Monday, November 16, 2009
College students who engage in binge drinking tend to earn lower grades than students who don't abuse alcohol, according to a newly released report. The Center for the Study of Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State conducted a study that shows a clear link between alcohol abuse, mental health symptoms, and academic performance. The study's data illustrate a strong inverse correlation between grade-point average and consumption of alcoholic beverages. (more)
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Ben Locke, associate director of the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services at Penn State, has been awarded the Outstanding Early Career Psychologist Award from the American Psychological Association. The award is in recognition of Locke's efforts to establish the Center for the Study of Collegiate Mental Health (CSCMH) at Penn State, a collaborative effort designed to advance the understanding of student mental health, to monitor mental health trends, to conduct large scale research and to enhance the tools available to mental health providers. CSCMH is a multidisciplinary research center involving more than a dozen Penn State faculty and students from five different departments, as well as a national practice and research network of university counseling centers at 145 institutions. (more)
Friday, July 14, 2006
Penn State's Board of Trustees held its regular, bi-monthly meeting July 14 at the Hyatt Philadelphia. In his opening remarks to the board, President Graham B. Spanier talked about the University's ties to the City of Brotherly Love, noting that Penn State actually was born in the city through the efforts of the Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture. One of the Philadelphia Society's most distinguished members, Frederick O. Watts, was elected the first chair of the college's Board of Trustees. Today, Penn State Abington, Penn State Delaware County and Penn State Great Valley enroll a total of more than 6,000 students each year. These three campuses alone contribute nearly $270 million annually to the economy of the city of Philadelphia and the nearby counties of Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware and Chester. Including the impact of those three campuses, Penn State has an overall annual economic impact of about $350 million in this region, according to a recent study. Some 64,000 Penn State alumni live in Philadelphia and the four surrounding counties -- one in four of all Penn State alumni who reside in Pennsylvania. Montgomery County itself has the second-highest number of Penn Staters of any county in the commonwealth, with more than 19,000 alumni.
Read the full text of the president's remarks at http://live.psu.edu/story/18615 (more)
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Undertaking an initiative unprecedented in the field of college student health care, Penn State will administer the new Center for the Study of College Student Mental Health (CSCSMH). Senior staff at Penn State's Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) recently announced the endeavor, which aims to create a nationwide data-sharing network of college and university counseling centers that will enable real-time tracking and analysis of the state of mental health among American students in higher education who seek mental health services. "The center will address a critical gap in the research on college student mental health: the ability to accurately and routinely describe the state of university and college counseling centers, on a national level, as measured by raw standardized data," said Ben Locke, CAPS assistant director of research and technology and national coordinator of the CSCSMH effort. CAPS director Dennis Heitzmann notes, "Outside of some end-of-year surveys that provide information about counseling centers or clientele, there has never been a effort that offers regular, recurrent, real-time information on the students that we serve. Consequently, we will be able to track trends, outcomes and student reactions to major crises at the campus level and also at the national level." (more)
