While IHUM essays and dorm meetings may seem slightly less overwhelming than AP courses and SATs, Stressed Out Students (SOS), a research group started by School of Education lecturer Denise Pope, believes an overemphasis on academic achievement persists at the college level — a problem that may lead to the sacrifice of academic integrity.

Pope, author of “Doing School: How We are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic and Miseducated Students,” teamed up with Vaden psychologist Doug Daher to found the interdisciplinary group four years ago. Enlisting the help of departments ranging from the Office of Judicial Affairs to the Office for Religious Life and the Haas Center for Public Service, the group has worked to redefine educational success through an annual conference that will take place May 12 and 13.

According to Senior Associate Dean for Religious Life Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann, SOS deals with many of the same issues as her office.

“As both a parent of high school students and a clergy person trying to inculcate some ‘counter cultural’ values, I saw how toxic the values of elitism when applied to education had become,” she said. “I think religion is an alternative set of definitions of success — more concerned with relationships than with finances, more apt to see people fully than through their resume or college application.”

This year’s third-annual, two-day conference will welcome middle school and high school teams consisting of parents, teachers, counselors and students. Each team will work with a coach to formulate plans to combat their students’ academic issues, and will return for a follow-up conference in November to evaluate its progress.

According to Marcela Muniz, a former coach and third-year doctoral student at the School of Education, the coach’s role is to “provide guidance to the teams as they implement strategies to reduce student stress and to improve student health, engagement and integrity in their respective school communities.”

The conference will feature speakers such as Pope, as well as college, high-school and middle-school students.

“It was crazy to do this without the students,” Pope said. “We also needed to have parents and teachers and administrators working together to solve this problem at the same table.”

According to Pope, part of the blame may lie with the parents themselves.

“A lot of these kids are overscheduled outside of school, and their parents don’t understand that they’re actually contributing to [the problem of stress],” she said.

She also noted that student-teacher relationships play a significant role in finding a solution.

“If students think their teachers know them and care about them, they are less likely to fall through the cracks,” Pope said.

In addition to focusing on issues of time management, homework and curriculum instruction and assessment, the conference will also touch on the connection between academic stress and cheating.

According to Pope, 75 percent of high-school students admit to cheating on a test, and 90 percent admit to having copied another student’s homework. These statistics are even higher among honor students and students from the local area — of whom 90 percent have cheated and almost 100 percent have copied homework.

“The students know that [cheating] is wrong but they’re so desperate at that point, they feel that they have to in order to please their parents or themselves or their teachers,” Pope said. “This pressure to be the best and be perfect is actually causing kids to cheat.”

She also noted that this pressure continues to exist in college as well.

“You work, work, work to get into Stanford for this idea that you can have a life, and then you get to Stanford and realize people are still playing the same games they played in high school.”

Muniz agreed.

“Many college students feel compelled to live up to the high expectations that they have placed on themselves and that their families have placed upon them,” she said. “And these expectations can in turn generate a great deal of stress.”

For these reasons, SOS has begun to address issues of stress in student life at the college level. Pope has already helped organize a November presentation for freshmen and has met with Vice Provost of Student Affairs Greg Boardman to discuss possibilities.

“I’m optimistic because we’ve been having these meetings and the administration is listening,” she said, noting that the conference itself could benefit Stanford students through encouraging their self-reflection or through promoting change at their high schools.

Junior Anh Pham, the college student speaker at last year’s conference, agreed.

“I think the conference can be very beneficial for college students who are handling a lot of stress just because it creates the opportunity for discussion, the opportunity to share similar experiences and the opportunity to talk to people who are in the same boat,” he said.

Muniz sees Stanford as the perfect forum for such dialogue.

“It is imperative for places like Stanford to facilitate dialogue on issues of student stress because many perceive the admission process for highly selective institutions to be among the causes of student stress,” she said. “At Stanford, we have a unique opportunity to bring different communities and stakeholders to the table.”