By Josh Holfoth
OSWEGO, NY – The construction along route 104 that has been going on since July of 2016 has become an unwelcome visitor to local home owner Frank Palmer.
The traffic congestion along with the loud noises and dust from construction Palmer said has brought him other residents problems for the last two years.
The 4 mile strip of the state road stretching from the SUNY Oswego campus entrance, west, the route 104A intersection in southwest Oswego is getting widened 2 feet on either side. New drainage gutters and culverts are also being built along with the road getting repaved.
Project engineer for the state department of transportation Frank Brosch oversees the project. Brosch says the improvements being made to the road will make it safer as there has been problems with this in the past. One of the main reasons Brosch said for widening the road was because many tractor trailers were going off the road into ditches in that area. Widening the shoulder of the road will create a safer environment for traffic and tractor trailers; despite this Frank Palmer said he is still skeptical about how much safer it will actually be because of the faster speeds the trucks will be more inclined to go.
After more than a year the majority of the work on the $14 million dollar project is done. Despite some weather delays this past spring the better weather now means the roadwork should be done by the end of December.
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Limited Commuter Parking At SUNY Oswego
Students from SUNY Oswego find it difficult to park in Commuter Lot 8. When the commuter lot is full, students know the consequences and park in a non-vehicle spot, red brick pavement. Students, like Juliann Geraci and Adam Pignatti, explain their opinion on their struggles.
“You notice people would pull over those pavements and even if they know they would get the ticket, they would park there and be late to class,” Adam Pignatti said.
According to University Police, Lieutenant Barbeau. He states the statistic of tickets on the month of February issues 85 tickets given due to non-vehicle parking. He also mentioned the total number of tickets compared from last semester to now, is more of an issue from the beginning of last semester to now.
Juliann Geraci suggests that schools should come up with a better method of developing the spaces in the commuter lot to prevent the issues.
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Student Association Update: March 15th
The Student Association held its eighth meeting of the Senate for this semester on Tuesday evening. Following the meeting being called to order and quorum being satisfied, the meeting began swiftly. The meeting and agenda minutes were approved allowing the meeting to move to it’s first order of business, guests to the Senate.
The first guest to the Senate for the evening was the student organization Two and a Half. They have existed for nine years on campus and their main goal is to combat and raise awareness about sexual violence and assault. Two and a Half will be hosting their “Raise Your Voice” event, which has been taking place annually for the past nine years. The event will be taking place at the end of April corresponding with Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Although the organization does have funds in their budget, and they have paired up with SAPB, they requested funding to help with the costs for the rest of the event. Two senators offered to write the bill which will be voted and presented at a later meeting this semester.
The discussion of Broad Based Fees which include fees for health, technology and athletics, were presented so students were fully aware as to where their money was going. The Broad Based Fee for this upcoming school year will be $25, split three ways to cover the health, technology and athletics fee. The health fee includes everything from counseling services offered on campus, to the clinic/nurses office at Mary Walker. This fee in particular also allows the lifestyles center within Mary Walker to operate. This fee allows things such as toilet talk, open mic night, student health surveys and condom deals on Wednesdays to exist. The technology fee is also essential to campus because of the prominent presence of technology in students’ daily lives. They are looking to increase the technology fee, but that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be any additional benefits that comes along with the increase. The increased technology fee would allow SUNY Oswego to increase network bandwidth and add close a million wireless access points around campus. The technology fee is put in place to ensure that all students have the best access to internet and assistance at all times. Finally, the athletics fee is also expected to increase. Since SUNY Oswego has had the second highest number of teams in the conference for the year, there is a greater need to help fund/support the various sports teams on campus.
The meeting moved smoothly onto executive reports seeing as there were was no one for public comment. Student Association President Emily Nassir was the first to give her executive report. There were no new updates on OzFest, however Nassir has been very busy with meetings to get the SA Food Pantry up and running. Nassir has attended several meetings and has another one coming up to discuss the plans and budget for the pantry. Nassir also stated that SA is currently in the process of working on the new contract with Centro, the bus that allows students to travel from one side of campus to the other as well as from campus to in town and vice versa. Nassir will continue to update students and senators and new information arises.
Shelby Gallaro, SA Vice President was next to deliver her short and sweet executive report. Gallaro revealed that over 900 students voted in the elections on Monday and Tuesday. The election included the voting on the referendum to determine if the student registration fee should be mandatory or not, as well as the election of the new offices for President and Vice President of SA. Matthew Peters shortly followed Gallaro in executive reports, in which he informed senators he started to go through budget requests for the clubs and organizations. There will be more meetings throughout the week to work on and approve the budgets. So far, the process has been a success.
