Some students say that, like the House system, the academic advising system is ill-equipped to deal with increasing student mental health problems.

Besides House tutors, the adults with whom students most often interact are their teaching fellows and professors. But, like residential tutors, their attitudes and responses to mental health problems are extremely inconsistent, according to some undergraduates.

And many students say that these academic advisers can be equally as crucial to the recovery or demise of a student suffering from mental health problems.

Quinn says that her experiences in telling her teachers about her anxiety disorder have run the gamut—and greatly influenced her well-being at Harvard.

After having a panic attack during a Calculus test and a second attack the next day, she approached her chemistry professor about her problem. Quinn says he responded “compassionately” and scheduled her an appointment at the Bureau of Study Counsel. He kept in touch with Quinn throughout the semester, inquiring about her appointment and providing academic and personal help.

But when Quinn told her Calculus teaching fellow about how the panic attack prevented her from completing the test, she got a far more discouraging response.

“His reaction was like ‘Wow, that’s really weird,’” Quinn says. “I came at talking to teachers naively, thinking that I’m going to tell people that something’s wrong with me, and I expected some kind of support. I don’t think he’s a terrible person, but just that he didn’t know how to deal with it.”

Quinn says she then tried to attend the Calculus professor’s office hours, but was told that those office hours were only for students in the professor’s sections.

She ended up failing the class.

For Quinn, however, it was the apathy of her TF—not the F on her transcript—that had a far more negative, enduring effect on both her academic experience and mental health. “I spent the rest of…the semester regretting that I had told him about that first panic attack,” Quinn writes. “I often told myself…that I should forget about that one terrible meeting; but in fact it colored the way I spoke and thought about mental illness more than any other experience: I felt ashamed and thus did not tell other teachers, advisers or even friends how I felt.”

For several years, Harvard administrators have been aware of the influence the teaching staff can have on students with mental health problems and have been trying to correct the inconsistency Quinn experienced.

A 1999 report from a Provost’s committee on student mental health concluded that many members of the teaching staff are unaware of the appropriate responses to mental health issues and, busy with their own academic obligations, are unable to provide guidance to students.

“It was evident that a number of faculty care deeply about their students but feel inadequately informed to help,” the report states. “Minimal training in subjects such as recognizing the warning signs of depression and knowing University resources would be helpful in directing both their students and themselves to seeking help when necessary.”

As a result of the report, Harvard formed the University Student Health Coordinating Board in 2000, a committee of University mental health experts who coordinate outreach efforts and mental health services within the University.

The board released a brochure called “What Can I Do? How to Recognize Students in Distress . . . And How to Help,” and inaugurated “Caring for the Harvard Community,” a week of panels with speakers and workshops on mental health, some of which are aimed at the teaching staff.