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Student Health/Pandemic Issues
The Obama administration has announced that under the health-care law insurance plans at religious organizations, including Roman Catholic colleges, must cover all government-approved contraceptives. The law's opponents, like Michael Galligan-Stierle, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, are mobilizing against what they see as an attack on their institutions. Following is an edited version of his conversation with The Chronicle.
Most church-affiliated organizations will be required to offer their workers coverage of birth control as part of their health plans, the Obama administration announced Friday, but they can get more time than other employers to comply. From the beginning, the rule exempted employers whose primary purpose is to inculcate religious beliefs and that mainly employ and serve individuals who share those beliefs. Religious advocates argued that this definition was too narrow, excluding a wide range of church-affiliated universities, hospitals and schools.
In August, the Department of Health and Human Services issued guidelines on implementing the 2009 health care law. Part of that interim final rule would require new insurance plans for women to cover all contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration with no co-pays or other cost sharing. The rule provides an exemption for some religious employers, but many Roman Catholic and Christian groups are protesting, saying the exemption is not broad enough and will not cover their institutions.
While older people are significantly more likely than college students to take their own lives, suicide is the second-leading cause of death among college students, after car accidents. By comparison, suicide is the ninth most common cause of death among the general U.S. population. Their deaths vex parents and friends, who often struggle with the warning signs they may have missed, or that, just as often, the victims worked hard to conceal.
The issue of when colleges should notify parents their adult children may be suicidal remains fraught with legal, medical and ethical dilemmas. College policies, state laws and professional codes of conduct vary widely -- and occasionally conflict. Some mental health professionals call the Virginia Tech settlement the latest step in a trend they welcome: Threats to safety increasingly take precedence over preserving confidentiality. They emphasize that in many cases, involving parents is not only right, but helpful.
Most colleges force a student to take medical leave only as a last resort when responding to a student who is at risk of harming him- or herself. But a recent revision of a Justice Department regulation has many professionals worried that they can no longer take such steps to protect students who may be a threat to themselves. The revised "direct threat" regulation under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act is also causing confusion.
Propelled by the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which took effect in 2009, 2 million veterans, many of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan, are eligible for generous benefits that can amount to a full scholarship. As a result, colleges are contending with adjustment problems and serious disorders far different from those for which their staffs have been trained: traumatic brain injury; post-traumatic stress related to combat and often accompanied by depression and substance abuse; and military sexual trauma, as sexual abuse in the service is known.
Four days after a Florida A&M drum major died following a suspected hazing incident, university President James H. Ammons on Wednesday fired the director of the famed Marching 100, Julian White. Gov. Rick Scott also on Wednesday requested that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement assist in the investigation of Robert Champion's death in Orlando Saturday after FAMU's annual Florida Classic football game.
Being surrounded by experts is a great privilege of a college president. With the prevention and treatment of concussions in recent sports news, the end of the NFL lockout and the high school and college fall sports seasons upon us, I sought out assistant athletic trainer, clinical instructor and associate professor of exercise science Leslie Duinink. I expected to receive a physiological analysis of concussions but instead heard an impassioned plea from one who spends an incredible amount of time with injured athletes.
During their first semester at Coker College, all freshmen this year will take a mandatory "fitness assessment," in which they will - among other things - receive their body mass index (BMI) score, which measures body fat; do a one-mile run/walk; and see how many push-ups and sit-ups they can do in a few minutes. The timing is not coincidental. South Carolina this year climbed from number nine to number eight on the list of "Top Ten Fattest States."
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