Conference Schedule

Acts of antisemitism have more than quintupled on college campuses in the 2023-2024 academic year compared to the 2022-2023 academic year (Hillel International, 2024), leaving Jewish college students feeling more vulnerable than ever. The aim of this 3-hour workshop is to provide participants with a nuanced understanding of antisemitism, its impacts on Jewish college students, and effective strategies for addressing it within university settings. Participants will first examine different definitions of antisemitism and the evolution of antisemitic tropes over time.

Special attention will be given to the ways antisemitism manifests in politics, particularly in distinguishing between free speech or legitimate advocacy on campus versus the harmful politicization of Jewish identity within the context of global conflict. Next, the workshop will explore the implications of antisemitism and its consequences on the mental health of Jewish college students, whose individual reactions to antisemitism are compounded by the social and emotional toll of navigating antisemitism within their own campus community. Finally, the seminar will close by addressing the concept of allyship, offering concrete strategies that university counseling center staff can employ to effectively respond to antisemitism while ensuring they do not invalidate or marginalize other groups on campus. By the end of the workshop, participants will leave with the knowledge and tools necessary to support Jewish students and foster a culture of inclusion and belonging within their broader campus communities.

The treatment of psychosis is often considered too complex and/or too specialized for college counseling centers to provide adequate care, thereby prompting many college counseling centers to quickly refer students experiencing psychosis to higher levels of care in the community. However, given the disproportionate rates of psychosis experienced by minoritized populations and the widely documented barriers to accessing community-based mental health care, these students are often experiencing psychosis at the intersection of multiple marginalized social positions, thereby compounding their risk of receiving inadequate care and/or disproportionally carceral treatment responses. As a result, college counseling centers - often replete with greater access to resources and service-delivery flexibility than their community mental health counterparts - are uniquely positioned to provide more robust care to students experiencing psychosis.

In this presentation, participants will be provided with an overview of the varied and ever-evolving philosophical, sociocultural, and psychiatric frameworks that have informed conceptualizations and treatment of psychosis. Drawing on critical social theory, neurobiological research, and trauma theory, participants will be invited to examine the roles that power, intersectional positionality, and presentation play in the diagnostic and treatment processes. Using case vignettes, participants will then be invited to consider how one might develop a culturally-responsive and relationally-oriented therapeutic alliance through the cultivation of embodied presence and a depathologizing clinical stance. The presentation offers a constellation of therapeutic values, treatment priorities, and clinical modalities intended to improve long-term prognosis while centering client self-determination in treatment. Audience participation will be invited and encouraged through question/answer periods at intervals throughout the presentation.

Learn how to practice community care and allyship by increasing access and inclusion on your campus! This session highlights approaches and strategies to cultivate disability-affirming and neuro-affirming spaces that can intentionally shift your campus towards increased well-being and belonging of disabled and neurodivergent students. 

There is an emerging call for college campuses to innovate and think creatively about how to best support the steadily growing population of disabled and neurodivergent students in higher education. With this changing landscape, a shift in mindset, active listening and critical discussion are needed to move from passively considering students to actively creating a culture of community care. This presentation will help you lead with your heart and take the first step by providing information and directed strategies that support a more inclusive and affirming campus for students who are disabled and neurodivergent alike.

We live in a time of rapidly changing information and policies. We and our students have access to a constant stream of information. Student who are our clients frequently report a sense of social isolation and uncertainty. They come to counseling centers impacted by fear, doubt and symptoms of worry, stress, and depression.  Meanwhile, professional competence is required to provide quality services to our clients. Now more than ever, mental health clinicians need to understand the impacts of change on their clients and know and manage the impacts of change and client dysregulation on themselves. This presentation will provide information and practices that support mental health professionals in being their best (i.e., most regulated, well, and grounded) personal and professional selves.

In university settings, mental health crises often impact students' academic performance and overall well-being. This workshop explores approaches to integrating mental health and academic support through collaboration between counseling centers, faculty, and campus partners. Participants will learn how to create holistic response systems that address students' immediate emotional needs while fostering their academic resilience. Using case studies and evidence-based strategies, the session highlights best practices for building partnerships that support retention and success. Attendees will gain practical tools to identify and assist students in distress, ensuring they receive comprehensive care to thrive both personally and academically.

There is a myth that eating disorders only occur in Caucasian, cisgender, heterosexual, affluent, thin, neurotypical, able-bodied teenage girls. There is abundant research demonstrating that this myth is inaccurate. Eating disorders occur in many marginalized communities and are not taken seriously or overlooked in marginalized people. There is a strong belief that equates low weight with health. By the time we get to our work, we’ve been socialized and indoctrinated into the dominant weight paradigm. We stop questioning what we’ve been trained about bodies, food, weight and health.

In the workshop, I will debunk eating disorders stereotypes from who gets an eating disorder to how malnourishment can occur in any body size. I will address how factors such as race and poverty, seen as protective factors against eating disorders, can contribute to an eating disorder. I will also debunk the weight health paradigm by discussing research flaws. The workshop offers practical eating disorder screening questions and clinical interventions through a social justice lens. Discussion will center around examining our biases around eating disorders, weight and health.