- Email: [email protected]
Collegiate
BOOK FORUM Adrian Sondheimer,
MD
Guest Editor
Collegiate
P
redating Professor Wagstaff’s installation as president of Huxley College, heralded by his anthem “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It,”1 and long before Tom Lehrer’s paean to college loyalty come what may, “Fight Fiercely Harvard,”2 Jaffe and Bonx’s “Collegiate” captured the 1920s campus aura.3 The lyrics “Collegiate, collegiate, yes we are collegiate, nothing intermejate, no ma’am/Never, ever worry, we’re collegiate, yes sirree!” suggests a devil-maycare spirit where the college experience is considered a failure should football be neglected in favor of education. Higher education has come a long way. Not only has it become ever more serious (and, in truth, for many it always was), but also, more recently, the campus has become a focus of clinical interest and advocacy, intended to aid students in navigating campus demands and stresses. To that end, the Journal has devoted the present Book Forum (and 3 prior Book Forum entries) to a coordinated series of reviews of recent publications about college life. The August 2014 issue critiqued books on the development and transmutation of higher education in the United States, international students in higher education, and how to help high school students, some with disabilities, transition to college. The April 2015 issue covered normative campus phenomena: student engagement in sexual relationships and involvement in alcohol use, with a nod to the occasional expression of violence. The January 2016 issue critiqued books, intended for parents of entering and matriculated college students, which endorsed mindfulness and meditation as recommended means to deal with expected stress, and separate volumes that focused on students diagnosed before or during college with autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. The focus shifts, in this latest batch, from the relatively benign or supportive to the potentially dangerous. Malik reviews College Safety 101, a book intended for collegeattending women, which focuses on their need to maintain and ensure their physical safety, written in the context of current extensive front-page reports of rape on campus. In turn, Loftus reviews a criminal justice doctoral dissertation (published as a book) that examines the phenomenon of cyberstalking as determined by a research study performed on undergraduates attending a single college. The study measures online behaviors thought to contribute to victimization. In a related but even more horrendous thematic vein, Wiles reviews Aradhana Bela Sood and Roger Cohen’s book
about the Virginia Tech massacre. Dr. Sood, who formerly served as secretary of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, was an invited member of the Virginia governor’s commission investigating the large-scale 2007 massacre of college students by a fellow student. The book provides details of the tragedy, depicts the institution’s lack of readiness to deal with the event and its precursors, and proposes numerous recommendations for indicated administrative changes. For the time being, this series of college-related book reviews is coming to an end. Please allow a short digression to comment about the, in total, 17 reviews. James Parker, in response to a question posed to him as a writer and critic, wrote, “Book reviewing is . hard work, dirty work, underappreciated and not well paid. And do they get it right all the time? Certainly not. Gems are overlooked, mediocrities are exalted; it happens every day. But somebody’s got to process this stuff. Somebody’s got to read the book before you do.”4 And that they have. This is my opportunity to publicly thank all the reviewers of these books for their selfless, welcome, and very much appreciated work. As seen in these summaries of prior Book Fora, many facets of the college experience have been covered, about all of which the average child and adolescent psychiatrist should be knowledgeable. As mentioned previously, adolescence segues seamlessly into the developmental stage of transitional age youth, and most of this population, in the United States, now enrolls in college. Thus, child and adolescent psychiatrists are treating students with whom they will continue to be involved, directly or indirectly, during their patients’ college experiences. In turn, the focus of the child and adolescent psychiatrists’ training experience is likely to enlarge to progressively encompass this older, and still developing, cohort. Adrian Sondheimer, MD The State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine New York City [email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2015.08.005
REFERENCES 1. McLeod N. Horse Feathers [DVD]. Los Angeles: Paramount Pictures; 1932. 2. Tom Lehrer. Songs by Tom Lehrer [Album]. Boston: Trans Radio Studios; 1953. 3. Jaffe M, Bonx N. Collegiate [Song]. Performed by Waring’s Pennsylvanians. Recorded. April 4, 1925. 4. Parker J, Holmes A. Is book reviewing a public service or an art? New York Times. February 8, 2015:BR31.
