when they perceived higher levels of classroom social support. (Author/EMK)

A study examined four features of African-American college students' social adjustment to predominantly White campuses: sense of underrepresentedness; direct perceptions of racism; hurdle of approaching faculty; and effects of faculty familiarity. The model described African-Americans' experiences in adjusting to institutional climate and relating to faculty but did not describe similar social-adjustment perceptions of White students. (Author/MSE)

A study found African-American students at a predominantly white university who participated in a freshman peer mentor program were likely to raise concerns with peers as they would not in programs promoting help-seeking. Participants reported promising rates of problem resolution following mentor interventions, had higher two-year retention rates than non-participants, but only comparable grades. (Author/MSE)

Describes a program evaluation measure for assessing college student development intervention outcomes. Outlines the management, student-centered, and implementation approaches of the measure and examines the model's application in student development. Uses two case examples in which the model is applied to student services assessment projects to illustrate the method. (RJM)

Investigated interaction effects between goal instability and social support with 113 first-year college students. Results revealed that academic and personal adjustment were mediated by an interaction between college students' goal instability levels and social support found in the university environment. (Author/NB)

Evaluated outcomes of freshman orientation seminar on orientation to college. Found college freshmen's (n=113) participation was associated with improved academic and social adjustment, in contrast to normal trend of declining adjustment over first semester. Seminar seemed successful at increasing participants' knowledge of university and providing available support services, and at promoting adjustment to campus social environment. (Author/ABL)

Explored validity of Superiority Scale and Goal Instability Scale in predicting levels of adjustment to academic, personal, social, and institutional demands of college life among matriculating freshman women. Freshman women completed two scales first upon arrival at college (N=178) and again near end of first semester (N=88). Results provided only partial support for predictive validity of scales. (Author/NB)

The article focuses on the importance of mental health and wellness needs on the U.S. campuses to help students in crisis. It discusses when do mental health problems become urgent and the susceptibility of students to psychological problems. It outlines students' psychological predispositions and biological predispositions for mental health problems.