The Faculty Senate unanimously passed a resolution May 12 to develop strategies that would foster more personal contact with their undergraduate advisees.

Concerned about student mental health and recent student suicides, the faculty will find ways to advise undergraduates more effectively. Options could include requiring advisees to meet with faculty face-to-face at least once a semester.

Faculty members currently have no way to compel students to come see them, and students have increasingly communicated with them by e-mail and other technologies, said Abby Cohn, professor of linguistics, who presented the resolution. "We do not want the technology ... driving how we do advising. What we do want is to foster a more substantive discussion about what our goals are collectively and how best to realize them," she said.

She presented the reasons behind the resolution for changing how faculty advise:

The resolution asks the vice provost for undergraduate education, the university registrar and each college's associate dean for undergraduate education to establish "shared advising expectations and mechanisms to support effective faculty advising, including face-to-face meetings."

After the vote, Dr. Janet Corson-Rikert, Gannett Health Services' executive director, and Susan Murphy, Cornell's vice president for student and academic services, gave an overview of the university's campuswide approach to student mental health.

Student demand for counseling tripled between 1996 and 2009 at Gannett, and the problems for which the students seek help have become more complex and acute, Corson-Rikert said. Counseling is critical for the most vulnerable students because the risk for suicide decreases six-fold if a student is in counseling, she said.

Clinical services are vital, but they are not sufficient, she said. So the university has also instituted a campuswide network of support. Gannett's "Let's Talk" program makes counselors available at a variety of campus locations for drop-in consultations. A collaboration among Gannett, the Dean of Students Office, the colleges and other departments seeks to create "a caring community" educated about suicide and other health concerns, that will "notice and respond." Recognizing the critical role of professors, the Dean of Students Office distributed a faculty handbook that provides information and resources about how to identify and respond to students in stress, Rikert-Corson said.

Such academic practices as grading, scheduling and instruction can affect a student's stress, she said, as do such factors as a student's resilience, personality, support network and family expectations, she said. "Be aware that at any given time in any of your classes, there is a significant percentage of students who are operating, at that moment or chronically, at a level of stress and vulnerability that requires very little to tip them into a more difficult position," Rikert-Corson said.

Faculty have opportunities to help, by connecting with students individually and by instituting policies and practices that assure academic rigor without adding unnecessary stress, she later said.