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.

Gifts for student scholarships result in new name for business dean’s suite

By Bill Studenc

The dean’s suite of offices in the Forsyth Building, home to Western Carolina University’s College of Business, has a new formal name that celebrates five generations of a family’s connections to WCU dating back to the early 1900s.

The Forsyth Building’s Suite 124 is now designated as the WCU College of Business Crawford Sherrill Dean’s Suite in appreciation for a scholarship fund created in December 2021 by $425,000 in gifts and pledges from WCU alumnus Michael A. Crawford, chief performance officer at national accounting firm FORVIS.

Crawford, a 1987 graduate of WCU with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance, established the Crawford Sherrill Endowed Scholarship in memory of his father, Frank Moody Crawford Jr., a 1954 WCU graduate who died Aug. 5, 2021, at age 89. His mother, Othello Haskett Crawford, resides in Sylva. “She is thrilled to have her husband of 62 years honored in this way,” he said.

The new name for the office suite, previously approved by the WCU Board of Trustees, was unveiled during a ceremony Friday, April 28, in front of a gathering of family members, friends, faculty, staff, students and other supporters of the university.

The change will require AJ Grube, dean of the College of Business, to order business cards reflecting her new address. Grube expressed gratitude to Crawford and his wife, Gina, for the financial support leading to the renaming of her office suite, calling them “tremendous supporters of the College of Business.”

“I’ve been lucky to get to know Mike and Gina over the past few years and see first-hand the enthusiasm they have for helping our students,” she said. “Almost every conversation starts with a question about what good things our students have accomplished. This gift will enable our students to accomplish so many wonderful things. For this I’m excited, but I’m also incredibly grateful to Mike and Gina.”

The Crawford Sherrill Endowed Scholarship will provide financial assistance to students in WCU’s Brinson Honors College studying in the College of Education and Allied Professions or majoring in accounting in the College of Business. Preference will be given to first-generation college students, graduates of Smoky Mountain High School and students who have attained the rank of Eagle Scout.

Brothers Michael Crawford ’87 (left) and Steve Crawford ’85 (right) share a moment with their father, Frank Crawford Jr. ’54.

Mike Crawford said that he decided shortly after his father’s passing in 2021 to establish a scholarship fund to honor his father and commemorate his dad’s legacy. He said he wanted to include a preference for Eagle Scouts because his father attained that rank in high school and “was super proud of this accomplishment.”

After earning his degree in management in 1954 at what was then Western Carolina Teachers College, Frank Crawford Jr. served with the U.S. Army from 1956 to 1958, worked at Dayco Corp. in Waynesville as an industrial engineer for more than 10 years and at Mead Corp. in Sylva as a cost accountant until 1976 when he returned to Dayco for three years.

He then became division accountant for the N.C. Department of Transportation before retiring in 1994. He was the son of Frank Moody Crawford Sr., who graduated in 1941 from what was then Cullowhee State Normal School with a degree in education, and Edith Sherrill Crawford.

Michael Crawford’s family ties to WCU begin with his great-grandfather, W.R. Sherrill, a 1902 graduate who went on to law school after earning his teaching degree in Cullowhee. Before becoming a lawyer, Sherrill was a teacher, principal and public school superintendent, and his diploma features the signature of Robert L. Madison, founder of the institution now known as Western Carolina University.

Other family members connected to WCU include brother Steve Crawford, a 1985 graduate; an uncle, Bill Crawford, recipient of WCU’s 2019 Mountain Heritage Award; and a trio of cousins of his father, all WCU alumni who became educators.

“My dad loved WCU and was so proud of ‘his boys’ who graduated from Western just like him, his father and his grandfather,” he said. “I loved my dad and I love WCU as well, as it helped me become who I am as a husband, father and businessman. Without my education and experiences at WCU, I would not be who I am today. This is a way to give back to the college I love and honor my father at the same time.”

Crawford is a long-time supporter of WCU’s College of Business and its accountancy programs, which were previously christened the Dixon Hughes Goodman Accountancy Programs in recognition of $1 million in gifts and pledges in 2015 from more than 50 WCU alumni employed by the firm, including Crawford. The programs were renamed the FORVIS Accountancy Programs in December 2022 following the merger of the limited liability partnerships known as Dixon Hughes Goodman and BKD to create a new firm called FORVIS.

In addition to providing scholarship support to WCU accounting students, Crawford said he wanted his contributions to help students in the education program in recognition of his family members who were educators, including his grandfather, who was a teacher, principal and school superintendent, and his grandmother, who was a teacher.

“My hope is that these students will take full advantage of their education and friendships during their time at WCU. I hope that WCU is a catalyst to their success as both a person and a professional, and I hope one day they will give back to the university with fond memories and gratitude just like myself,” he said.

“Western was four of the best years of my life, and I am so appreciative of the experience,” Crawford said. “As a brother in the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, I met lifelong friends while experiencing Cullowhee through intramural sports, social gatherings and community service opportunities, all while challenging each other to do our best academically and having the best GPA for fraternities.”

The creation of the Crawford Sherrill Endowed Scholarship represents the latest example of gifts of time, treasure and talent from Mike Crawford, who currently serves on the WCU Foundation Board of Directors and has made numerous significant previous contributions to the College of Business as well as to the Catamount athletics program, said Jamie T. Raynor, vice chancellor for advancement.

“This new scholarship celebrates Frank Moody Crawford individually and recognizes the tremendous Western Carolina University legacy that exists within this family,” Raynor said. “It is fitting that future generations of WCU students will benefit from gifts made in recognition of the impact of previous generations of the Crawford and Sherrill families.”

Taleigh Verrault, a sophomore from Sylva majoring in psychology in the College of Education and Allied Professions with a second major in history, is the first recipient of the full-ride scholarship, which is renewable and is designed to cover all college-related expenses.

“When I first learned I had been selected for the Crawford Sherrill Scholarship, I was in awe. The scholarship is worth so much that I barely believed that it was real,” said Verrault, a member of WCU’s Pride of the Mountains Marching Band. “Receiving this scholarship ensured that I did not have to pay or take out any loans for my undergraduate education, which is extraordinary. Not only does it allow me to focus more on my academics and less on working, but it also allows me to enter the next stage of my life after graduation without student debt.”

After graduating from WCU, Verrault plans to go on to earn his master’s and doctoral degrees in clinical psychology. “Doing so will make me the first person in my family to earn a doctoral degree. I know that this will be an expensive endeavor, so not owing on my undergraduate education makes a huge impact,” he said.

“I just want to thank the generous donor who created this scholarship, as it really means a lot to me to have my education free of the stress that cost can bring,” Verrault said.