by James A. Baumann
Mention 2020 to a student affairs professional and you’re likely to see a look of shock and exhaustion flash across their face. That’s to be expected after an extended period of time when they found themselves primarily in a reactive mode, trying to navigate a quickly shifting landscape. Now, ask those same people what might be in store for the next year. There may still be a look of uncertainty as questions remain about how dramatic the impact of the Delta variant and vaccination rates will be. But there is also a knowing look because they understand that the mental health effects of the so-called “year like no other” have not been resolved.
In the same way that radar warns of an approaching storm, so too has higher education seen the gathering clouds that accompany the return of those students who have had to cope with a lost year. And, to continue the metaphor, housing departments understand that when the storm hits, the ones holding the umbrella will largely be those staff in student-facing positions such as hall directors and area coordinators. Fortunately, while the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic took many by surprise, campus housing departments are prepping to address these additional stressors through programming and partnerships.
Deidre Ann Weathersby is a licensed clinical psychologist and the associate director for outreach and prevention with the University of Illinois Counseling Center. She is also the president of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Outreach (AUCCCO). The association and its members have seen their work evolve in recent years as awareness of mental health issues has increased and the stigma around care has lessened. As noted in its mission statement, AUCCCO exists to promote “a broad understanding of outreach, prevention and education services based on the assumption that outreach must extend the expertise of counseling centers to the larger campus community.” Weathersby acknowledges the importance of these goals. “Being part of AUCCCO means we operate from a belief that mental health services include outreach and prevention efforts. These are effective and necessary forms of interventions that include workshops, panels, support groups, awareness campaigns, and many other mental health prevention efforts. We also engage in counseling, group therapy, community responses to trauma, and psychological emergency services.”
Understanding the services that counseling centers provide and the built-in opportunity to reach as many students as possible makes housing and counseling a logical team-up choice. Most campuses would say that the amount of collaboration has increased in recent years, coinciding with a greater focus on student mental health. Entering the 2021 school year, though, the importance of that collaboration seems stronger than ever. Reports from groups like The Collegiate Mental Health Innovation Council, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Chegg.org offer quantifiable evidence of the mounting need for mental health services.
“I think we will see more students than ever struggling with anxiety, depression, and burnout,” says Oklahoma State University director of housing and residential life Leon McClinton, citing his concerns about the upcoming year. “Due to many campuses not being able to mandate vaccinations and the increasing concern with the Delta variant, there is a lot of uncertainty about the year. We are ready for everything to go back to normal, but it seems like that may not happen any time soon. Many students have sort of lost their freedom, which is a major stressor. They can’t interact with their peers without thinking about precautionary measures. I think we will see more students than ever struggling with anxiety, depression, and burnout.”
Jessica Rashid, the assistant director for residential life, student care, and conduct at the University of Washington, echoes this concern. “We know more and more students come to campus with existing mental health concerns every year, and this year will be no exception. Add to that all of the additional layers of impact to mental health that people in the most advantageous starting place have experienced over the last year, and you can begin to imagine the challenge that some of our students will be facing. Especially for our second-year students coming to campus for the first time, this will be made even more complex by a perception of pressure to finally have a normal college experience. Students with marginalized identities, particularly students who identify as BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and people of color], may be facing an increase in stressors around campus climate, equity, and inclusion.”
Campuses are making investments to prepare for new and returning students, though, on a number of campuses, even second-year students will be first-time residents. At one university, this situation has changed their lexicon to include the terms “first-time-in-college” and “first-time-on-campus” in describing the incoming populations. Weathersby explains that, for students, “there will be the transition back to in-person living, coursework, and activities. This transition brings with it new opportunities to practice interpersonal skills, resolving conflict and managing social anxieties. For some second-year students, they will have their first opportunity to live away from home; thus, the adjustment to college may be similar to that of a first-year student. The world is a different place since the pandemic and the social unrest of the past 18 months. There will continue to be grief and loss concerns, some related to COVID-19, and some related to increased gun violence and other forms of grief and loss.”
She adds that data from the Center for Collegiate Mental Health show that anxiety continues to be reported even more than depression for students seeking mental health services. “Anxiety is real but can be managed,” she explains. “Skill-building workshops, meditation, counseling, support groups, and having healthy support circles are all ways students can benefit in their wellness journeys. Having an environment of care where mental health and wellness is prioritized throughout the campus community will certainly serve students best.”
