The Faculty Senate convened Feb. 3 to address three topics: declining interest in the humanities, the opening of the new Graduate School of Business campus and student mental health.

The senate first broached the topic of undergraduate and graduate studies in the humanities, ceding the floor to University President John Hennessy.

“We’ve seen across the country, not only at Stanford but at many institutions, a decreasing interest among students majoring in the humanities,” Hennessy said. He stated he and Provost John Etchemendy have begun a discussion about possible ways to address this trend.

“We explored in a preliminary fashion five possible ideas,” he said.

The first of these ideas was to rethink the Introduction to the Humanities (IHUM) experience, with the possibility of replicating the Structured Liberal Education (SLE) program. The second was to find ways to “attract more students in courses in the humanities, above and beyond meeting their minimum GER requirements.”

Hennessy also underscored the need to provide better guidance and information to current and potential humanities majors about future careers with their humanities degrees. He next mentioned efforts to draw undergraduates to these degrees in the first place.

“We’ve also begun early discussion about what we could do to attract more students to a traditional liberal arts degree, focusing on majors in the humanities,” he said.

The final point Hennessy addressed was enhancing the experience of Ph.D. students in the humanities. He stressed, in particular, the need to prepare these graduate students for careers outside of academia.

GSB does show and tell

Following Hennessy’s discussion, GSB dean Garth Saloner gave a presentation on the business school and its new Knight Management Center.

He commenced his talk with the GSB’s two-fold mission statement: to create ideas that enhance understanding of management and the development of innovative, principled and insightful leaders. The GSB is currently comprised of 799 MBA candidates, 56 Sloan students and 94 Ph.D. students.

Saloner stated that there had been a major overhaul of the MBA curriculum in the past few years.

“The MBA degree has really matured, and a lot of students start to think very early…about going to business school,” he said.

According to Saloner, many of these students came to the GSB as “pre-MBA students,” who already did the “bread and butter of the MBA program” as undergraduates or professionals.

“That would not be a such problem except for the fact that there’s an equivalent number of students who never headed down this track,” Saloner said.

To that effect, he stated that a “one-size-fits-all” model is no longer appropriate for the diversity of students at the GSB. The curriculum has since changed to enable students to choose from a “menu” of required courses. It has also been revamped so that first-year MBA students are required to have a global immersion experience, such as an overseas study trip or an internship abroad.

Finally, Saloner spoke about the new Knight Management Center, which boasts eight new buildings, structured around three quads. According to the dean, “The important characteristic of this complex from our perspective is that it is much more flexible space.”

He noted that this flexibility matches “the needs of the new curriculum.”

Mental health becomes focal point

The topics of mental health and well being took up the latter half of the meeting. The senate opened the floor to a six-member panel, which provided recommendations on how faculty members can be more attuned to student mental health issues.

The panel consisted of Dr. Ira Friedman, Vaden Health Center director and associate vice provost for student affairs; Dr. Peter Kao, associate professor of medicine and Castaño resident fellow; Dr. Rob Albucher, director of Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and clinical associate professor of psychiatry; Sally Dickson, associate vice provost for student affairs; Chris Griffith, associate vice provost for student affairs; and ASSU President Angelina Cardona ’11.

“We’re seeing more press coverage of stressed-out students,” Friedman said.

News coverage of national surveys and campus reporting echo this sentiment. But Friedman was quick to add, “Let us keep in mind, however, that being on a college campus is a protective factor.” College students are actually better off in measures of well being and health than their age-matched peers who do not attend college, he said.

Kao emphasized the importance of mental wellness among students and said that the University has a robust support network to foster health and wellness.

To communicate some of the issues felt on campus, Cardona read from an anonymous e-mail she received last year: “I think I can be fun sometimes, and I sure know a lot of people, but I don’t have any real friends…I feel socially awkward and out of place and community-less.”

Cardona’s description of student life demonstrated that the “Stanford Duck Syndrome” — a topic that was raised on multiple occasions — was very much a reality. Speaking on this “syndrome” at the undergraduate level, Cardona said, “The more I talk to my peers, the more I realize that generally everyone is overwhelmed here; they’re overstressed.”

Graduate students and medical students in residence in particular also face a high level of stress on campus. Efforts are underway to increase resources available to these particular populations, the panel said.

In addressing these mental health and wellness concerns, the panelists highlighted prevention efforts and the University’s “safety net.” The panelists also noted that while faculty members sometimes put stress on students, they can also serve as positive anchors.

“We would like to make sure that the faculty here as well as your colleagues know how and when to access support from our safety net,” Friedman said, pointing out residence deans, Graduate Life Office deans and CAPS.

“A simple answer is: when you are feeling beyond your comfort level in response to a student’s concerns or demands, that’s when to call,” he continued.

“We have strengthened our resources and threat assessments…that can help determine whether a student is possibly going to engage in dangerous behavior,” he added.

The panelists encouraged faculty to be mindful of student stress, to be good listeners and to model a healthy work-life balance.