Mexico Violence Takes Mental Toll On UTEP Students From Juarez

For most students, college is tough enough. But throw the stress and concerns of a drug war just across the border and UTEP professors say it is no wonder students are running into a lot of problems.

“Some students come to see us and they’re concerned about family members who have been kidnapped,” director of the University Counseling Center, Dr. Sherri Terrell, said. “We’ve had some students have reported that family members have been killed.”

Terrell says an increasing number of students who wind up in these chairs are ready to unload untold burdens from a drug war raging in Juarez.

“It’s very difficult to concentrate when you’re worrying about your aunt, your uncle, your tia,” Terrell said.

On Sunday night, Alejandro Ruiz Salazar became the first UTEP student killed in the drug war.

“When they start running into problems at school, they’ll start being referred to us,” Terrell said.

Those referrals often come from the people who spend the most time with students — professors.

“The professor really sees the change in personality or the way they behave in the class. Not turning in assignments on time, or being late, or something,” Dr. Arturo Olivarez. Olivarez is in charge of signing off on the forms excusing a student for not completing his or her course work. He said it’s something he has been doing a lot more of recently.

“The incomplete is one of the ways that we can use to say, ‘Don’t worry, take care of your problems, come back,'” Olivarez said.