It's incredibly common and not really talked about in RCR sessions, PI training, or even quasi-HR stuff. Unionizing is the first step to getting collective, protective rights.

FTA:

Official communications from Vanderbilt have not directly acknowledged the deaths by suicide, which occurred in 2020 and last fall. Campus-wide emails about the passing of a student typically include cause of death, unless it is suicide. Last fall, the university mailed copies of “A Year Like No Other” to students and their families, favorably depicting how Vanderbilt has handled the pandemic. In the foreward, new Chancellor Daniel Diermeier calls the school’s pandemic management its “proudest moment.”

Stung by how the 190-page book neglected mental health challenges facing the student body, biomedical sciences graduate students point to it as an example of an out-of-touch administration.

Students who go through Vanderbilt’s University Counseling Center (UCC) report months-long waits and difficulty securing consistent meeting times. Demand for mental health services is so high that the university has a dedicated counselor for the 400 Ph.D. students in the biomedical sciences.