Brown and White Vol. 128 no. 21

              The Brown and White
Vol. 128 No. 21
Friday, April 24, 2015
‘All the Lehigh News First’
Junior Sara Keeler sits down in the back of the lecture hall during her psychology class. A seat near the door alleviates her anxiety and makes her feel like she has an escape route. She’s trying to pay attention to her professor, but the girl sitting in front of her is shopping online for stickers for her laptop. Her medicine was wearing off. Without being able to stop herself, Keeler types in the URL and starts looking at the stickers too.
When she was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder during her sophomore year of high school, Keeler’s doc­tor referred to it as “the plague of the intellectual individual.”
“It can be a huge chal­lenge,” said Greg Lam, ’15, a Lehigh industrial and sys­tems engineering major with ADHD. “It was like, ‘I know all of this stuff in my head, but some­how it’s just not translating into grades on the test.’”
People with ADHD experience challenges in executive func­tion, which can include things like planning, organizing and time management, said Cheryl Ashcroft, the assistant dean for students with disabilities. The hyperactivity element of the dis­order may or may not be present in different individuals, but the disorder is referred to as ADHD regardless.
Symptoms manifest themselves in daily life even when doing something like going out to din­Kirby
Dick is the writer and director of “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary that explores sexual assaults on college campuses and administration cover-ups.
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Q: Did any of your other docu­mentaries that dealt with sexual assault, such as “The Invisible War” and “Twist of Faith,” influ­ence your decision to explore sexual assault on college cam­puses?
“The Invisible War” certainly had an influence on it because I made the film with my producer Amy Ziering and that film was about rape in the military. As part of kind of getting it out, we were taking the film to college campuses. In the Q&As that followed, the conversations would often quickly turn from rape in the military to rape on college campus­es. We knew it was an issue, but we were kind of surprised that it was that much of an issue. Then we started getting letters and emails from people – often times survivors of sexual assault on college campus­es – imploring us to make the film. So, it just seemed like this was a film we had to make. We put aside our other film, which had nothing to do with sexual assault and dove into this one.
Q: How did investigating sexu­al assaults on college campuses differ from your investigations in your previous films? What kind of push-backs or cooper­ation did you encounter from administrators?
We got very little cooperation from administrators. For the most part we were operating a lot under the radar, until near the end when we asked many college presidents to interview on camera. It was really surprising how fearful faculty and administrators were to talk about this issue—even if they knew a lot about it, even if they knew it was a real problem, even if their position was something like victim advocates helping survivors. There was a fear that there would be some sort of retaliation from the college or univer­sity. I was really surprised because I guess I just saw colleges and uni­versities as free speech zones—that people would be willing to speak out about this. In many cases, faculty do speak out about sexual assault in other places around the world, even around the country, but on their campus – it was an incredible amount of silence.
Q: You’ve been screening the film at colleges and universities across the country. What has the response been from both stu­dents and administrators?
From students it has been over­whelmingly positive. One of the ways I judge how engaged adminis­trators are on this issue is how many
ner with a group of friends. Keeler said she may become completely engrossed in a conversation hap­pening a few tables away and ignore the group she’s with. Her friends take it in stride and often jokingly tease her when she has trouble controlling her impulse to shout out her opinions.
“I am the head of the peanut gallery when we’re watching mov­ies,” Keeler said. “It’s really bad. My friends are like, ‘Sara, shut up!’ and I’m like ‘Sorry, I’ll be quiet!’”
A female junior who wished to remain anonymous was able to control her symptoms throughout high school. Although her father had ADHD, she was afraid to get diagnosed because of the label of having a learning disability. But the lack of rigidity that came with college made it too difficult to ignore. Juggling academics, extracurriculars and a social life became too much. A particularly rough semester made her finally seek help.
“I base part of my con­fidence on how well I do academically,” she said. “It was just horrible getting low grades on stuff I knew I could do if I could focus.”
Struggling to remember due dates, keep track of upcoming exams and pay attention in class can make it difficult to succeed in college. Lam took time off from Lehigh during his sophomore year after getting a low GPA.
“I thought maybe I needed to take some time off and reflect,” Lam said. “Clearly, banging my head up against the wall was not working.”
The Academic Support Services department provides coaching for students with ADHD to help them stay organized. Ashcroft said the coaching follows a “self determi­nation model,” meaning that it assists students in defining and reaching their goals. The coach­ing gives students an opportunity to come up with a structure and
Students with ADHD adapt to academic surroundings
Q&A with Kirby Dick, director of ‘The Hunting Ground’
By LAURA CASALE
News Editor
show up at the screenings. I think that sends a real message to the school, to the students and even to the community that they really want to provide leadership on this. I was at Fresno State, where there were 400 people and not one administra­tor in the room. Yesterday, being at Lafayette, the president came, which was a really good sign. It’s challenging, but if administrators aren’t willing to engage in the con­versation, the problem is just going to continue.
Q: Was there anything you found while making this film that you found particularly sur­prising?
I was surprised that it was so ubiquitous. It seemed like every col­lege campus where we interviewed a survivor, not only was it happening but the school in almost every case was not responding properly. In so
By JADA GREEN
Design Editor
Courtesy of radiopaedia.org
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder with symptoms including inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity, though some only see inattention symptoms.
See ADHD Page 2
See Q&A Page 2