A recent article at the news website Inside Higher Ed details some of the anticipatory steps that are occurring on campuses. For example, the 64 campuses that make up the State University of New York system were directed to invest 5% of their COVID-19 relief funds, totaling $24 million, to support students’ mental health. And at Morgan State University, Kevin Banks, vice president of student affairs, discussed the need to boost staffing in its counseling centers as well as the work of a 43-person “resocialization and re-acculturation” committee that will explore, among other goals, “taking some time to acknowledge what we’ve gone through over this past year.” The article also quotes John Dunkle, senior clinical director for higher education at the JED Foundation, an organization that works with colleges, universities, and other educational institutions to support mental health. He notes the challenge facing campuses as students return, saying that “they need to be prepared to help provide space for their communities to heal from trauma, from death, grief and loss, and vicarious traumatization.” Oklahoma State University is one of those campuses that works with the JED Foundation. McClinton says that the campus has drawn from those resources as well as increasing coordination between the housing and counseling offices with aligning resources, having additional training for faculty and staff, and providing more outreach to students.
At Buffalo State College, the student affairs department oversaw a website dedicated to resources to help students as they come back to campus. In addition, explains Philip Badaszewski, the assistant dean of residence life, the campus counseling center launched an initiative called “Recharge and Reach Out” intended to “provide space for conversations in classes, meetings, student organizations, etc. around mental health, emotional wellness, and self-care; to normalize conversations around mental health; and to highlight the importance of reaching out for support along with providing the support resources that are available.”
Similarly, at the University of Central Florida, recent weeks have been filled with meetings between housing and residence life, the university’s police department, the dean of students office, conduct officers, and UCF Cares, a team that offers programs about safety and well-being, violence prevention, and mental health support. Karen Hofmann, the director of counseling and psychological services at UCF, says that, for students, “If you already struggle with mental health issues, this pandemic made it worse. Big stressors can flare up mental health [issues] that [are] underneath the surface.” She added, “mental health is just as important as physical health. It is an ongoing process and not an event. How you mange mental health during difficult changes can either build resiliency if you face it directly or make it worse if you neglect.” The critical part of this process is sharing the responsibility. “Understanding that this has been a very challenging year and that mental health concerns are on the rise, it was important for us to connect and align our understanding of response when students are in crisis,” says April Hicks Konvalinka, executive director of housing and residence life. “It was important for us to share roles and responsibilities and identify solutions to any identified gap areas.”
The benefits of collaboration may seem clear, but collaboration doesn’t always happen without some hiccups. After all, for all the face-to-face interactions housing staff have with students, as well as times they must respond to students in crisis, they do not possess the same expertise as trained counselors. A number of campuses may rely on services from nearby or affiliated hospitals for counseling or emergency mental health care, but that may not be an option for all. So, what does successful cooperation between a housing department and student counseling center look like?
Even beyond addressing students’ mental health concerns, housing departments likely will be addressing additional conduct issues as students, after their pandemic year, look for ways to release stress and perhaps overcompensate for the experiences they lost from last year.
“Engaging partnerships can be cumbersome and barriered by time to meet, be misdirected, or have unclear objectives and purpose. With that being said, the outcome of a solid successful partnership can yield timely, culturally relevant, and effective interventions,” says Weathersby. “Having students be involved, or maybe lead the advisory committees or other programmatic initiatives, may facilitate participation. Having input on responding to trauma that involves students living in residence halls, mental health resources, suicide prevention, building skills for managing stress, and managing stress related to oppression may be a few topics addressed in formal collaborative efforts.”
Partnerships between housing departments and counseling centers can take a variety of forms. Weathersby says that the University of Illinois has increased its embedded counselor program. This program, similar to ones in use at other campuses, includes counselors immersed within academic units. In addition, the campus has had “dialogues about intersections of identity and how this interplay impacts mental health and wellness,” says Weathersby, noting its importance “as we prepare for diverse, conscious, social advocates and knowledgeable partners in this upcoming class of students.”
Similar efforts are occurring on other campuses. Badaszewski praises counselors-in-residence programs where funding is shared between housing and counseling departments. “These situations end up being a win-win because it increases counseling staff and provides an assigned counselor for a residence hall. This often helps to reduce barriers to service and might remove student anxiety about being seen walking into the counseling center building.” Access to counseling services can be implemented in many ways. “Another good practice I’ve experienced is bringing a counselor into the lobby of a residence hall and even the student union so that students have the opportunity to informally interact with a counselor before they might go in for an appointment,” he notes. “This set-up works in response to a campus incident but can also become regular practice at the beginning of the semester to help students feel more comfortable if they do end up utilizing counseling services.”
Many partnerships include formal training as well as less formal exchanges of knowledge and resources. McClinton says he sees the value of cross-training with both staffs, allowing housing to better understand the work of the counseling center and vice versa. For example, professional and graduate student housing staff could hold regular meetings with counselors, say, over lunch, to ask questions and share updates.
