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We hear about mental health a lot.

From the very beginning of college, we get assured that help is all around: counseling, online spaces, emergency contacts, and so on. Yet, a month into the semester, when you’re overwhelmed with academics, homesickness, and the absence of private space, you quickly learn that you have to wait two weeks until the counselor is able to devote forty minutes to listen to you. 

The problem isn’t specific to Colby at all. The shortage of psychiatrists and counselors is nationwide, and so is unprecedented demand for their services, especially among college students. As of 2025, a Healthy Minds study found that 37 percent of college students reported experiencing moderate to severe depressive symptoms, and 18 percent reported severe depression. This is a little bit better than during the pandemic crisis peak, but it’s still very high. 

This problem doesn’t have a specific cause. However, according to the 2024 Student Voice annual survey, the leading responses to the question “What do you think are the biggest drivers of what’s been called the college mental health crisis or high demand for student mental health services in recent years?” were “The need to balance personal, economic, and family duties with schoolwork” (42 percent); “Increased academic stress” (37 percent); and “Prevalence of social media” (33 percent). Another notable response was “Decreased socialization skills due to the pandemic” (22 percent).

A lot of those factors, like the level of academic workload, or post-pandemic socialization decline, are unchangeable, and the only option is to deal with the consequences and support those affected. But many of the factors are changeable, and our community can and should focus on eradicating them to make the campus more inclusive, happy, and healthy. 

Sleep deprivation is among the most common and most dangerous factors affecting college students’ mental health. One study found that 72 percent of students with moderate sleep problems also reported mental health problems, compared to only 16 percent of students with minimal sleep problems.

Studies also show that emotional flexibility is an important predictor of mental health problems and their severity. The College can significantly improve students’ well-being by promoting a healthy lifestyle. We can start from something as simple as making quiet hours actually quiet.

The College can also invest in the development of wellness and coping skills in students. For example, the Colby Passport program, which already exists, can be modified to include more wellness seminars and workshops designed specifically for the first-years, instead of having freshmen go to random events just to fulfill the requirement.

The LinC program can also be extended, since a lot of students couldn’t find a convenient time or sign up at all. Instead of hiring additional faculty for this purpose, current staff can be used to train upperclassmen and supervise them as they share their experience with freshmen or even lead the sessions. This peer-exchange will foster connections and mentorship relationships among different class years. This is feasible because those programs are already established and may be modified to become more efficient.

The approach to mental health should be comprehensive and target all students and a variety of possible issues. There is more to mental health than depression or anxiety. There are dozens of miscellaneous issues people are battling with every day, and even something as little as acknowledging their struggles and making our learning environments more accessible can have a crucial impact. This includes expanding learning accommodations and educating faculty on topics of mental health. For example, at the University of North Carolina, faculty and staff receive basic training to spot sudden changes in behaviour and/or performance and refer those students to a counseling center.

In addition to counseling services being understaffed, there’s a disparity between different socioeconomic groups in average rates of mental health problems and average levels of access to counseling. Research shows that using online diagnostic services can reduce this gap, and while the College already provides access to TalkSpace, it can also extend online possibilities for requesting in-person counseling. One student shares their experience: “I’d prefer to have an online way of signing up for an appointment without having to call or show up in person.” 

Perhaps the most feasible steps are those on an individual level.

Even though the actions of a particular individual may seem small, they can have a big impact, in both positive and negative ways, especially if they influence others. Something as simple as talking to one of your peers may be a good start. Studies show that the post-pandemic world is extremely lonely: as of 2025, a study led by Daniel Eisenberg found that 52 percent of college students reported high levels of loneliness.

We can make the world slightly less lonely by choosing human–human interactions, which is especially crucial during the age of AI, when the need to interact with other people (in what is called connective labor) is declining.

I also suggest that you sleep more and respect others’ right to do so by obeying quiet hours. And most importantly, reach out for help if needed, whether it’s you or somebody you’re concerned about. Social support plays a pivotal role in managing stress, as a 2025 study led by Li Ruihua states. 

Mental health issues are not something we can get rid of completely, but we should all do our best to limit the damage they cause and make the world a better place for those fighting their silent battles. Everyone—administration, faculty, and students—is a part of the Colby College community and has the power to make this place a little better.

