Universities and colleges across the United States are finding that an ever-increasing number of students on their campuses are dealing with a variety of mental health issues, ranging from anxiety and depression to thoughts of suicide.

Recent studies and surveys indicate that nearly 45 percent of college students nationally report symptoms of depression, while almost 40 percent report experiencing anxiety.

Perhaps most concerning – up to 15 percent of college students have contemplated suicide. U.S. campuses report that approximately 1,100 students take their own lives each year, making suicide the second-leading cause of death among that demographic.

Western Carolina University is not immune from this growing mental health crisis. Thanks to a significant financial contribution from a WCU alumna, the university’s Counseling and Psychology Services Center now will be able to increase its evaluation and treatment of students struggling with depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions.

Rebecca Schlosser, a 1973 graduate of WCU and former member of the university’s Board of Trustees, recently made a transformative gift to WCU that will enable the center to greatly enhance its services by expanding access, increasing outreach and strengthening its ability to support student well-being.

“For me personally, mental health awareness came to the forefront when my son began struggling with mental health issues in 2007 and 2008 during his junior and senior year in college,” said Schlosser, a resident of Greensboro.

That son, David Edmond Wesley Schlosser, died unexpectedly at the age of 25, just nine days after graduating from Elon University.

“Students need to feel comfortable receiving mental health services,” Schlosser said. “College campuses should prioritize destigmatizing mental health, offering accessible resources and creating a supportive environment. Many times, mental health issues begin in early adulthood, which falls right during the college years. Dealing with the demands of college can add increased anxiety.”

She and her late husband, Greensboro attorney and former Guilford County District Attorney Michael A. Schlosser, made gifts in 2016 to create the David E. W. Schlosser Endowed Scholarship Fund in their son’s memory to provide support for students with demonstrated financial need in WCU’s Brinson Honors College.

They also agreed that they wanted to do something more to provide much-needed resources to WCU to help the university in its efforts to provide services to students struggling with mental health issues, in part to help parents and other family members avoid the heartache that they endured with the loss of their son.

The Schlossers later updated their financial plans to include a commitment to create an endowment to support the work of WCU’s Counseling and Psychological Services Center, a commitment that was fulfilled earlier this year.

In recognition of the gift establishing a program endowment for the center often referred to as CAPS, the university’s Board of Trustees has approved the facility’s renaming to the Schlosser Family Center for Counseling and Psychological Services.

The Schlosser Family Center for Counseling and Psychological Services has a mission of empowering students to engage in and be successful in a range of academic, social and cultural endeavors through fostering psychological wellness. The center provides individual and group counseling to students on a short-term basis at no cost as well as emergency services when a student is experiencing a mental health crisis. It is located in Suite 225 in the Bird Building and reaches beyond its physical office by offering tele-mental health services and appointments at WCU’s Biltmore Park off-campus instructional site.

Over the past few years, the center has consistently offered more than 7,000 appointments to an average of approximately 1,100 individual students annually, said Kim Gorman, associate vice chancellor for health and wellness.

Despite those numbers, the center has not experienced a significant increase in student usage of its services, which is most likely related to a limit in the ability to serve a larger number of students given current staffing restraints, said Caroline Engler, CAPS director. But the center has seen significant increases over the last three years in the severity and complexity of mental health issues presented by student clients, Engler said.

“Our data is consistent with Center for Collegiate Mental Health data in that we continue to see a rise in reported experiences of history of trauma. Additionally, according to CCMH data, WCU students report more frequent and intense experiences with depression, anxiety, eating concerns and suicidal ideation as compared to the national average,” she said.

“Although our students report higher levels of acuity than the national average, our data also indicates that, with treatment, they report more significant declines in experiences of suicidal ideation and overall distress than the CCMH national averages,” Engler said.

An official naming ceremony for the Schlosser Family Center for Counseling and Psychological Services is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 4. Fittingly, September is National Suicide Prevention Month.

“Renaming CAPS is more than just changing the name,” Rebecca Schlosser said. “I speak also on behalf of my late husband. It was our goal to provide this endowed funding to support WCU’s Counseling and Psychological Services and to help to destigmatize the challenges surrounding mental health. Our family wishes to help shine a bright light of hope along this very difficult pathway,” Rebecca Schlosser said.

“To the students at WCU, if you feel you need mental health support, I encourage you to seek services at the Schlosser Family Center for Counseling and Psychological Services,” she said. “You are not alone.”

The Schlosser contribution will enable the center to greatly increase the level of counseling and other psychological services it offers and improve and expand its training program so that additional providers will be able to more adequately address the growing need for mental health services at WCU.

Numerous factors are playing a role in the rise of mental health issues in the United States in recent years, said Engler.

“There is a trend that individuals who seek treatment at university counseling centers have been engaged in treatment prior to coming to college. This tells us that their distress levels are affecting individuals in middle and high schools,” she said.

The global COVID-19 pandemic is frequently cited as one primary source of the increase in mental health issues among young people, causing uncertainty and fear of the unknown, disrupting social connections and interrupting academic schedules, Engler said.

“However, the pandemic simply intersected with other ongoing social factors including the divisiveness we are seeing in our communities – and in our families. This is having an impact on our sense of community and belongingness, both factors that are essential for good mental health,” she said. “Furthermore, research shows the impact of social media has been problematic and contributing to mental health symptoms. Finally, there is much evidence of the impact of sleep disruption, often caused by excessive cell phone use and gaming, on mental health symptoms for teens.”

The additional services made possible by the Schlosser gift will help a larger number of students receive the mental health services they need to be able to stay enrolled in school and on track to graduate, said Gorman.

A 2023 research project conducted by Gorman and WCU colleague Kathleen Brennan, professor of sociology, found that students who seek help for their mental health issues are more likely to persist in their educational journey.

“We know that our services are helpful for retention of students as demonstrated by our recent study. The results indicate a higher number of counseling sessions was helpful in retention efforts for all students at the university,” Gorman said. “So, this gift is an investment in our students.”

Gorman and Brennan published the results of their study in a paper titled “More Sessions Make a Difference: University Counseling Centers and Student Retention” in the June 2023 edition of the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice.

“We just feel immense gratitude,” Gorman said. “This gift is an incredible acknowledgement of the importance of mental health services at WCU.”

Rebecca Schlosser earned her bachelor’s degree in education. While a student at WCU, she was a member of Delta Zeta sorority, spent four years as a majorette with the marching band, and was a member of both Kappa Delta Pi and Alpha Phi Sigma honor societies. The WCU chapter of Phi Delta Kappa named her Most Outstanding Female Student at WCU her senior year.

After completing her undergraduate studies, she taught at a private all-girls school in New York before returning to school at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, earning her master’s degree in education there in 1983. During her time at UNCG, she met her future husband and helped him start his law firm.

Mike Schlosser was a graduate of Virginia Military Institute and Wake Forest University School of Law. He died in February 2024, 10 years after he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and amyloidosis as a result of his exposure to Agent Orange as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Paratrooper Corps serving a tour in South Vietnam.

Rebecca Schlosser served on the WCU Board of Trustees from 2017 until 2023 and formerly served on the university’s Foundation Board of Directors and Board of Visitors. A member of the Madison Legacy and Cullowhee giving societies, she served on the steering committee for WCU’s previous “Lead the Way” comprehensive fundraising campaign. She is an involved member of the Triad alumni chapter and frequently hosts Triad-area events at her Greensboro home. The Schlossers have been annual donors to WCU since 1990.

The naming of the Schlosser Family Center for Counseling and Psychological Services comes as WCU is in the midst of the public phase of its “Fill the Western Sky” comprehensive fundraising campaign, an effort to raise a minimum of $100 million in philanthropic support for the university’s academic, student engagement and athletics programs.

For more information about the “Fill the Western Sky” campaign or to make a contribution, visit WesternSky.wcu.edu, call 828-227-7124 or email advancement@wcu.edu. 

‘Fill the Western Sky’ contributions continue Brown family legacy of support for WCU

By Bill Studenc

A Cary couple with deep family connections to the founders of the institution that would become Western Carolina University is taking steps to ensure that students of the future will continue to have access to enhanced educational, athletic and extracurricular activities.

Frank H. Brown III, a fourth-generation member of a family that is significant in the history of WCU, and spouse Rebecca “Becky” Brown, a 1971 graduate of WCU and current member of the university’s Board of Trustees, recently made gifts totaling nearly $53,000 through the transfer of stock to the Western Carolina University Foundation.

The bulk of the gift is designated to support much-needed renovations to WCU’s athletics facilities through the ongoing “Fill the Western Sky” comprehensive fundraising campaign. The $75 million campaign has a significant focus on raising money to support enhancements to athletics facilities, with a goal of raising at least $30 million in philanthropic gifts to help fund those specific upgrades.

The remainder from the Browns’ recent contribution is allocated to increase the corpus of the existing Frank and Rebecca Revis Brown Endowed Scholarship Fund, which provides financial support to students in WCU’s College of Business.

Six students have received Frank and Rebecca Revis Brown Scholarship since its inception. Among them is Mason Avillion, a May 2024 graduate from Elon majoring in entrepreneurship, who characterized the scholarship as a life raft that helped him traverse some financially choppy waters. Avillion transferred to WCU in 2022 after beginning his higher education journey at Alamance Community College.

“My family has never been well-off. When I was a child, we lived in poverty – having to ration our food and live in the dark when the electrical bills were overdue. So, it did not surprise me when my parents told me I was on my own for college. Currently, both of my parents are out of a job, so this support is greatly appreciated,” said Avillion, who plans to go on to graduate from law school and build a law firm that provides free legal counsel to those in need.

“I am a financially independent student, so any financial help is greatly appreciated. But I do not want to limit my thankfulness to the scope of capital, as this investment in my education has contributed not only to my financial capacity to attend WCU but also re-instilled confidence in myself as well. This generous contribution gives me hope for my idealized future and gives me the means to achieve it. The munificent act of creating a scholarship is one that was selfless and progressive by people who are helping the next generation of the world navigate the financial hardships that many are forced to find their way through.” 

Becky Brown, a Swain County native who graduated from WCU’s College of Business with a degree in business administration, said that she and her husband established the scholarship fund out of a desire to help provide financial support for deserving students majoring in a business discipline.

“As an alumnus of the university, I feel I should support the university, whether it be financially or in other ways. Not only did I receive in my opinion an excellent education, but I also learned many ‘life lessons’ along the way,” said Brown, a retired director of budget and management for the N.C. Department of Labor.

“I hope this will help take some of the financial stresses off students so they can concentrate on their studies and enjoy college life. I have had the opportunity to meet some of the students who received this scholarship, and all were very impressive.”

As members of the Cullowhee Society, the Browns now have a lifetime giving total of more than $110,000 to the university over 46 consecutive years, including previous support for the Pride of the Mountains Marching Band and the Catamount Club. And they agree that they plan to continue to provide financial support to WCU.

“I am extremely proud of the Brown family legacy with Western Carolina University,” said Frank Brown III, whose father served two times as chief executive officer of the institution and whose grandfather is the namesake for WCU’s Brown Hall.

Frank H. Brown Jr. was appointed acting president in 1972 and acting chancellor in 1974. He was the son of Frank H. Brown Sr., associate professor of chemistry at the institution from 1908 to 1950, and grandson of R. Hamilton Brown, one of the trustees from the late 1800s who worked with founder Robert Lee Madison to create the school that evolved into WCU.

Brown Sr. was also among the original 18 students to enroll in the fledgling school, going on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in science at N.C. State University before returning to Cullowhee as a professor of chemistry at WCU.

“Because of my family connections to Western Carolina University, I feel it is very important for me to contribute so students can have the opportunity to realize their full potential while getting an education,” Brown III said. “Educating students is a continuation of the work done by the Brown family to ensure that students receive the tools necessary for them to make the world a better place.” He is retired comptroller for the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.

The Browns’ recent gift to help fund renovations to WCU’s athletics facilities comes after a behind-the-scenes visit to spaces currently used by Catamount student-athletes.

“I was fortunate enough to tour the facilities and truthfully had no idea they were in such poor condition,” Becky Brown said. “There is no way anyone can see the conditions and not understand the need for repairs and upgrades to the facilities. And, as longtime supporters of Catamount athletics, Frank and I want to be ‘part of the solution’ to improve the facilities.”

Brown III said he remembers growing up in Cullowhee, where he attended football games in Memorial Stadium and basketball games in Reid Gymnasium.

“I would run from McKee Building to the baseball field after school to watch a baseball game – occasionally as a bat boy for the visiting team. Unforgettable memories were made at those locations,” he said. “Many things have changed since those days, and current improvements are necessary to upgrade the athletic facilities so memories for current and future student athletes and fans will continue to be made in the best venues possible.”

The Browns said that the upgrades to WCU’s athletics facilities are needed to keep up with competitors in the Southern Conference, recruit and retain top-notch student-athletes, improve safety for the participants and attendees, enhance the game-day experience for fans and increase pride among students, alumni and community members.

And, for both Frank and Becky Brown, providing financial support to WCU celebrates a lengthy family relationship with the institution and its past while helping set up the university for future progress.

“Since its founding, Western Carolina has served Western North Carolina, but Western’s impact is now felt worldwide,” Brown III said. “Becky and I hope to be able to do what we can to ensure Western Carolina University continues to fulfill its mission in serving Western North Carolina and the world.”

Currently secretary of the WCU Board of Trustees, Becky Brown previously served on the Catamount Club, Alumni Association and Foundation boards of directors. Brown III served on the Foundation Board for more than 20 years before rolling off in 2018. Both are members of the “Fill the Western Sky” campaign steering committee.

For more information or to make a contribution to the campaign for the university’s academic, student engagement and athletics programs, visit WesternSky.wcu.edu, call 828-227-7124 or email advancement@wcu.edu.