Mental health epidemic plagues UK universities

Aysha Sarah Klara Woxström News Editors

Illustrated by Rigona Gjinovci

Trigger warning: This article discusses sensitive topics such as depression and suicide.

Universities throughout the United Kingdom are experiencing an ongoing student mental health crisis. In 2020/21, more than 200,000 students in the United Kingdom sought support for their mental health, according to new research by the Labour Party.

On 6 October, Cambridge University launched a campaign, called Reach Out, urging struggling students to seek assistance, as the sixth student death this year is being investigated.

Reach Out was planned prior to the September passing of a medical student. His passing will be examined alongside the deaths of five other students who passed away between March and June.

Cambridge University has, prior to introducing this new service, come under heavy scrutiny for its ineffective student mental health services. The Reach Out campaign followed a review of mental health services at the university that began the previous year in response to a growing demand for additional support. Additionally, Cambridge University had opened an investigation after the death of five of its students since March 2022.

Meanwhile, researchers from the University of York have published a major new study that suggests Universal Basic Income (UBI) could assist in reversing the epidemic of mental health issues among young people in the United Kingdom.

Professor Pickett, researcher in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York said, “UBI would raise the income floor for a lot of people, reduce inequality and take away some of the sources of anxiety which young people particularly find so challenging. It would also save massively on costs to the NHS and other services.”

Two universities in Leicester, De Montfort University (DMU) and the University of Leicester, have opened "crisis cafés" to provide mental health services to students in "non-clinical" settings. The charity behind the initiative, Mental Health Matters, aims to open 25 cafés in Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland that provide free mental health support to anyone aged 18 or older.

Other institutions such as Universities UK (UUK) have advised universities to contact key family members, caregivers, or friends if they have grave con-

Jessica Pretorius Staff Writer

For the past five weeks, Iran has been experiencing nationwide protests and violent clashes with police following the death of 22-yearold Mahsa Amini (her real and Kurdish name is Jina). She was arrested and detained on Friday, 16 September for not complying with Iran’s rules on women’s dress, specifically for wearing her hijab too loosely. She died in a hospital three days later.

Protests broke out across the country soon after demanding justice for Mahsa’s death. However, they quickly morphed into protests about the treatment of women under Iran’s oppressive regime. Women have been seen burning their headscarves and cutting their hair in public, and chanting slogans such as “Women, Life, Freedom.”

Iranian authorities are responding brutally to the protests using shotguns, assault rifles, and handguns against protesters even in peaceful settings. As of Monday 17 October, 233 people have been killed. The government has largely shut down mobile in- cerns about a student's mental health, even without the student's permission.

UUK has noted that although staff should make “every reasonable effort to secure consent," there are circumstances in which “a university can and should share information with emergency services and with trusted contacts, even where they have not been able to secure consent." According to the new guidance, students should register a "trusted contact" when they enrol in college.

Currently, the LSE has the Disability and Wellbeing service (DWS), which offers confidential advice and support to all students with diagnosed disabilities and also includes the LSE Counselling Service.

Recently, the LSE Counselling Service has prioritised counselling appointments for students who have experienced sexual harassment or sexual assault. This includes speaking with a safe contact and guiding the victim through the reporting process, if desired. Alongside these, other services include workshops, group sessions, and peer support programmes.

Amran Faysal, a second year LSE History student said, ‘‘My overall experience with [the Disability and Wellbeing Service] was less than satisfacto- ry. I found that giving students a maximum of six sessions over twelve months isn't enough to get to the root of most mental health issues. Although my counsellor was attentive to my problems, it simply wasn't enough to uncover my deeper-rooted fears and self-limiting beliefs.’’

In April last year, an instagram account called @lsestressed was launched as an initiative for students to anonymously share their struggles with academia, LSE’s work culture and mental health-related experiences at the university. Many of the confessions point to mental health struggles and pressures faced by LSE students. One such confession from a student expresses how they are “fighting for [their] life finishing [their] degree” due to mental health issues and struggles at home.

The Beaver asked students what they think of the page. Maya*, a second year History student, commented, ‘‘LSE culture in general is just so overwhelming, it’s crazy to see all my friends at other universities who have much smaller workloads. Even though [@lsestressed] helped me realise I’m not alone, it’s clear the culture here is a systemic issue and needs to be addressed on a much larger scale.’’ ternet, too, in an attempt to not only control the unrest in Iran, but also to shut the country off from the rest of the world.

*Names in this article were changed to preserve anonymity.

Decolonising LSE, a collective dedicated to raising awareness of historic violence and encouraging decolonisation, published a statement to Sharif University of Technology in Iran on 3 October. The statement expressed that they were “inspired by the courage and power of the students and academics” and that they “stand with the student movement and progressive forces fighting against state abuses.”

Decolonising LSE also called on “our academic community to amplify and add their voices to those of students, academics, unions, activists, and people who oppose this suppression and demand freedom.” LSE has not yet issued any statement on the ongoing developments in Iran.

The Beaver spoke to Ava*, a British-Iranian student in her third year, who said that she was surprised and also a bit disappointed by the lack of response at LSE, “I’ve only really seen Iranians talking about the protests. Maybe it’s because people feel they cannot or should not form an opinion, but in fact we need non-Iranians to speak out and help us spread the word, particularly when people in Iran are unable to reach the international community.”

*Names in this article were changed to preserve anonymity.

Vanessa Huang Staff Writer

Illustrated by Mithalina Binte-Mohammad-Taib

Demand for rental properties in the UK is far outstripping supply, an issue that is particularly significant in London, according to SpareRoom. Data shows that there are only 15,000 rooms available for the 106,000 people currently looking for accommodation in the city on the platform, with average rent prices in the city skyrocketing to £553 a week.

The Beaver spoke to students about the difficulties they’ve faced in securing housing, finding consistent patterns of either endless rejections from landlords or being forced to endure poor living conditions.

The first hurdle comes before even viewing any properties. For every listing that’s posted to sites like SpareRoom, RightMove, or Zoopla, estate agents and landlords are bombarded with enquiries and viewing requests – so many that it’s impossible to respond to them all. One student, Emma*, has only made it to the viewing stage for five flats, despite starting her search in May. Another student, Doug Klain, a masters student from the US, shares: “whether or not you’re able to view a flat can simply come down to luck.” He later discovered that he was just one of ten to twenty people that were randomly selected to view the flat, out of hundreds who had enquired.

If they’ve been chosen as one of the select few for a viewing, prospective tenants are often all brought in at the same time, where anything less than making an immediate offer means they lose out on the flat. At one viewing, Doug explained that the landlord informed all ten prospective tenants that whoever placed a deposit first would get the flat. “On the spot, while we’ve been in the flat for maybe two minutes, this one guy just pulls out his phone and says, ‘Alright, give me your bank details right now. I’ll do it right now.’”

Furthermore, there is noth - ing preventing prospective tenants from placing an offer above the advertised rent, meaning that the highest bidder is most likely to get the flat. In addition to the high rent offer, these tenants often have to also pay six months’, or even a year’s rent in advance.

Doug originally placed an offer on a two bedroom flat in Camden for the asking rent, offering to pay several months of rent upfront. The agent received multiple competing offers, convincing him to raise his offer. It was when they continued to push for even higher offers that he gave up. He says, “[Landlords and agents are] just trying to milk us for everything they can get. And they know they can get it because they’ve got an unending supply of people who will offer hundreds of pounds over asking price, on the spot with no [information].”

The near impossibility of securing housing has left students in situations that are far from ideal. Emma, who is five months into her search, still hasn’t found a flat. She’s opted to live at home and commute to LSE for the time being as she continues to look for flats, but she isn’t hopeful.

Issues persist even with those who have found housing. As prospective tenants are scrambling to swipe up anything that’s available, standards have fallen, meaning that poorly maintained flats are still guaranteed to be snapped up. International students are especially vulnerable due to being reliant on virtual viewings that fail to provide an accurate representation of the property.

Jean-Michel Betran, a masters student from France, met his current flatmate, who was already living in the property, over Zoom. Satisfied with the video tour, as well as the conversation with his flatmate, he decided to take the flat. Given the stress he had faced throughout his search, he was grateful to have finally found a place. This relief was shortlived. When he actually arrived at the flat, “what seemed super clean and nice and tidy in the video was a mess.” tion while he was still in the US, he assumed he would only be able to find a flat once he arrived in London. “I kid you not, 18 hours before my flight from Washington, DC to London, I get a call back from an agent, saying, ‘Hi, the place that you enquired about is gone, but I have another place. It’s available for about 10 minutes before I’m giving it away to somebody else. Here’s a couple of pictures if you want it. Tell me right now, otherwise it’s gone.’” He took it, thinking it was the best option he had, but like Jean-Michel, he arrived at a flat that drastically differed from what he was shown. The flat had been converted from a two or three bedroom flat into a five bedroom flat. Doug’s room was one section of what would be the living room, partitioned by a cheap plywood wall.

Because of the poor conditions in his current flat, Doug spends most of his time outside, only going back at the end of the day to sleep. “The biggest way this impacts me is [that] I don’t really have a place I can call home,” he says. When we spoke on October 10, he was still looking for housing, describing it as “this constant buzzing stress in the background of everything.”

Jean-Michel was originally hoping to move into a different flat, but the thought of yet more incessant scrolling through SpareRoom has put him off. There’s also a feeling of guilt for being dissatisfied when so many people are still struggling to find a place to stay: “[Other] people’s expec - just me?’” Though dejected, he’s thankful for “not [being] in the worst situation.”

Many students this year have reached out to the LSESU Advice Service. The Advice Service’s scope of work in previous years has normally consisted of contract checks and resolving disputes with landlords, leaving them illequipped to provide any solutions to students struggling to find housing beyond directing them to the usual listing websites. They often say that “you will find somewhere eventually. Just keep looking, keep looking and eventually something will come up.”

Becoming increasingly desperate to find a place, Doug contacted LSE’s Residential Services Office, hoping they would be able to offer some kind of support. They provided a similar response, advising him to check RightMove, Zoopla and SpareRoom. “The biggest help that I get is [from] paying 40 pounds a month for a SpareRoom subscription so that I have better access to send out more messages to places that probably won’t respond,” he laughs.

Every student we spoke to understands the limits of any support that could come from LSE – there are simply not enough places for every person that’s looking. Similar stories from other parts of the country have also emerged, such as the students in Bristol that have been placed in accommodation in Wales, or the students in Edinburgh sleeping on bunk beds in a common room.

At the same time, students have highlighted some areas where LSE can improve. Emma, for one, points to the booking system for halls of residence. Rooms in halls of residence were quickly booked up this year – an option that many students would have gladly taken. When everything has been fully booked, the current system requires students to check back every day and book as soon as there’s any availability. By operating a waitlist instead, Emma argues, a lot of undue stress could be avoided.

Doug says he would like to see LSE expand its rent guarantor scheme. While it currently covers continuing international students who are paying up to £720 in monthly rent and have lived in halls of residence in a previous year, or secured housing through LSE Student Pad or the University of London Housing Service, the guarantor scheme leaves out many students, particularly postgraduates. Lowering the bar for eligibility would reduce the number of students forced to fork over significant amounts of money upfront just to secure a flat.

The current rent crisis is unlikely to be resolved quickly. While some have called for rent freezes, as has been done in Scotland, others argue it’s only a matter of time before prices crash. But until pressure eases on the already dwindling housing supply, housing uncertainty looks to be a defining feature of student life.

Amara Otero Salgado Staff Writer

Illustrated by Charlie To

The idea of pole fitness has caused a significant amount of controversy over the past couple of decades. One example, which some may recall, is the debate sparked on ‘This Morning’ over whether or not children should be allowed to partake in the sport. From this, we enter into a spider web of gender politics, body-image, sexualisation of women and repression of them and their bodies. LSE’s pole fitness instructor, Alex Grimshaw, maintains that pole fitness is so much more than what people assume.

When Alex first started pole dancing, “it was very different to how it is now”, she says. As she describes her experience with her first class, it’s clear that the stigma surrounding the sport was much worse: “I did the trial class because I was like, ‘Oh, it’s related to dance! It’ll be a really nice, you know, just a different way of moving’ … I remember I went home and I talked to my partner at the time and he was like, ‘Never do that again or I’m going to dump you; it’s slutty, it’s vile — never do it’.”

While the associations of pole dancing with strippers and erotic dance have vastly diminished, this attitude is still held by some. Stigmas attached to female-dominated activities feed into the socialisation of women to feel ashamed of their bodies. In an article entitled ‘Joy, Fear, and Twerking: The Glory of Amber Rose’, Olivia Cole describes this effect: “There are two kinds of women, we are taught: women who are pure and good, wives and mothers on the pedestal of femininity; and there are the other women, the whores, the sluts, the strippers. You are either one or the other, we are taught, and we, women, grow up believing it: setting ourselves up against other women in a desperate effort to delineate between us and them…”

If you find yourself unconvinced of this systemic repression of women, you need only search

‘pole fitness’ in the Bing search engine to clear any doubts. An yone with SafeSearch enabled will be presented with the fol lowing statement: “Your current Bing SafeSearch setting filters out results that might return adult content.” Now try search ing ‘men’s swimming’; you will find yourself confronted with numerous images of men wear ing far fewer clothes than wom en usually do when attending a pole fitness class, yet this is not restricted nor deemed as ‘adult content’. As Alex points out, “Yes there’s the sexy stuff, yes there’s the lingerie,” but there’s actually so much more to pole.

There have been many studies analysing the empowering ef fect of pole fitness on women. For example, ‘Pole Dancing, Empowerment and Embod iment’ by Samantha Holland found that “women initiate agency and espouse liberation and empowerment through something as seemingly prob lematic as pole classes.” It can be seen as a way of reclaiming the negative stigma attached to pole dancing and femininity, as well as an avenue for wom en to connect more closely with their own bodies and sexuality - something which is vastly and systemically discouraged in so ciety.

Having danced from a young age, Alex experienced coming to terms with her body rel atively early in life: “I guess I went through that trans formation when I was dancing more than pole dancing … I’d get a lot of ‘you’re not quite small enough to be in this, not quite thin enough maybe, tall enough? Not quite.’ But that’s because that’s what that indus try is like.” She explains that, as a result, her experience with starting pole was likely very different to most, as she started already in a place of acceptance of her body: “I noticed that I only cared about what I could do, not what I looked like... If I can do this thing I’ve been working on, then that’s, for me, at this point, all I care about.” be I don’t have the upper body strength for this.” She notes that, “Especially the very first time, you see people, you know, biting their nails and they’re trying to make themselves as small as possible like, ‘don’t in university, yeah, okay, you might know you’re definitely female; you might know that you’re a lesbian, or whatever. But actually the reality is your body changes and you as a human being changes so much, and you have the most amount of change to go when you’re in — I’m in my thirties and I still have change

In this regard, pole fitness can be about embracing your body in its current state, and how it meets your needs now, bearing in mind that it will change as you do. For university students like those attending the LSE pole fitness classes, this could be a very healthy habit to get into.

To summarise, here are Alex’s top three benefits of pole dancing:

1. “The ability to look past what you look like would be the

2. “The ability to find your comfort level with your body and movement as well, like, are you comfortable doing body rolls? If you’re not, that’s fine! Nobody’s going to force you to. Are you comfortable going upside down? If you’re not, that’s fine! Nobody’s going to force

3. “A community of women supporting each other… women who have the same body type, same sexuality, or completely opposite body type to you, completely opposite gen-

And finally, Alex’s advice to anyone thinking of trying pole can flourish.

Alex has also noticed a difference when teaching university students, as opposed to those in a later phase of life: “You don’t know yourself yet. If you’re