 

~ Rinat Ilyussizov `29

If you ask a Colby College student whether they use ChatGPT, you’ll usually get one of three responses:

1. an immediate “Of course not” (delivered a little too quickly), 
2. a polite “only for brainstorming,” or 
3. a quiet nod, as if admitting to a minor crime. 

The irony is that nearly everyone is using AI, and most of us are using it far more confidently than we probably should. That’s exactly why the College needs campus-wide AI literacy: not because students are doing something wrong, but because we’re navigating a technology we were never actually taught to understand. 

ChatGPT didn’t arrive slowly. It landed on campus the way a Maine winter does—suddenly, and encountering wildly different levels of preparedness. Within months, AI became part of job applications, internship tasks, research projects, and the daily academic shortcuts that no one ever admits out loud. Yet students’ understanding of AI still depends almost entirely on their major, their professors, and whether someone happened to forward them an email about a workshop. Some students get structured exposure, but many never receive any formal instruction at all. Most of us end up improvising.

Improvisation works fine when you’re deciding how much dining hall food to risk in a single sitting. It’s worse when employers now assume new graduates already know how to use AI responsibly, efficiently, and with more nuance than “paste the prompt and hope for the best.” Generative AI feels intuitive. You type, it answers—but that illusion of simplicity hides the real complexity. Writing an email with AI is not the same as recognizing when it’s fabricating information, spotting subtle bias in its output, avoiding unsafe data practices, or evaluating whether the answer actually makes sense. Without guidance, students end up learning through trial, error, and the occasional moment of panic when AI confidently invents something that absolutely never happened. 

The heart of the issue is that AI literacy at the College is uneven. Students in computational fields tend to encounter AI as part of their coursework, while students in the humanities or arts might graduate without ever discussing how AI intersects with their discipline at all. And even within departments, faculty vary widely in how they handle generative tools. One professor might encourage thoughtful experimentation; another might ban AI entirely; another might permit certain uses but never explain the limits. When norms shift from one classroom to the next, students are left guessing what responsible use actually looks like or avoiding the technology altogether out of fear of messing up. 

The College isn’t behind compared to peer institutions, but we are at a transition point. The Davis Institute for AI is the first cross-disciplinary AI institute at a liberal arts college in the country, and it runs workshops, demos, discussions, and faculty collaborations that many institutions would envy. But even with this strong foundation, the gap remains between the Institute’s expertise and the everyday reality of student learning. Students who already feel comfortable with technology show up to events; students who don’t often never find their way in. And while some classes incorporate AI meaningfully, others understandably have no framework yet. 

Strengthening AI literacy at the College does not require reinventing the curriculum. It requires weaving AI into the places where students already learn. One practical approach is to integrate short, discipline-specific AI modules into existing courses. A sociology class might explore how AI interprets qualitative data. A biology class might analyze AI in protein modeling. An English class might critique AI-generated interpretations. Students would begin seeing AI not as a mysterious external force, but as a tool that intersects differently with every field. 

Clarity is equally important. Right now, students navigate a maze of mixed messages about what counts as acceptable use. A simple campus-wide set of guidelines would help everyone understand when AI enhances learning and when it compromises it. Students shouldn’t have to guess whether something is allowed or whether a model is safe to put personal or confidential information into. Guidance makes responsible use possible.

And, of course, none of this works without faculty support. Instructors can’t be expected to guide students through AI if they haven’t been given the time or training to navigate it themselves. The College already has promising structures: FIT Fellowships where faculty rethink course design with generative AI in mind, Haynesville support for research, informal faculty discussions, and exposure to privacy-preserving tools like NotebookLM. Expanding these resources into flexible, structured training would help faculty integrate AI at a pace that respects their existing workloads while still pushing the curriculum forward. 

The first step, then, is supporting instructors. When faculty feel prepared, everything else becomes possible. Students receive clearer expectations, modules become easier to adopt, and the broader campus culture shifts from uncertainty to confidence.

Preparing students for an AI-mediated world is not a departure from the College’s liberal arts mission, but the next logical step in it. AI is now part of research, communication, creativity, policy, environmental work, data analysis, and nearly every field our graduates enter. A poet, a physicist, and a political scientist will not use AI in the same way, but each deserves the literacy to understand its possibilities and its limitations. 

Everyone uses AI. It’s time we learned how to use it well.

 

~ Aaminah Ali  `29