Colleges within the City University of New York (CUNY) system are some of the most diverse schools in the country. Our students are bright, determined, and focused on getting the education they need to better themselves, their families, and their communities, but our students of color, immigrant students, LGBTQ+, and disabled students can face some very daunting and specific challenges based on their identities and their situations. To help better understand those challenges and empower our communities to enhance the mental health and emotional well-being of our diverse student population, CUNY hosted the “Diverse, Gifted & At Risk” Conference on November 15 at John Jay College with the support of The Steve Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving mental health for students of color. 

John Jay President Karol V. Mason first welcomed everyone to the College, then she talked about how resilient our students are, but how they still need help. “They’re juggling jobs, academics, families, and all of life’s demands, while still finding time to help others. Regularly facing those challenges—and navigating life as a person of color, an immigrant, a disabled person, or a member of our LGBTQ+ family—can take an emotional toll on our students,” said Mason. “Right now, there’s a high level of anxiety, uncertainty, and concern within our immigrant-student population as they watch the Supreme Court consider the future of DACA. At our most recent Town Hall meeting, students with disabilities voiced their concerns about facing a future job market that might not recognize their considerable talents. And, according to the most recent #RealCollege Survey, 48 percent of our CUNY students have recently experienced food insecurity. To ensure our students’ academic success, we need to understand the distinct mental health challenges our diverse student populations face on a daily basis.”

Mason then introduced CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, telling the audience that Matos Rodríguez’s commitment to our diverse student body is seen in everything he does. “When he sees our students, he sees his family. He sees all the aspirations and potential our students have within them,” said Mason. “As CUNY’s first Latinx Chancellor, he deeply understands both the strengths and challenges our students face.” Matos Rodríguez thanked The Steve Fund for their support and partnership, and all of the CUNY attendees—leadership, faculty, staff, and students—for coming to the conference.

He then explained that as a community we need to support our students with all the issues that they bring with them when they come into the classroom, and that we need to be the best possible partners for them. “In some ways, as an institution, we need to do the same thing that we tell our students to do. When we talk to students who might be dealing with anxiety or depression or other kinds of mental health issues, we always tell them that they need to acknowledge what they’re going through and that they need to ask for help,” said Matos Rodríguez. “I think that we need to adopt that same mentality.” He went on to say that there was a stigma in higher education about acknowledging mental health issues and that we needed to speak up about them to develop strategies to provide more support and create deeper connections with our students.  

To put the day’s information in context, Evan M. Rose, The Steve Fund Board Chair, told the audience a personal story about the creation of The Steve Fund. “It was started right in the wake of my brother’s death. There were several of us in the living room; really it was a bunch of people that were in pain trying to figure out how we could help other people. We thought it through, and what you guys see here today is the genesis of that,” said Rose. He went on to say, “Five years from now, 10 years from now, how will students feel when they get to campus? Will they feel warm, supported, and connected, or will they feel like it’s just another box that they checked off? I very much hope that it’s the former.” And that was the hope of all the attendees looking forward to the conferences’ information sessions on topics like: facing housing insecurity; coping with racial and gender bias and xenophobia; thriving as an LGBTQ+ student; and transitioning from trauma.

Annelle Primm, M.D., a psychiatrist and the Senior Medical Director at The Steve Fund, described the amplified levels of stress college students of color face. “College is a particularly stressful time for everyone. This is a time when many mental health concerns first happen. And, in our racially polarized world, young people of color face additional burdens—microaggressions, racial profiling, discrimination, hate crimes, marginalization, isolation, and imposter syndrome—which can have negative effects on their mental health and well-being,” said Primm. She went on to say that students of color often feel overwhelmed in the college experience to a greater extent than their white counterparts, and that they generally keep these feelings of difficulties to themselves. Sadly, those same students face additional barriers to seeking mental health, such as stigma, cultural mistrust, and a dearth of mental health professionals of color. “What we find is that many students of color are suffering in silence because they are half as likely to seek services or receive treatment compared to their white counterparts,” said Primm.

Andrés Pumariega, M.D., Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Florida, and Senior Advisor to The Steve Fund, opened the conversation to a national level by simply stating that our population is becoming more diverse. “Along with that, we have rising percentages of diverse students enrolling in college,” said Pumariega. “The good news is that our campuses look more diverse. However, when you look at the percentage that have completed their degree, the numbers are significantly lower for African-Americans and Latinos, than compared to whites and Asians. That achievement gap in many ways can be explained by the many social determinants of mental health for students of color.”

