A cluster of suicides at the University of Pennsylvania has the campus facing tough questions about whether its culture discourages some students from getting the help they need.
Last month the university, where six students have taken their lives in a 15-month period, released a report by a task force that recommended addressing what it described as a perfectionist culture among students. Members of the task force said that many students feel pressure to put on a “Penn Face"—a perfect front to hide the emotions, stress, or sadness that they might be feeling.
“It was very concerning to me that people sort of see it as ‘This is what we do here, we’re good at hiding our pain,’” said Anthony L. Rostain, a co-chair of the task force who is also a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics.
While the university has made some changes in its mental-health resources—such as reducing the wait times for noncrisis counseling and creating a 24/7 help hotline—the task force argued that the bigger problem is persuading students to use them.
The report has also drawn some campus critics, who say that the eight-page document does not go far enough to suggest specific reforms in health resources and that it does not provide a clear timeline for carrying them out. Other critics say the idea of changing the campus culture is vague and hard to measure.
Of course, Penn is not alone in dealing with students under pressure to excel, and a focus on success isn’t unique to Penn. It’s an element of many similarly competitive colleges, which have tried various approaches in recent years to intervene.
Show People You’re Amazing
Jack Park, a senior urban-studies major, knows the pressure to wear a Penn Face, which he describes as “Facebook in real life.” On Facebook, he said, you post pictures of yourself only when you’re having an amazing time or eating amazing food or visiting an amazing place. At Penn, it’s the same way: You only show people that you’re amazing.
Last February he wrote about his own experience of attempting suicide. The post appeared on the blog Pennsive, which provides a place for Penn students to talk about mental health.
In his post, Mr. Park shared his phone number and email address, and invited responses from anyone who wanted to talk about what they were going through. Mr. Park didn’t think anyone would contact him. But in the year since then, he has heard from about 100 Penn students. Half of them were people he already knew, though he was hearing about their struggles for the first time, and half were strangers.
Rebecca W. Bushnell, the other co-chair of the task force and an English professor who is a former dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, said students should openly discuss the reality behind their Penn Faces.
Though some students may think they can’t change the culture, Ms. Bushnell said, she believes they can. She cited as an example a student who had organized a panel of student leaders—"people with the perfect Penn Faces"—to talk about their vulnerabilities, failures, and disappointments. Events like that one, where students can talk about the challenges they face and see that the people around them are not as perfect as they seem, Ms. Bushnell said, have the power to drive change.
Fostering such discussions is key, said Alison K. Malmon, founder and executive director of Active Minds, a nonprofit organization that encourages college students to discuss mental health. Ms. Malmon started Active Minds when she was a student at Penn, after her brother committed suicide.
It’s important to show students there isn’t one perfect path to success, she said, suggesting that a college invite successful graduates who didn’t take a traditional route to show students that, even if they break the mold, there’s still hope for their future.
Ms. Malmon cited her brother as someone who could’ve benefited from that conversation. He had to take a leave of absence from his Ivy League university. The idea of needing to take time off, of not graduating in four years, was “devastating” to him, she said. Students need to be told that it’s OK to not graduate in four years or not take as many courses as everyone else, she said. Mental health is more important than achieving elusive perfection.
“We need to show students that perfection is not the only thing and that success looks like a lot of different things,” Ms. Malmon said. “Schools like Penn need to show their students what a typical course load should look like, what a typical night of sleep should look like, and what a typical Penn student looks like.”
Changing a Campus Culture
Penn isn’t the only college seeking to improve its mental-health offerings. In fact, there’s a program dedicated to helping colleges do so.
In its report, the task force indicated that Penn would work with the Jed Foundation, a nonprofit suicide-prevention group. Penn is one of several colleges that are part of the Jed & Clinton Health Matters Campus Program, in which Jed consults with the colleges over four years on mental-health issues and policies. Penn is starting the process, said Victor Schwartz, medical director of the Jed Foundation.
Mr. Schwartz said the Campus Program helps to hold colleges accountable. As a participant, Penn will conduct self-assessments and create an oversight committee to track progress.
Culture plays an important role in discussions about improving mental health on campuses, Mr. Schwartz said. A college needs to create a culture where students feel competitive with one another, but also responsible for one another.
Cornell University, another Ivy League institution with an enrollment of high achievers, is also part of Jed’s Campus Program.
Cornell too has sought to change its campus culture. Although it has worked to promote mental health on its campus for years, the issue received renewed focus when six students committed suicide in 2009-10. Clusters of suicides like those at Penn and Cornell are not uncommon due to suicidal contagion, meaning students at risk may be more likely to commit suicide after others have done so.
Masks of Perfection
In response to the cluster of suicides, Cornell increased funding for mental health—something it had previously discussed reducing due to financial constraints—and expanded hours for counseling, said Gregory T. Eells, director of counseling and psychological services at Cornell.
The university worked to signal that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. The president, David J. Skorton, responded to the suicides with the message, “If you learn anything at Cornell, please learn to ask for help,” Mr. Eells said.
Changing the culture doesn’t mean making the college less competitive or eliminating the fear of failure—that’s not going to happen at universities like Cornell or Penn—but rather getting students to understand that asking for help is the smart thing to do, Mr. Eells said.
It’s important to connect with students who feel as if they’re a burden, as if they don’t belong, as if “somebody at admissions made a huge mistake,” a feeling Mr. Eells said is common in the Ivy League.
Culture change isn’t all abstract. Programming can send those messages too. Mr. Eells cited Cornell’s Let’s Talk program, started in 2002, as an example. The program offers informal walk-in counseling at locations around the campus, without any paperwork or appointment. It gives the college a chance to reach students who are reluctant to seek counseling, he said.
At Penn, Mr. Park said, students are beginning to cast aside their masks of perfection. It seems as if there have been more open discussions about mental health on the campus, he said.
“Real campus reform could happen if Penn students individually realized that, OK, I don’t have to have a Penn Face. The society I’m in has a Penn Face, but it doesn’t mean I have to have a Penn Face,” he said.
He still feels as if Penn should do more, but he acknowledges that it’s a college, not a mental hospital. It’s important, he said, that students chip away at the negative aspects of the Penn culture by working on themselves and their own mental health.
