The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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Wednesday, March 14, 2018 — 3A
CAMERON HUNT /Daily
LSA sophomore Emily Levy discusses her personal struggles with mental illness at SpeakABLE, to spread awareness for mental illness and
disabilities at the Gallery in Hatcher Tuesday.
SPECIAL PRESENTATION
STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENTS: UCLA DEPRESSION
GRAND CHALLENGE & RESILIENCE PEER NETWORK
SPEAKER: ELIZABETH GONG-GUY, PHD
Wednesday, March 14, 3:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Rackham Auditorium
The steady rise in mental health service offerings has continued to exert pressure on CAPS services
campus-wide. In this talk, Dr. Elizableth Gong-Guy of UCLA’s Resilience Peer Network will address how
strategic engagements have helped train and engage students to support the delivery of robust evidence-
based internet cognitive behavioral therapy for students screened for mild-to-moderate depression and
anxiety. Dr. Gong-Guy will provide a preliminary overview of our findings, and describes our successes in
bringing a scalable screening, early intervention, treatment, and resilience-building program embedded in
research to our students.
This special presentation is part of the U-M Depression on College Campuses Conference,
and is free and open to the public. For more information about the overall conference:
www.depressioncenter.org/docc
SPE AK ABLE
Insel, a neuroscientist, also served
as the director of the National
Institute of Mental Health for 13
years.
Insel
emphasized
how
prevalent depression is on college
campuses,
especially
within
the larger microcosm of ever-
evolving university life.
“We are constantly trying to
figure out what kind of world we’re
living in,” he said. “Our ever-
changing
political,
economic,
scientific and cultural society
has an influence on the kind of
problem we’re trying to solve.
How do you address depression?
Or school violence? Students these
days are claiming to be from the
‘school shooting generation.’ New
tariffs may produce profounding
change within economic society.
Basically, there is a changing
ecosystem of campus life.”
14 months ago, the World
Health Organization declared the
number one cause of disability
for medical illness in the world
is clinical depression. Moreover,
according
to
a
2013
survey
conducted
by
the
American
Psychological Association about
a third of college students have
experienced depression within
the past year and had difficulty
functioning because of it.
“Students
within
the
21st
century come to college with
more issues,” Insel said. “About
30 percent of kids have been
medicated since middle school.
It seems that students are more
willing to seek help, to talk about
issues, and have seemed to reduce
the stigma surrounding mental
health.”
However, Insel warned though
we have progressed by means of
talking about mental health, we
may have progressed at such a fast
rate we cannot seem to combat
mental health through services at
quite the same pace.
“But while all of this is
changing, supply has not kept up
with demand,” he said. “Only one-
half of counseling centers have
any source of accreditation, and
only 13 percent have a full-time
person available for students.
Thirty-one percent of campuses
essentially
have
no
services
whatsoever.”
Many believe the problem to
be an increasing disconnection
within society due to an increased
connectivity
through
social
media and technology. College
students are the “iGen,” the
first generation to grow up on
smartphones. Adolescents have
lower rates of teen pregnancy
and
auto-accidents.
However,
they also have lower rates of
possession of driver’s licenses.
All we need to do if we want to
connect to our peers is just merely
sit in our bedroom.
“It most certainly affects how
people interact face to face,” Insel
said. “Kids no longer know how
to interact; the shock they have
when they leave home and end
up in the dormitory environment
or they actually have to live with
somebody who is not just an
avatar or a virtual friend.”
no prior knowledge to tell the
difference,” he said.
Anthony is one of the 28.8
percent of Michigan residents
who own a gun — but his anti-
control views are being called
into question in the wake of
the Parkland shooting, one of
the worst mass shootings in
the country’s history. Now,
as students across Michigan
prepare to walk out of class
Wednesday in remembrance
of the Parkland victims, state
lawmakers
are
considering
two gun control measures. One
would arm certain teachers
and the other would allow
authorities to confiscate guns
from
people
who
exhibit
symptoms of mental illness.
State Rep. Jim Runestad,
R-Waterford,
is
drafting
legislation that would permit
school
districts
to
give
specially-trained
teachers
access
to
guns
stored
in
locked, undisclosed locations.
President Trump has recently
endorsed the idea of arming
teachers.
In a statement, Runestad
said keeping children safe in
school means having “adequate
defenses.”
