When Aman Kidwai arrived at the University of Connecticut, he was scared, nervous and anxious like most young men. And, like most young men, he didn't talk about it.
He had played football and run track in high school, and while he might have played sports at a Division 3 school, he wasn't going to play at UConn. He was used to the highly structured life of high school, with every moment spoken for, ever-vigilant parents and teachers and a team full of friends.
The university felt cold and impersonal and he had a hard time connecting with people, much less discussing his uncomfortable feelings.
"Those are tough feelings to emote," said Kidwai, now a senior, "tough feelings to tell anyone about." He found himself skipping classes just because he could.
While most kids -- young men and young women -- have a mix of anxiety and excitement when they head off for college, experts on men and masculinity say that young men handle those feelings differently from young women and therefore often experience different problems and sometimes greater difficulties in the transition.
James M. O'Neil, a University of Connecticut professor who has been studying gender issues and masculinity for the past 30 years, said the college transition issues are a reflection of the crisis in the development of boys and young men in America. O'Neil said that he now addresses these issues in his classes on gender and masculinity, but that he wants, eventually, to explore whether students would find it helpful to have a men's center or discussion programs in residence halls.
While girls are raised to feel relatively comfortable expressing emotions, to seek help by talking to friends, family or professionals, O'Neil said, young men learn early on that it isn't considered strong or masculine to express fear, anxiety or other vulnerable feelings. "If you haven't been taught to label your feelings, to express them and use them constructively, if you don't have that skill," O'Neil said, those feelings may be expressed in "negative ways." Troubled young men are more likely than women to drink, to act out aggressively, to fight or vandalize, O'Neil said, while troubled young women are more likely to talk out their issues with a friend or to seek help at a counseling center.
Professionals at other universities and colleges say they see the same patterns. Susan Birge, director of counseling and psychological services at Fairfield University, said young men "just don't have societal permission to speak up and ask for help," Birge said, and college is a place where asking for help can be crucial for success.
Jason Zelesky, wellness outreach coordinator at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., said that "the whole formation or the social construction of masculinity sends young men these lofty and unfair messages about what it means to be a young man," and that it's "a narrative of violence, confrontation, fierce independence, of a sort of emotional apathy or non-communication of emotion with the exception of anger."
"Our dashboard indicators are pretty convincing that for the most part it is men who are the predominant judicial load (at the university); men acting out in residence halls, men transported to the hospital for drinking too much," Zelesky said. "The numbers bear that out."
Zelesky said he does a plenty of outreach with students and is starting men's discussion groups to help men learn to talk about their emotions and how to seek help when they need it.
At the University of Connecticut, the numbers show that young men are more likely to wind up with disciplinary issues. Catherine Cocks, the director of community standards, said that of the 2,489 students referred to the office during the last academic year, 65 percent were men.
There are experts who believe that any crisis affecting boys in general is overblown, but O'Neil feels the signs are clear. He notes the trends he finds troubling: a higher percentage of boys in special education than girls, more male high school dropouts, more males in prison, fewer young men enrolling in colleges, more males dropping out of colleges and a higher suicide rate among young men.
These trends make it crucial, he said, that parents, educators and professionals take steps to intervene in much the same ways that were done for girls in the past 20 or 30 years when they were not achieving as much as boys.
O'Neil believes that just as women's centers at colleges were established, there should be men's centers that offer safe places for them to discuss their feelings. Birge said that at Fairfield they have tried to destigmatize counseling for boys and have a male therapist on staff. "We put (him) out in front to showcase that here is a guy who is smart, a skilled professional, but has emotional availability."
There are also other ways to make it easier for a guy to seek therapy. Chris Kilmartin, professor of psychology at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, said young men aren't very comfortable talking directly about their feelings but can be encouraged to tell stories about what's been happening. "What I try to listen for are the emotional themes of the story. . . . It's the Columbo routine."
Mark Stevens, director of the counseling center at the California State University, Northridge said he uses "guy-to-guy" language and is careful not to have an overly feminine waiting room. "If you've got scented candles out there and Zen stuff all over," he said, "the guys aren't going to relate to that stuff."
Senior Information Specialist Christina Bachetti contributed to this story.
