The Department of Resident Life will hire two case managers in the spring to address an increasing number of distressed student reports over the past decade, according to a Friday email to Resident Life staff.

The number of distressed student incidents reported to Resident Life has more than doubled in less than a decade, from 93 incidents during the 2006-07 academic year to 208 incidents in the 2014-15 academic year. There have been 80 student distress reports so far this year, and that number is on pace for 240 reports by the end of spring semester, said Deb Grandner, Department of Resident Life director.

The two case managers — one for North Campus and one for South Campus — are expected to be hired and begin working around spring break, Grandner said. The case managers will replace two administrative support positions that are not as student-focused, she said.

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The number of students in dorms and South Campus Commons has increased since 2006, which Grandner said could be a reason for the rise in reports. From 2006 to present, the number of on-campus students rose from 10,087 to 11,695. Additionally, freshmen are a larger portion of dorm residents this year because Resident Life is prioritizing housing for first- and second-year students, Grandner said.

Distressed student report incidents

The case managers will address reports such as alcohol or drug abuse, hate bias incidents, sexual misconduct or assault, physical attacks, and psychological incidents or suicidal thoughts — all of which have seen increases since 2006, Grandner said. From 2006-07 to 2014-15, the number of students reported for psychological incidents or suicidal thoughts rose from 26 to 65, and serious alcohol-related incidents such as alcohol poisoning or mass transport rose from 32 to 76, Grandner said.

“To me, it’s a lot of incidents,” Grandner said. “It’s a lot of struggling. It calls for a response from us to be very supportive to students.”

The case managers will support struggling students in a way that is not currently possible because of the high volume of reports, Grandner said. The average number of incidents per resident director has more than doubled on North Campus since 2006, she said.

Kelley Bishop, University Career Center director, said he has seen a much greater level of stress among college students than previous generations.

“They come with a lot more generalized pressure,” Bishop said. “There’s this feeling you have to stay exactly on the right track, and if you veer off of it, it will have drastic consequences.”

Residence Hall Association President Allison Peters said the RHA has a big opportunity to help students, and she thinks it could push for education and training improvements for resident advisers.

“RAs are a really good opportunity to make changes,” said Peters, a senior government and politics and history major. “The training RAs get right now is great, but if they could perhaps have the official training so they could serve as a mini-counselor, that would be a really good resource for students.”

North Campus resident Akash Magoon said resident assistants already provide a good level of support for all students.

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“My RA’s pretty good with support and keeps us posted through GroupMe and Facebook,” said Magoon, a sophomore computer science and mathematics major. “He also puts things up on the walls for groups that are available, such as suicide prevention and alcohol abuse.”

Peters said Resident Life has also done a good job acting as a “middleman” between students and university resources, such as the Counseling Center, and responding to students’ needs.

“If students decide [better helping distressed students] is something they want to pursue and stress, the Department of Resident Life and Deb [Grandner] will figure out some way to improve their policy,” Peters said. “Res Life, as well as RHA, is concerned with making students as comfortable as possible where they live.”