“Children
are
vulnerable
targets in our schools and
school shootings will not be
stopped until our schools are
secure,” Runestad said. “By the
time police arrive it is usually
too late. It’s time to develop
model protocols for the nation
here in Michigan, whereby
specially trained staff who
volunteer will be able to access
a secured firearm in event of an
emergency.”
Under
Runestad’s
bill,
volunteers would receive 80
hours of training on gun use,
gun safety and de-escalation
techniques,
as
well
as
instruction on how to respond
to an active shooter. Opening
the
compartments
housing
the guns would require the
thumbprint of an approved
school employee.
Public
Policy
junior
Kellie Lounds, chair of the
University’s chapter of College
Democrats, said she disagreed
with the idea that arming
teachers would help combat
gun violence.
“The solution to the epidemic
of gun violence that our country
is facing is not to add more
guns to the equation,” she said.
“By arming teachers, we would
be putting an undue burden
on our already overexerted
and underpaid educators and
making the classroom more
dangerous than before.”
The second measure gaining
traction
in
Lansing
would
establish a procedure for taking
guns away from individuals that
a judge deems to be a legitimate
threat. Gov. Rick Snyder, R, has
expressed support for so-called
“red flag” legislation, a position
that puts him at odds with
some of his fellow Republicans,
who reference concerns about
possible
violations
of
due
process.
Lounds highlighted the need
to get individuals with mental
illness treatment, rather than
focusing only on the role they
play in mass shootings.
“Mental illness, while not
the main cause of gun violence,
is
something
our
country
should be talking more about,”
she
said.
“People
dealing
with mental illness have been
institutionally
neglected
continuously
and
should
receive proper attention all the
time, not just when politicians
want to use them as an excuse
to not do anything about gun
violence. If we had more strict
gun laws, these individuals
wouldn’t have access to guns in
the first place, and so we can’t
continue to use mental illness
as a deflection.”
At
POLITICO’s
Eighth
Annual
State
Solutions
Conference
in
Washington,
D.C. in February, Snyder said
it’s “worth looking at” red flag
laws, commenting, “We need to
have a thoughtful dialogue.”
Lounds
said
the
state
government
and
federal
government
are
“severely
lacking”
in
legislation
that
would be effective in decreasing
gun violence.
“From our perspective, one
facet of ideal gun regulation
would be the banning of semi-
automatic
and
automatic
weapons; guns meant largely
for military activity have no
place in domestic life,” she
said. “We should also have
universal background checks
for
individuals
wishing
to
purchase a firearm as well as
banning the purchase of bump
stocks. Finally, as some states
and retailers are starting to do,
the minimum age to purchase a
firearm should be raised.”
The
University’s
chapter
of College Republicans did
not respond to request for
comment.
After
the
shooting
at
Marjory
Stoneman
Douglas
High School in Parkland, Fla.,
major retailers including Dick’s
Sporting Goods and Walmart
raised the minimum age to
purchase a gun at their stores
to 21. A Michigan teen recently
filed a lawsuit against Dick’s
Sporting Goods after the chain
refused to sell him a firearm
at its store in Troy. The teen
is suing on the grounds of age
discrimination.
Anthony disagreed with the
stores’ decision to raise the
minimum age to buy a gun.
productive,
which
is
the
principal motivation for the
center.
“The principal avenue to
improve social media in my
mind was to update the quality
of public discourse so that it
isn’t as corrosive and divisive
as it has become,” Finholt
said. “We’ve known, for over
25 years in some cases, a
number of simple strategies
that can be applied to make
online
conversations
more
sociable and less antagonistic,
and it’s just a question of
promoting those strategies and
compelling the social media
platform to adopt them.”
University
alum
Garlin
Gilchrist, executive director
of
the
program,
intends
to make Finholt’s dream a
reality. He is from Detroit
and has worked for Microsoft
along with serving as one of
Barack Obama’s social media
managers during the 2008
presidential campaign.
Gilchrist
said
this
experience
showed
him
that making the change the
center is aiming for is not just
possible, but important.
“It really showed me what
was possible really early on
with people using a social
network
to
connect
with
others, and it showed me the
potential for that, and that
is informing me today when
I look at how information is
spreading and all that kind
of stuff online right now, and
how it’s going to change in the
future,” Gilchrist said. “So that
foundational experience for
me showed that it is definitely
possible
and
important
to
understand
how
people
connect, how they converse,
and how they engage.”