Committee Reports was the next order on the agenda for the evening. Rules and Judiciary revealed that they will now be meeting bi-weekly for the duration of the semester. Finance Committee did not meet this week, however they will meet next week with the several clubs and organizations whose budgets need to be written in order to be proposed and voted on. The Involvement Committee closed out committee reports by revealing that they are currently working on the “Miss-A-Meal” project for the end of the semester.
Hall Council reports were delivered after committee reports, there were however fewer reports. Johnson Hall has reviewed and made changes to their constitution which will then be put to a new vote to see if it passes or not.
The short and sweet hall council reports led to the adjournment of the meeting seeing as there we no general, nor special orders for the evening. The Student Association meets every Tuesday in Lanigan 106, at 6pm. The Senate meetings are all open to the public and students are encouraged to attend these meetings to voice their opinions and express their concerns.
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National emergency declared in child and teen mental health – what this means for college students
Photo by MGN. In early October, a group of health professionals and psychiatric experts around the nation gathered enough data to declare a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health.
This comes nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, and for young adults specifically in higher education, their mental health is also taking a toll.
“With the environment constantly changing, it’s kind of hard to reach stability in mental health,” Nicole Hillyard, a student at University at Buffalo said about her own struggles this year.
This includes SUNY Oswego students who have been feeling the effects of keeping up with mandates as the school resumes in-person activities.
“We’re so used to just having all these online classes, and not doing as much, and now we’re doing so much more,” Seth Nesbitt, a SUNY Oswego student said in regards to coming back in person. “I feel like a lot of my peers and I are having a hard time with the readjustments.”“I just needed to take this semester off to help fix my mental health”
KEAUNDREA HANDFORDA study called Healthy Minds Network found that last fall, college students in particular reported peak levels of depression and anxiety.
The study is led by four professors at different universities, and it details the rising trend over the last several years of mental health concerns, especially depression and anxiety, among college students.
Experts with the study reported that 47% of students screened positive for “clinically significant symptoms of depression, and/or anxiety,” which is the highest percentage since the trials began in 2007.
This data comes from the Healthy Minds Network website – it shows the percentage of students who have screened positive for depression and anxiety from 2007 to 2021. Graph created by reporter Melanie Higgins. “I have terrible anxiety attacks, like constantly, so I kinda knew that if I lived alone, especially two hours away, I would have to come home every day, and I knew that wouldn’t have worked,” Keaundrea Handford, a student at SUNY Brockport said about why she took this semester off. “I just needed to take this semester off to help fix my mental health.”
The Healthy Minds Network also studied that feeling of isolation, something Handford said she dreaded about going back to school.
In the study, they found that about 66% of students indicated feeling isolated from others sometimes or often, which experts said is a key risk factor in mental health.
At Wayne Behavioral Health, a mental health center located in Wayne County, representatives said most facilities no longer have enough staff to cover the rise in mental health concerns. However, the introduction of telehealth services during the pandemic helped them bring a new resource to patients in need.
“Because of the fact that a lot of insurance companies now kind of across the board are allowing telehealth, which is either by telephone or video conference,” Suzanne Catholdi, the communications liaison for Wayne Behavioral Health said. “A lot of people who weren’t seen before now have more accessibility.”
Mental health facilities all over the country have been struggling to keep up with the rise of these mental health concerns, and many have also been utilizing telehealth services as a result.
Catholdi said younger people and college students being seen at Wayne Behavioral are taking advantage of the virtual services now offered if they aren’t already using their on-campus college therapists.
However wait times across the board for many mental health facilities are becoming problematic for those in need. For Strong Hospital in Rochester, they said over the summer that wait times for those seeking therapy reached over one year.
“Our mental health therapists, they need to be able to be available and be on top of the needs, and we need to be supportive of our medical staff as well,” Catholdi said about facilities falling behind.
“They lost that, they lost those contacts, they lost that structure, a lot of kids were at home alone…”
SUZANNE CATHOLDI
She emphasized that staff all around are “suffering,” so It’s important to keep working through the pandemic and keep schools open as a resource for those struggling.“There were a lot of kids who were struggling already, that really needed that contact in the school with the teachers and professors,” Catholdi said while talking about the effects the shutdowns had on students.
“When there’s nothing for people to do, and no support in place, and a big question mark day-to-day about what they’re doing,” Catholdi added. “It was a big disaster waiting to happen.”
She said that students and adults “lost that structure,” and it led to a huge uptick in mental health concerns. Now therapy has become a big point of discussion.
“I did start therapy, and it actually helped quite a lot,” Nesbitt said.
But Nesbitt also said that despite these concerns being more publicly talked about, some students aren’t opening up enough.
“I would recommend that help to anyone,” Nesbitt explained, “Those who may be going through something, but even if you’re just alive, it’s good to just have that outlet.”
As things continue to open up, and people adjust to a normal life after two years shut down, those mental health concerns continue to be analyzed. The Healthy Minds Study is still in the process of gathering data during this time, and more colleges are being enrolled to help diversify the results.