By spotlighting available campus resources, counseling centers can provide housing staff with a mental health first-aid kit of sorts. “I believe having a resource guide would be essential. Not all students may want to invest in counseling or have immediate access, but certainly engaging in wellness workshops, physical fitness, cultural center programming, and other social support initiatives will positively impact a student’s mental well-being,” Weathersby explains. “Knowing where to refer students who are having a psychological emergency is also important and can be included in mass emails and various touch points. Finally, partnering with campus mental health units and counseling centers will likely yield materials for tips for wellness and adjusting to college materials. Approaching mental health first aid from an integrative health and wellness approach will allow for engagement with other wellness units on campus.”
Rashid also believes that frontline staff will need increased preparation to intervene in crisis situations. “It will be imperative that staff pay attention to nuance and to discern when a situation may be related to something underlying. Ultimately, I think frontline staff need to have a deep understanding of the resources available to them in their roles, as well as those resources available to the students with whom they interact.” At UCF, Konvalinka explains, “each of our student staff and residence life professional staff completes a QPR training facilitated by UCF Counseling and Psychology Services. Additionally, student staff will complete behavioral health training during RA training week, and there will be an additional in-service session during Suicide Prevention Week.”
Even beyond addressing students’ mental health concerns, housing departments likely will be addressing additional conduct issues as students, after their pandemic year, look for ways to release stress and perhaps overcompensate for the experiences they lost from last year. Psychologists and sociologists have pondered how the population will respond to more than a year of forced isolation, predicting everything from awkward, anxious interactions to a modern take on the Roaring ‘20s, filled with Gatsby-esque excesses. “For most of us, when stressors are increased, the opportunity for various dimensions of wellness – physical, social, emotional, etc. – to be negatively impacted is greater,” says Weathersby. “This may appear in everyday living of a student with increased peer conflict, feeling distressed and having more stress than internal and external resources to manage this stress. Behavioral implications could be great and result in academic shortfalls.”
Campuses are making investments to prepare for new and returning students, though, on a number of campuses, even second-year students will be first-time residents.
Tina Tormey, the director of residential education at The College of New Jersey, describes their efforts to deal with potential conduct issues. “We recognize that a majority of our residents have experienced the loss of formative college experiences. Our students have said that they missed their social experiences the last year-and-a-half the most and seem to want to make up for lost time. We are hoping to direct this into campus engagement like in the residence hall association, student organizations, and program attendance, but we are also worried that it will also entail a fair amount of higher-risk social behavior and experimentation that we will have to address, both preventatively through education efforts and responsively.” And at Buffalo State, as Badaszewski notes, “While alcohol consumption is an issue on our campus, marijuana use is far more prevalent. With New York State legalizing marijuana for those 21 and over, I think we will continue to see marijuana use grow regardless of age. While this is not fully attributable to mental health, many of our students will use marijuana as a means to cope and reduce anxiety.”
Badaszewski hopes that just having the conversation about students and mental health will be beneficial. “I’d want staff to normalize the experience,” he says. “Mental health still carries such a stigma, especially in communities of color. Our residential population is overwhelmingly a majority of minority [students] so we have the added layer of race as it relates to seeking mental health services. I’m hoping my staff can normalize that and remind students that asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but one of strength. We can give out all the fliers, cards, and numbers, but until we break down the stigmas we won’t get everyone who needs counseling to seek that help.”
Finally, many noted that one of the most useful things staff can do to help students address mental health concerns in a productive manner is to model that same behavior. “Modeling self-care and openness to address mental health as student affairs, counseling center, and housing partners is a wonderful way of inviting students to do the same,” says Weathersby. “Specifically, being seen engaging in walks, meditation, self-care during the lunch hour rather than meetings, and having a ‘do as I do rather than say’ may bode well with this class of students. This is easier said than done but worth it.”
Housing practitioners were quick to agree. As Rashid explains, “I have found, especially in the last year, that in order to well-support our students, we need to ensure that we are first well-supporting our staff. Over the last year, I have worked to offer sessions during staff meetings on mindfulness with a goal of building up resilience in our team. While it felt urgent and imperative in the context we were operating in, it is a practice that must be here to stay.” In addition, Konvalinka notes how “our work this past year has been challenging. Housing and residence life professionals are the best crisis managers, problem solvers, and operation shifters. However, this is not sustainable long-term, and our profession is tired. . . . Elevating a culture of care and compassion within your team will illuminate the same care to our students. Asking ‘how are you’ or ‘how can I support you’ goes a long way with a team that has reached their limit.”
These recent months will be remembered as a time of great challenges, but also a time of learning, understanding, and innovation, not the least of which was related to mental health care for students and staff alike. Campuses are reassessing staffing models, learning to be more flexible and integrating tools like tele-health. New resources are being created. And a brighter light is shining on the ways housing and counseling services can click together like two puzzle pieces. As Weathersby says, “We all have a need to commit to mental health wellness, and no one office can take this on. I learned that we are indeed a community poised to work together to promote an environment conducive for care, growth, and belonging.”
James A. Baumann is the editor of Talking Stick and is ACUHO-I’s Publications Director.
