Coming out of the pandemic, higher education institutions need to partner with government and secure funding for mental health care services "like we've not needed it before," the president of a psychology-focused local college told a State House crowd Tuesday.
Nick Covino, president of William James College, said that two years of pandemic safeguards also put limitations on basic, necessary social interactions, which hurt students' ability to "grow."
"You can't learn what your identity is like unless you interact with people," Covino said at a Higher Education Consortium of Central Massachusetts event. He referenced COVID-era experiences like not being able to sit next to peers at lunch, or not being able to see teammates' facial expressions while playing basketball. He said this generation of students is also marked by living through the stress and fear of a deadly virus, and possibly the grief of losing loved ones to COVID-19.
A former director of psychology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Covino said that while mental health services used to be considered an "add-on" or "benefit" on campus, they are now "an essential."
"If you have depression, or you have anxiety, you can't study. It's hard to focus, it's hard to remember, it's hard to do analytic reasoning about stuff," he said.
The Newton college president said the key is preventative care, along with things like wellness centers and assistance for families to navigate medication and treatment.
"We are going to need money and support for programming for the next 10 years like we've not needed it before. And we can't do this in higher ed. You know the places that have the big endowments, they ain't here today for the most part," said Covino, whose college's student population is below 1,000.
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"We need to find the partnership with government to be able to build what we need for our young people. And we need to understand that that's building good citizens, right?"