JOURNAL 338
www.jaacap.org
OF THE
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF C HILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY VOLUME 55 NUMBER 4 APRIL 2016
MD
Guest Editor
Collegiate
P
redating Professor Wagstaff’s installation as president of Huxley College, heralded by his anthem “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It,”1 and long before Tom Lehrer’s paean to college loyalty come what may, “Fight Fiercely Harvard,”2 Jaffe and Bonx’s “Collegiate” captured the 1920s campus aura.3 The lyrics “Collegiate, collegiate, yes we are collegiate, nothing intermejate, no ma’am/Never, ever worry, we’re collegiate, yes sirree!” suggests a devil-maycare spirit where the college experience is considered a failure should football be neglected in favor of education. Higher education has come a long way. Not only has it become ever more serious (and, in truth, for many it always was), but also, more recently, the campus has become a focus of clinical interest and advocacy, intended to aid students in navigating campus demands and stresses. To that end, the Journal has devoted the present Book Forum (and 3 prior Book Forum entries) to a coordinated series of reviews of recent publications about college life. The August 2014 issue critiqued books on the development and transmutation of higher education in the United States, international students in higher education, and how to help high school students, some with disabilities, transition to college. The April 2015 issue covered normative campus phenomena: student engagement in sexual relationships and involvement in alcohol use, with a nod to the occasional expression of violence. The January 2016 issue critiqued books, intended for parents of entering and matriculated college students, which endorsed mindfulness and meditation as recommended means to deal with expected stress, and separate volumes that focused on students diagnosed before or during college with autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. The focus shifts, in this latest batch, from the relatively benign or supportive to the potentially dangerous. Malik reviews College Safety 101, a book intended for collegeattending women, which focuses on their need to maintain and ensure their physical safety, written in the context of current extensive front-page reports of rape on campus. In turn, Loftus reviews a criminal justice doctoral dissertation (published as a book) that examines the phenomenon of cyberstalking as determined by a research study performed on undergraduates attending a single college. The study measures online behaviors thought to contribute to victimization. In a related but even more horrendous thematic vein, Wiles reviews Aradhana Bela Sood and Roger Cohen’s book
about the Virginia Tech massacre. Dr. Sood, who formerly served as secretary of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, was an invited member of the Virginia governor’s commission investigating the large-scale 2007 massacre of college students by a fellow student. The book provides details of the tragedy, depicts the institution’s lack of readiness to deal with the event and its precursors, and proposes numerous recommendations for indicated administrative changes. For the time being, this series of college-related book reviews is coming to an end. Please allow a short digression to comment about the, in total, 17 reviews. James Parker, in response to a question posed to him as a writer and critic, wrote, “Book reviewing is . hard work, dirty work, underappreciated and not well paid. And do they get it right all the time? Certainly not. Gems are overlooked, mediocrities are exalted; it happens every day. But somebody’s got to process this stuff. Somebody’s got to read the book before you do.”4 And that they have. This is my opportunity to publicly thank all the reviewers of these books for their selfless, welcome, and very much appreciated work. As seen in these summaries of prior Book Fora, many facets of the college experience have been covered, about all of which the average child and adolescent psychiatrist should be knowledgeable. As mentioned previously, adolescence segues seamlessly into the developmental stage of transitional age youth, and most of this population, in the United States, now enrolls in college. Thus, child and adolescent psychiatrists are treating students with whom they will continue to be involved, directly or indirectly, during their patients’ college experiences. In turn, the focus of the child and adolescent psychiatrists’ training experience is likely to enlarge to progressively encompass this older, and still developing, cohort. Adrian Sondheimer, MD The State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine New York City [email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2015.08.005
REFERENCES 1. McLeod N. Horse Feathers [DVD]. Los Angeles: Paramount Pictures; 1932. 2. Tom Lehrer. Songs by Tom Lehrer [Album]. Boston: Trans Radio Studios; 1953. 3. Jaffe M, Bonx N. Collegiate [Song]. Performed by Waring’s Pennsylvanians. Recorded. April 4, 1925. 4. Parker J, Holmes A. Is book reviewing a public service or an art? New York Times. February 8, 2015:BR31.
JOURNAL 338
www.jaacap.org
OF THE
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF C HILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY VOLUME 55 NUMBER 4 APRIL 2016