Gilchrist and the center are
already working on strategies
based on algorithms created
by
U-M
researchers
that
could be used within the year.
Gilchrist said the center was a
response to an important set of
questions about the way people
receive information and how
that is evolving.
“How
reliable
is
that
information?”
Gilchrist
asked. “How healthy is the
environment? How can we
measure the level of toxicity or
personal attack or aggression
in the conversation, and how
can we use that research to
make tools, to make a set of
recommendations for social
media makers, social media
consumers, and for the social
media platforms themselves
so we can really make our
experience online healthy and
productive?”
The algorithms that have
already been created are able to
measure the level of aggression
or toxicity in a particular
conversation online, and the
center
intends
on
sharing
this information with social
media platform companies so
they can make their websites
friendlier. Finholt mentioned a
small change made by the New
York Times that was able to
positively affect their platform
and related it to what the
center was trying to do.
“The New York Times did
an experiment where instead
of giving people the option
of
thumbs
up
or
thumbs
down, they gave them a third
option,
which
was
simply
‘respect,’”
Finhold
said.
“So you didn’t have to say
you hated something or you
loved something; it could be
something
that
you
didn’t
agree with, but you liked the
way the person had said it. And
that simple intervention made
a huge difference in the quality
of the comment thread, and
tended to extinguish some of
the trollish behavior that you
usually see on those comment
threads.”
Information
graduate
student Samuel Carton, who is
working on machine learning
for the new center, said he felt
the hate spread on these sites
has had a serious impact on the
issues around politics in the
U.S.
“Societally, we have this
huge issue on social media
where
informal
political
engagement,
among
other
kinds
of
interaction,
is
really hamstrung by a lack
of
stability,
and
by
the
prevalence of different kinds
of harassment,” Carton said.
“It really contributes to some
of the problems with politics
in this country, and it really
drives
people
apart
when
you can’t have a political
discussion online without it
devolving into various forms
of personal insult and other
uncivil language.”
Finholt explained how, in
the scheme of world problems,
this was one in which an
average student could make a
significant impact, which is
one of the reasons he tackling
this issue as a responsibility of
the School of Information.
“One of the key things is to
recognize that there are many
problems in the world that it
can seem like whatever we
do will make no difference,”
Finhold said. “Recycling, or
driving my car less, or taking
one fewer flight, it may seem
like that’s sort of a drop in
the
bucket.
But
with
the
behaviors around social media,
particularly if we were to
create norms around passing
around
information,
there
could be within the generation
a profound normative shift
where that kind of behavior
starts to be shunned, kind of
the way we feel about smoking
in public or getting in the
car
and
without
buckling
the seatbelt. For a large part,
those
transformations
are
normative and have to do
with campaigns to fix people’s
behavior,
sometimes
very
small behaviors.”
Finholt said he believed
students could have a large
impact on this issue by doing
small things.
disability overlap is labels,”
Schreibman said.
“If there’s a label, it means
there are enough people who
experience the same thing
that a label had to be thought
of,” they said. “The simple
existence of a label meant that
I wasn’t alone.”
Schreibman
described
theater as a space for people
who are unaware of an issue
to learn about life experiences
that are much different from
theirs.
“Theater
has
this
opportunity for people who
have no idea what’s going to be
able to go for entertainment,
but also get really crucial
information,” they said.
Empathy goes a long way
for many of these students,
especially
when
it
comes
to plans after college, they
said.
A
common
theme
among
presenters
was
academic hardships due to
their disabilities. Many have
criticized
the
University’s
diversity, equity and inclusion
plan for overlooking rights and
access of disabled students,
faculty and staff.
“The University-wide plan
only
mentioned
disability
three times,” Art & Design
sophomore
Celeste
Adams
told the Daily last year. “That
was appalling and very, very
offensive.”
According
to
LSA
sophomore Emily Levy, a lack
of academic accomodations
can
affect
employment
possibilities, which in turn
makes certain these struggles
don’t end after college.
“Here in a bigger college
environment, others people’s
view of you matters more than
your own view of you,” Levy
said. “I’ve missed out on many
opportunities solely to my
GPA...”
INVALIDATE
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DISABILITIES
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DEPRESSION
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GUN CONTROL
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