Pumariega said that there’s a convergence of socioeconomic status and race at work, looking at where wealth is and where it’s not in our country. “Obviously we know where it is, it’s in the white families by multiple times than black and Hispanic families. Students of color have higher reliance on student loans, higher debt burdens, and related stresses associated with them.” According to Pumariega, as many as one out of every two college students face food insecurity, and a significant number (14 percent in community colleges) are homeless. He went on to mention a higher reliance on working while attending school interfering with students’ studies and their ability to participate in extracurricular activities. Underscoring that problem, Pumariega shared a heartbreaking  story about a medical school committee evaluating a young woman of color. “We desperately need more diversity amongst the medical ranks in the United States. And this young African-American woman was going to college and working at a 7-Eleven 40 to 60 hours a week. She didn’t join the clubs or volunteer in activities, or study abroad. So guess what happened? She was marked down by the committee for lacking those credentials and not credited for the determination it took to get through college working at a 7-Eleven.”   

Pumariega explained that unless a student of color attends a Minority-Serving Institution or a Hispanic-Serving Institution, often times it can be the first time they’re in a largely white environment. And conversely, white students are often not exposed to diversity in their schools or neighborhoods, creating fertile ground for overt acts of racism or microaggressions too subtle to confront or address directly. “Women of color have added issues, experiencing a ‘double minority’ status as they face gender discrimination in addition to racial and ethnic discrimination,” he said. To illustrate that situation, Pumariega used an example from his own daughter’s college experience. “Entering her first year, she had an African-American roommate. Her African-American roommate was immediately targeted by a segment of the white students in the dorm. Hate statements were posted on their door. Hateful statements were said as they would walk by. My daughter tried to reach out to the resident advisor. She tried to reach out to get counseling, all very much to no avail. There was no systematic intervention. Eventually her roommate had to be relocated and my daughter was crestfallen. She was establishing a good relationship with this young woman and she wanted to learn from her.” Pumariega’s hope is that this experience doesn’t happen again on any level for any student, but that if it does, institutions have the insight, compassion, and skills to support their students of color. 

One of the highlights of the event was when Chancellor Matos Rodríguez and Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost José Luis Cruz sat down together for a fireside chat. Cruz detailed Matos Rodríguez’s extensive career before becoming CUNY’s first person of color to hold the position. Then he asked the Chancellor to reflect on the lessons he learned and what guided his views on mental health. Matos Rodríguez explained how his professional background as a historian, a public servant, and college professor shaped the work he’s done around public health and mental health. Connecting to faculty, Matos Rodríguez said, “In a university, you want to make sure that those students learn all that they can and that they go through their own journey of self-discovery. But when you see the struggles that students bring to the table, you want to be a part of how they succeed. You’re looking for support services, and you’re asking yourself, How can I convince this student that it’s okay to go seek help here?”

Matos Rodríguez went on to explain that figuring out how to best help students facing these challenges is a learning process for everyone. He even used a personal example, highlighting his own growth in the area of mental health and diverse student populations. “During my first year of teaching in Boston, a student came in asking me if there was extra time for testing. He was a brilliant guy and he had done really well at this point. I’m ashamed to say, I thought, Is he trying to pull a fast one on me?” Matos Rodríguez continued to say that at that early point in his career, he hadn’t really thought about different learning styles, abilities, and disabilities. “I went to the center for teaching and learning at the university, and that opened up an entire world for me. I tell you this with embarrassment about how insensitive my initial reaction was.”

The Chancellor went on to answer questions from students concerned about connecting to faculty and staff members that didn’t look like them; faculty members that wanted to know more about the resources they could offer their students facing issues like housing and food insecurity; and faculty members that wanted to know more about mental health support for their own teams. “We might not always have the resources we want, but with the resources we have, we have to ask, Are we doing the best job? Are we prioritizing correctly and being intelligent about the choices?” said Matos Rodríguez. “As we advocate for additional resources—and I’m not saying that we shouldn’t advocate for them—it shouldn’t stop us from rethinking about things on the table. As my wife and kids will tell you, I’m a highly imperfect individual, but you model behavior. You treat your colleagues and team members the same way you’d like to be treated.” The conference continued with a packed schedule, including a student panel, networking lunch, and three breakout sessions: Understanding Student Roles, Identities and Circumstances; Campus Roles; and Campus Call to Action.

More scenes from the event: