“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world,” former South African President Nelson Mandela once said. But what happens when education becomes a weapon against you, and complicates your life by testing your mental health, with depression as a result?

Genesis Vancebi, a psychology major at Marymount Manhattan College, is a college student facing depression. “I think what has caused my depression is the amount of adjusting I had to do to fit in,” she said. “I was transitioning from high school to college. So, I wasn’t mentally prepared for the work I would be doing for just two classes during my first semester.”

Ayodele Floyd, a psychology student at Brooklyn College, said that work and social pressures add to the workload burden. It’s “not only the workload but the life surrounding that student” that can trigger depression, she said.

A 2010 study by Laura W. Perna found that nearly half of college students work an average of 34.5 hours per week. “I work and have a social life and attempting to arrive at deadlines can be quite overwhelming,” said Floyd.

Christopher Alvarez, a marketing student at Baruch College, points out another factor that can lead students into depression: the lack of socialization. “In a college in the city, with no campus, there is a lack of social life, and this is what sparks any sadness or depression any student may have,” said Alvarez.

Julie Wolfson, outreach and research director at Fountain House’s College Re-Entry program, believes that there isn’t an exact factor that leads students into depression, but the big college transition plays a significant role. “There can be a lot of things that go along with it. In addition to the academics that are rigorous, they might also now be responsible for their own meals and their own laundry and maintaining a living space,” said Wolfson.

As Alvarez commented, socialization is big part of the college experience and Wolfson agrees that a student’s struggle to fit in or find a social circle might affect their mental health. “If a student is isolating a lot, if they are not getting out, if they aren’t meeting people that kind of fulfill that need for social community,” she said, “those can be factors leading to students feeling depressed.”

On the other hand, people like Marymount’s Vencebi can become socially anxious when around too many people. “I’m transitioning from a public to a private school which means it is more intimate than public schools, and I have always been one not to socialize,” said Vencebi.

One other crucial factor that can lead students into depression is financial instability. According to a study by Feeding America, 31% of people decide whether to pay tuition or eat. In addition, Federal Student Aid reports that about 44 million Americans have taken out student loans. According to statistics from the Education Data Initiative, student loan debt is over $1.61 trillion.

It is uncertain  whether President Biden will cancel or reduce student loan, debt, although he promised student debt forgiveness during his election campaign.

Cleyding Lopez took a break from her studies because she couldn’t afford her tuition. “As an illegal immigrant who wants to improve her life, going to college is a more difficult challenge because I don’t get student aid as other people whose legal status is different from mine,” said Lopez, who was in her second semester at Kingsborough Community College.

Brooklyn College’s Floyd sympathized. “I can only imagine for those who don’t receive aid, not only would you have to worry about succeeding in classes, but also struggle to remain financially eligible to take these classes,” he said.

In recent years, many students have seen Covid-19 as one of the causes of poor performance, which has emotionally and financially affected their careers.

“Covid destroyed my GPA,” said Baruch’s Alvarez. “Sure, cheating was the wave, and it did seem like easy A’s, but without motivation to go to class and do classwork I just slumped hard,” he added.

Other students started college during COVID, and don’t know the difference between going to college pre COVID or during COVID. The amount of work required can be surprising. “I never have experienced college without Covid. However, I anticipated the amount there was to come and was somewhat prepared for it,” said Floyd.

Although coming back to campus won’t be the same for students, Floyd is glad for the new experiences. “I am excited to be here,” said Floyd.

Floyd thought online school was going to be easier but was proved wrong. “Professors got creative and made the workload harder; due to this, my grades slowly began to decrease, and I was losing my mental stability,” she said.

Counseling is a service offered to all students in colleges, but not all take advantage of it. “They always say, ‘We understand,’ but they don’t. They are not in our shoes currently to understand what we feel,” said Vencebi.

If you don’t want to go to counseling at your college, there are other options like U ARE HEARD virtual counseling.

Marc Lehman, founder of U ARE HEARD, developed this platform as he noticed the lack of engagement between students and college counseling centers.

“Unfortunately, the statistic right now is that only 11% of students on campuses engage in assistance. In addition, students that are depressed and anxious are extremely on edge,” said Lehman.

As well as U ARE HEARD, Fountain House’s College Re-Entry offers a core semester to help students that are struggling with mental health challenges that wish to re-enroll in school. They also help those who transitioning to college for the first time. If you would like to get more information here is the link.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to obtain information on how the Brooklyn College Counseling Department handles students dealing with mental health challenges post COVID. The Department did not make anyone available for comment.

CUNY faculty, staff, and students called on the Bronx State Assembly and State Senate delegation to support an increase of $500 million in CUNY funding ahead of the final state budget at a loud rally at Lehman College on March 30.

Students and faculty rallied alongside Councilmember Eric Dinowitz and Ruth Wangerin, Lehman chapter chair of Professional Staff Congress, calling on the NY Senate, Assembly leadership, Bronx assembly members and state senators to support raising CUNY’s funding by $500 million. Governor Hochul’s proposed budget increases funding to CUNY and SUNY by $150 million each. They argue that CUNY has been underfunded for years.

Everyone in attendance chanted “a New Deal for CUNY” as they held signs that stated, “CUNY is about racial and economic justice” and “Invest in CUNY, Invest in New York.”

Declan O’Boy, a Macaulay Honors student at Lehman College studying history and political science, found it ridiculous how legislators have to think twice about funding CUNY.

“This New Deal program will give us the necessary funding to hopefully reduce tuition and help more low-income students. I go to class with people who are parents taking care of their children while getting their degree, on top of that having to work too,” said O’Boy.

According to a 2021 University Faculty Senate study, colleges that serve predominantly Black and Hispanic students had the lowest full-time faculty to student ratios.

The study found that since the early 1990s, per-student state funding for CUNY senior colleges has fallen 38% and has contributed to the university’s current staffing crisis. More than 75% of CUNY students are people of color.

“More than half of our students come from families with incomes less than $30,000,” said Councilmember Dinowitz during the rally.

“CUNY has provided them an incredible opportunity to do better for themselves and their families. And it’s time our state budget reflects that, with $500 million extra dollars for our students, professors, counselors, and everything our students need to succeed,” said Dinowitz

The New Deal for CUNY would require 65 full time faculty and one mental health counselor per every 1000 students, plus one academic advisor for every 250 students.

According to Inside Higher ED, in 2008, CUNY senior colleges had 41 full-time faculty per 1,000 full-time equivalent students; in 2019, there were only 34 full-time faculty per 1000.

The top concern for the PSC, the faculty union for CUNY, and the CUNY Rising Alliance, is getting an increase of $500 million to fund faculty lines, advisors and mental health counselors, adjunct parity, and make CUNY free for students, said PSC spokesperson Fran Clark.

Part-time counselors were hired with time-limited stimulus funding, CUNY has a mental health counselor ratio of 1:1,876, far less than the 1;1000 ratio called for by the New Deal for CUNY, which the International Accreditation of Counseling Services describes as a minimum to serve students’ needs.

English and Journalism professor, Jennifer Mackenzie, a full-time faculty member at Lehman College is outraged by the conditions that faculty members and students have to work.

“New York City has made millions and billions of dollars off this pandemic and the burden of not knowing how they’re going to eat, how they’re going to pay rent and where they’re going to sleep is being born by the students here,” said Mackenzie.

“What this state and city could do to relieve just a little bit of that burden and that’s unfairly being born by the students who are having to pay for something that used to be free,” she added.

During these last days of the budget negotiations, the challenge is that other worthy and not-so-worthy expenses are on the budget negotiating table and legislators are deciding final priorities.

Ruth Wangerin, adjunct faculty member and PSC Lehman College Chapter Chair, underscored that there are outstanding students in CUNY.

“Tell the Governor that we have talent here in the Bronx just waiting for a fair chance to shine. They deserve the best and their teachers want the best for them. Now let the state government in Albany do its best for them,” said Wangerin.

For decades, the United States has been the epicenter of higher education, attracting generations of students from around the globe. However, in more recent times, the US is witnessing a steady decline in interest from foreign students. In fact, the US government reported an 18% drop in overall international student visa holders and a whopping 72% decrease in new enrollments even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decline in enrollment rates can be attributed to factors such as competition from countries like Canada and Australia. A recent study conducted by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), found international student enrollment rates dropped by 7% at US institutions but rose 52% at Canadian colleges during 2016-2019.

“I always dreamed about studying in America,” said 18-year-old Mana Rai, who resides in Kathmandu, Nepal. “But with little to no hope of being able to stay in the country after graduating, Canada is starting to seem like more of a better option,” she added during a phone interview.

Unlike the United States, Canada offers visa and immigration opportunities, allowing international students to remain in the country immediately following graduation through its Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP), which is commonly seen as the first major step towards obtaining permanent resident status.

According to data collected by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), from January to October 2021, 97.5% of international students who applied for permanent residency following their graduation were successful and were awarded legal permission to stay and work in the country.

By contrast, following the Trump administration’s short-lived immigration directive, over one million international students in the United States were barred from residing in the country if their school offered a fully online schedule for the Fall 2020 semester. Students already in the United States were to be deported and the remaining students that had already left the country were denied re-entry.

“I was shocked,” said Rai. “How can you deport someone with a valid visa? It was purely racist and the message was very clear– we [international students] are obviously not welcome in the States,” she said.

Although the Trump administrations immigration directive rescinded the directive after facing eight federal lawsuits and the opposition of hundreds of universities, it still prohibited new international admission from entering the United States if their school was conducted entirely online, inconveniencing thousands to attend classes with major time differences and limited physical resources.

Similarly, denial rates for employment-based Green Cards increased by 15.5% in the last quarter of 2019, again under the Trump Administration, making obtaining permanent residency in the United States more challenging than ever before.

Other foreign students ponder whether the tuition costs and additional fees that come with obtaining an American education are truly worthwhile.

“Simply put, it’s just too expensive,” said 21-year-old London resident, Naomi Harris. “I don’t see the point in spending tens of thousands of dollars on tuition alone, with no guarantee of getting a job or any possibility of being able to stay back in the country,” she said.

Educators also ascribe the decline in foreign enrollment rates to what they are calling the ‘Trump Effect,’ in which anti-immigrant rhetoric has caused a general concern over the safety and security of international students in the United States.

“After the 2016 election, there was a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment,” said Jesus Perez, who is Director of the Immigrant Student Success Office at CUNY Brooklyn College. “People [International Students] felt not welcome or that being here [the United States] would be an uphill battle,” he said.

Despite the hardships and overall foreign disinterest, international students already in the United States are eager to complete their degree and accredit American education for its financial power.

“I left India knowing I would have more of an opportunity making more money here in the same field,” said 24-year-old Brooklyn College marketing student, Yajat Mahjan. “I’m also a chef, but I wasn’t making enough money in India to live in the city, whereas in New York I am able to make enough money to sustain myself,” he said.

As of 2019, Brooklyn College was home to 578 international students from over 50 countries, largely from China, South Korea, and India. The Brooklyn College International Student Services Office was unable to provide comparative data on international student enrollment rates from pre-pandemic years to the present day, despite repeated efforts to get in contact with them. However, the campus community heavily relies on its international community and recognizes their usefulness at Brooklyn College.

“International students bring value to the campus,” said Perez. “Especially with college and academia, we want to be able to look at things from a different perspective, so they [International Students] enrich our community,” he said.

The 16th National Black Writers Conference opened on March 30th, gathering writers, scholars, and literary activists to discuss the emerging themes and pressing issues in Black American and African literature.

The first-day keynote for the four-day event, hosted by the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, featured a discussion on the “beautiful struggles” of authorship in Black and African communities, through an interview of author Haki Madhubuti, with Keith Gilyard as the interviewer. The conversation was moderated by English Professor Joanne Gabbi.

Gilyard, professor of English and African American Studies at Penn State University, helped initiate the event at Medgar Evers back in 1986.

The National Black Writers Conference aims to spotlight stories of the contemporary and the past struggles of Black and African writers. Their messages help enlighten younger authors on the meaning of persistence, so as to inspire them to overcome their obstacles as Black writers.

Guest speaker and poet Nikki Finney set the stage for the discussion, opening with her poem called, “There is a poet brother standing in the middle of a circle reading to black people.” Her verse continues, “he is draped in African fabric, in Malcolm X Shabazz Park. Nobody has a cell phone in their hand and their eyes are watching him, staying near his words.”

Haki Madhubuti, who was dressed in African fabric, spoke to the 202 livestream viewers about his rocky past growing up poor, losing his mother at 16 years old, then leaving his home a year later to pawn everything he owned and go to serve in the U.S military from 1960 to 1963. He served despite having a heart condition.

“I went in, and was not supposed to actually be in the military, but it was a poor boy’s answer to unemployment,” he said.

The writings of Madhubuti, as seen in works like “Don’t Cry, Scream” (1969) and “Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous?” (1990), center on the theme of Black struggle. He was inspired by his time in the army, but the poet says his passion for Black literature was ignited after numerous altercations with his White and intransigent fellow soldiers.

He almost received a dishonorable discharge for fighting, but changed the course of his experience after being sent to Fort Sheridan in Illinois, where he began to read in his free time.

The author recalls, “Langston Hughes was the person, a great poet, that helped me through those days. I began my process reading Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes’ anthology: Poppo and Fifina, and their words fed me each day as I was in between the Korean and Vietnam Wars.”

Born Donald Luther Lee, Haki Madhubuti changed his name after traveling to Africa in 1974. Haki means “justice” and Madhubuti means “precise, accurate, and dependable.”

After serving, Madhubuti began to focus on writing, specifically on themes of Black struggle. He was awarded the American Book Award, the Kuumba Workshop Black Liberation Award, the Broadside Press Outstanding Poet’s Award, and the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities.

The future days of the four-day program will focus on topics of Black identity, sexuality, and feminism, and will also feature a poetry slam by the Green Earth Poets Cafe organization and readings by more authors of Black struggle and African Diaspora literature.

“Science is a nasty four-letter word called luck,” said renowned physician-scientist and Nobel Prize winner Michael Brown. Brown, whose research on cholesterol led to the development of the cholesterol lowering pharmaceutical, statin, credited scientific discoveries to luck in a virtual panel discussion hosted by the CUNY Graduate Center on Wednesday night.

“If any scientist tells you that luck played no role in their major discoveries, then that scientist is not telling the truth,” said Brown.

Kevin Gardner, the director of the Structural Biology Initiative at the Advanced Science Research Center at the Graduate Center, was also in attendance to discuss how Brown’s research led to the development of the widely available life-saving drug, statin.

Brown’s work began in the 1960s at the National Institute of Health (NIH) with his scientific partner of over 50 years, Joseph Goldstein, where under a fellowship at the NIH, Brown and Goldstein met with a six-year-old girl who launched their research on cholesterol.

“There was a six-year-old girl and her eight-year-old brother, who both had several heart attacks and were, in fact, quite ill from coronary heart disease,” said Brown. “The level of cholesterol in their bodies was ten times above normal, and we have to remember that at the time nobody really knew anything about how the level of cholesterol in the blood was controlled,” he added.

Through working with the siblings, in 1973 Brown and Goldstein discovered the Ldl receptor in cells that take in cholesterol and clarified how the conversion of cholesterol is regulated by our genes and other substances. However, their research raised a deeper and more vital question – how can these findings be used to develop a drug that lowers cholesterol levels?

“In our case, luck came about in the shape of a Japanese scientist named Akira Endo,” said Brown.

During this time, Endo was working at the Sancho Drug Company in Tokyo, searching for small molecules that would block the key enzyme in the production of cholesterol. Unbeknownst to him, Endo had found the molecule responsible for the first statin.

“He had read our work about LDL receptors, but he didn’t put the two things together, so we contacted and collaborated with him,” said Brown.

The first statin was approved by the FDA in 1987 and is now taken by 200 million people worldwide suffering from high cholesterol. Despite his talk about luck, Brown also went on to attribute the development of statin to protracted industriousness.

“Each summer we take summer students and at the end of their experience at the laboratory I always ask them what the biggest surprise was, and they always say ‘I had no idea science took so many people and that you guys work in teams, because that’s not how science is taught,” said Brown. “The average student thinks a scientist gets a brilliant idea, goes into a trance, doesn’t experiment, and goes to Stockholm, but the fact of the matter is that there’s a lot of hard work involved,” he added.

Brown was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Goldstein in 1985 for describing the regulation of cholesterol metabolism.

 Matthew Vann tried on many different hats before he became the senior producer he is today at ABC News.

Vann spoke in Professor George Rodman’s Television Writing course FEB. 9where he discussed his career trajectory and where he has landed in his decade long career as a journalist.

“I have done a number of things since I left Brooklyn College. I worked in government and politics and decided that I didn’t like it.,” he said. “Then I went to J school. From there I worked at a number of different networks, CBS, NBC, and now ABC.”

One of those jobs was trying out local news to see if it was a fit for him. After experiencing field reporting for NY1 as an intern, he decided, “it wasn’t the right fit for me. It is the wild, wild west for reporters and I always felt anxious. There are many reporters who love it. I wanted more organization, so I chose to work for the networks.”

Vann graduated from Brooklyn College in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in Broadcast Journalism and Political Science and his  journey has led him to have a variety of different titles in his career path.

From interning at NY1, working as a production assistant for CNN, working in politics and government, being a Video Producer for CBS, going back to school for Journalism, reporting in the field, and finally becoming a senior producer at ABC’s Good Morning America–he has walked a path that’s lead him to many different roads, but he found it as a producer. “Putting the story together is my goal,” said Vann.

Vann spoke about how time constraints are a part of the job of a journalist. “Time makes the job much harder. When you learn that you have two hours to turn a story in for World News Tonight or Good Morning America, [filming] makes the job much easier, but the biggest challenge that journalists are up against is time. It’s always a grind. You are always ‘chasing the tail under the tape.’ You wish you had more time, but you don’t, so you have to make the best of it.”

Brooklyn College student, Brian Tielo posed a question about the steps that it took Matthew to become the producer that he is today, “Internships. You have to find things that fit you and that you want to do. Get going, but most importantly, get to where you want to go.”

Student Allison Dubrow was curious about what fed Matthews urges to tell stories. “Follow your heart about a story, if you feel it, then write about it.  If there is a story that needs to be told, research, talk to people, try to get all the facts, put it together, and tell it. You never know who needs to know.”

It’s been eleven years since Matthew Vann graduated from Brooklyn College and what he has taken from his decade long career as a journalist is this, “Writing is the main ingredient to having a good story. To entice your audience in the most simplest of ways. I’ve learned that news is conversational. Remember who is watching. It’s your mom, grandma, and your uncle. If they understand the story, then I did my job right,” said Vann.

The numbers of NYC food pantry volunteers declined due to the COVID-19 pandemic, even as food insecurity worsened.

Food pantries around New York City are hungry for help themselves, after losing volunteers and food donors during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

World Care Center, a New York-based non-profit service organization founded in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. held a Zoom call with food insecurity provider organizations on Thursday February 3, to share their challenges and lessons learned from providing food during the pandemic. 

One attendee, New York Common Pantry Deputy Executive Director Judith Secon, said, “We never stopped serving. Our bags were always full, but they were some scary times.” She said volunteers stopped coming and corporate and restaurant food rescue donations that they counted on declined, as New York City went into a shutdown. 

“A lot of people couldn’t get out of their house, and that’s why a mobile pantry was helpful,” said Secon, to keep the volunteers safe and the clients with their stomachs full,  The Common  Pantry came up with an alternative that made it easy for people and volunteers to get and deliver fresh food safely. 

It not only offered hot meals and groceries, it also provided education about nutrition. The Common Pantry food programs still offer hot meals and shopping options, where clients can select the food they would like to eat, and a NYCP Mobile Pantry has nutrition education and social services as well. 

Secon said the pantry serves many students. “We want to get rid of the stigma for college students… We know food insecurity is a problem.” said Secon. 

CUNY and Common Pantry are working together to fight students’ food insecurity. “We are putting mobile food pantries, with music outside campuses to attract them,” said Secon. 

 Brooklyn College offers its students a food pantry they can visit monthly by scheduling an appointment online. 

Common Pantry has served 217,109 households and 13,836,786 meals have been distributed during COVID. If you are facing food insecurity or know someone, you can contact Common Pantry though their website nycommonpantry.org. 

After working on a three-day schedule and going from twenty-five to zero volunteers the Common Food Pantry is getting back its help from providers. “It hasn’t gotten away, the need is still here… We now have a lot of funding and help to get through this,” said Secon.

“Whites increasingly see racism as a zero-sum game that they are losing,” said Heather McGhee a newly appointed lecturer at The City University of New York’s (CUNY) School of Labor and Urban Studies.

McGhee was discussing her book “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together” on Zoom with Deepak Bhargava as he was welcoming her to the program.

“I quit my job in 2017 and set off across the country. I went from California to Mississippi to Maine and back again multiple times,” McGhee said on her journey to writing this book. Throughout her travels she had one question. She wanted to know why we all can’t have “nice things.”

No, she isn’t talking about self-driving cars or Gucci bags. She is talking about public swimming pools, subsidized higher education, universal childcare, affordable healthcare, and paid family leave.

McGhee refers to zero-sum and how white supremacy deprives people of “nice things.” The people that are deprived include white people as well as people of color. She mentions a story about a pool in Montgomery, Ala. When white Americans were told that they would have to integrate the pool they decided to drain and cement it. Nobody, white or black, has been able to enjoy it since they closed it down in 1959.

McGhee also mentioned wages. She questions why someone should survive on $7.25, where someone else is making 1000 times more. “An average worker would have to work 1,000 years to make what the CEO makes in a year,” McGhee said. She pointed out that when everyone gets together they can demand justice. That happened recently with the Fight for $15 movement when fast-food workers supported each other to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour in the country.

McGhee’s book was released in Feb. 2021 and has spent 10 weeks on The New York Times best seller. It was also long listed for the National Book Award and the Carnegie Medal for excellence in non-fiction.

McGhee is a lecturer at the School of Labor and Urban Studies in her first semester. The CUNY school has been a leader in adult and worker education for over 30 years. It started with 52 students and now has more than 1,200 adult and traditional aged students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs.