Worried About a Student?

Each year at the Summer Orientation Programs, we give a talk for parents about what to expect during your students' first year at Fordham together with a psychologist from Counseling and Psychological Services. Care for our students is of the utmost importance, especially in light of a national increase in mental health concerns among college-age students. We understand that family members may have concerns about your student or have a question about their experience here. At Fordham, we welcome not just a student into our university community, but his or her family as well. 

We also recognize that students often know far more about one another than we do. With this in mind, we recruit and train many students to help their peers: Resident Assistants and Resident Freshmen Mentors live among our residents in our residence halls, Commuter Freshmen Mentors help commuting students adapt to college life, Orientation Leaders welcome first year students and help them become Fordham men and women, and other peer educators and students in other roles are a key part of the effort to assist students. 

Recruited for their capacity to care for and connect with others, these students receive specific training and supervision in order to play a vital part of the network of support and connection for students who are struggling. The seriousness with which students take this role—that of our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers—is a great source of pride for us and a huge support for the professional staff working to help students in areas like mine.

If your student has a history of emotional struggles, please inform us, the Director of Residential Life at your student’s campus and/or a psychologist in the Counseling and Psychological Services. We can discuss ways to assist with a smoother transition and/or be better able to respond should struggles arise. From the smallest concerns, to a bout of homesickness or to the more serious struggles we see with anxiety, depression and managing the medications that often accompany these challenges—we are here to help.

We will work with you and your student together to try and provide the best possible assistance, from a casual conversation with a member of the staff, to pastoral counseling in our Campus Ministry area to clinical counseling in and even outside referrals to provide for more serious and specialized care. We will even be happy to work with you behind the scenes to help your student confidentially or to help you gain some perspective on how we can assist with problems which you may be surprised to learn are more common than they first appear. 

As deans of students, it’s our role and the role of our staffs to connect with parents and students about these kinds of concerns and, in turn, connect students with care from our colleagues in Residential Life, Counseling and Psychological Services, or University Health Services.

We invite you to call or write if you would like further information or want to discuss a specific problem or worry. While it is the responsibility of all of our students to take the lead role in addressing conflicts and working on problems they may experience, we hope our partnership with families will provide the appropriate combination of challenge and support to achieve this goal.

Rose Hill
Christopher Rodgers
Assistant Vice President and Dean of Students at Rose Hill
718-817-4755
[email protected]

Lincoln Center
Jenifer Campbell
Dean of Students at Lincoln Center
212-636-6250
[email protected]