College students still struggling with the psychological side of COVID disruptions, and campuses are responding

Stony Brook University senior Ocean Karim recalled recently how he struggled with anxiety, stress and depression in the fall of 2021, amid the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He worried about his family and his own opportunities. With a large course load and many commitments, he struggled to readjust to in-person instruction and manage his schedule. It proved overwhelming, he said.

“I initially shut down because I didn't give much regard or importance to mental health,” said Karim, now the Stony Brook undergraduate student government president.

Karim’s struggles through the pandemic were far from unique among college students on Long Island and nationwide who endured months, and in some cases years, of isolating experiences, remote classes and online courses. That has contributed to an increase in the number of students seeking mental health care.

Karim said friends and faculty members urged him to seek help, but it wasn’t until last spring that he reached out to Stony Brook's Counseling and Psychological Services, or CAPS.

“I wish I [had] utilized CAPS a lot earlier,” said Karim, who continues to receive counseling.

Rachelle Germana, associate provost for academic affairs for Stony Brook’s undergraduates, sees a continuous loop between mental health and academic stressors that were amplified by the pandemic. Issues seen nationally, she said, are “definitely trending” at Stony Brook: impacts on students’ sense of belonging and engagement; learning loss; and lagging development of noncognitive skills such as time management and self-care.

Faculty members also have noticed less engagement and shorter attention spans among students, according to university administrators. 

“Part of what happened in COVID is some of that skill development really couldn’t take place in the same way,” Germana said. “We underestimate the impact of a high degree of self-accountability.”

Smita Majumdar Das, executive director of Stony Brook's Counseling and Psychological Services, said the number of students seeking support and services rose “all across the board” during the pandemic.

Counseling visits rose from 15,200 in 2016-17 to 17,000 in 2020-21, and jumped to 21,300 in 2021-22. 

Though visits this academic year numbered 14,100 as of April 12, indicating a return to pre-pandemic figures, “We are seeing lingering depression and anxiety,” Das said. Students report “still feeling isolated, not being able to connect socially, not feeling the motivation for academics, not feeling what is the purpose, why am I here. There are a lot of existential questions coming up.”

Colleges respond

Campuses are responding in different ways. Faculty members are changing how they teach. Stony Brook has looked for ways to boost students through to graduation, such as providing an extra chance to pass a biology lab, or using existing funding to help students catch up on credits lost during the pandemic, Germana said. 

“We have heard from faculty that they felt like they needed to backfill prerequisite material more than in the past,” said Germana, noting that new workshops and consultations help faculty develop different ways to assess student progress. So instead of just three high-stakes exams, students may take mini-quizzes and writings in between the exams, providing “more building blocks throughout the course that students can move through and achieve.”

Changes have come to Molloy University in Rockville Centre as well, assistant provost Barbara Schmidt said. She said that anecdotally, faculty believe students have been somewhat less engaged, with shorter attention spans. Many faculty are altering their presentation style, replacing long lectures with shorter chunks interspersed with group discussions or group work, she said.

“Mental health is a huge issue,” Schmidt said. “Some students are extremely introverted. They aren’t as accustomed to interacting, but generally the mix allows for group activity. It is less intimidating if you are interacting on a topic with a smaller group than in a larger group, and those students are less reluctant to participate.”

She said the pandemic made the university realize “all our services had to be more flexible to meet the needs of students who may be struggling not only in the classroom but at home. The faculty is doing more remote instruction, using technology to support instruction. … Students can make remote appointments and meet with people any time of the day.”

Molloy’s Student Personal Counseling Center saw a 60% increase in the number of appointments students made with the center in 2021-22 compared with 2020-21, according to its director, Talita Ferrara. Last academic year, nearly 11% of the university's 4,800 students had sessions with the counseling center.

“In my opinion, COVID didn’t necessarily create new mental health issues. It took things that were already there, dormant, and heightened them much more,” Ferrara said. “COVID has also increased awareness of the importance of mental health. ... Mental health has been a topic talked about that has positively contributed to help-seeking behaviors.”

John Guthman, executive director of Student Counseling Services at Hofstra University in Hempstead, said the pandemic hit students at a sensitive developmental stage, which is normally intensely social and the start of independence from family. "To some degree, that process was impaired and slowed down," he said.

But, he said, even before the pandemic, college students, or "emerging adults," came for counseling in rising numbers with increasingly complex issues.

"People come from families that have challenges and struggles, and some of those struggles are part of their experience," he said. "The complexity that students are living through, that we’re all living through, is broader than what we experienced during the pandemic."

In 2018-19, there were 5,143 visits to Hofstra's counseling service, rising to 5,532 in 2021-2022.

Campuses have created groups and programs to help students cope. In addition to its individual counseling, which includes round-the-clock, on-call psychologists, Hofstra offers short-term workshops in mood and behavioral self-regulation, and values-based self care, which helps students identify their personal values and understand "the utility of value-driven vs. emotionally-driven behavior," Guthman said.

Students seek out support

Molloy music education major Gabriella Commisso, 23, of East Islip, attends meetings of Thrive, a counseling center program created before the pandemic where 16 students recently sat in a circle sharing thoughts on mental health issues and feeding Cheerios to Lucy, a therapy dog. 

“Everybody is being their raw self,” Commisso said. “I feel I could say exactly how I feel. Everyone is nonjudgmental.”

At Adelphi University in Garden City, freshman Anthony John Martino, 18, was drawn to join Morgan’s Message, a Virginia-based nonprofit with college branches that aims to destigmatize mental health struggles among student athletes. The organization was named after Morgan Rodgers, a Duke University student and lacrosse player who died by suicide in 2019 at 22.

Adelphi's chapter now has about 50 members, including Martino, according to Courtney Wengryn and Matthew Wenz, leaders of Adelphi’s chapter.

“I started to notice other people around me having problems with mental health,” said Martino, a Sachem High School North graduate and lacrosse player. “I wanted to help them out and help my own. … I wanted to understand what was going on and how I can deal with it.”

Some students said their experiences during the pandemic helped them mature. 

Devin Lobosco, 20, a junior at Stony Brook, said seeing others struggle made him get involved with suicide prevention through the university's Center for Prevention and Outreach. But as an introvert who was comfortable with being alone, “I actually valued having some time to myself because I used it for self-reflection.”

So did Lucia Lu, 20, a second-year resident assistant at Adelphi who said isolation was a struggle but gave her a chance to think about what she valued. It was hard to be herself on Zoom, but "now I'm back in the world and can be who I am."

Looking around at the freshman class members, Lu said they “seem a lot more chaotic, in a good way. They are a lot more out there" than her freshman class. "In-person interaction did wonders.”

But educators said the effects of the pandemic on students will most likely linger for years.

"We’ll be looking at it for the next 10 to 15 years to fully understand its impacts,” said Das, of Stony Brook's Counseling and Psychological Services. “People who missed school, when they come to college, they might need more support than before because they lived through the pandemic."

"We don’t know. This has never happened before," she said.