We Are All the Safety Net

This week, Georgetown hosted a national meeting of provosts and student affairs leaders from colleges and universities throughout the country. The meeting discussed how the institutions can do better in supporting the well-being of our students. It was the second in a series, prompted by the evidence of steadily increasing stress, anxiety, and depression among students; the sharp jumps in requests for mental health services; and feelings of alienation among large sets of students.

It was thought provoking on many levels.

First, some panels discussed the strong evidence of a linkage between well-being and academic performance. Of course, the findings were based on correlations and the causal mechanisms were still to be identified, but the evidence was persuasive that a vicious cycle of stress limits a person’s cognitive capacity to retain information. Interrupted sleep and fixation on personal welfare interferes with the day-to-day activities of a university student. Missed classes and poorly completed or incomplete assignments produced low grades. A vicious cycle of failure results. If the basic production of universities is the certification of educated graduates, then academic excellence cannot be achieved without attention to these issues.

Second, the conversations made me remember the strong finding that the most important predictor of perceived satisfaction with a degree program is the experience of encountering a faculty member who took a real interest in the student’s welfare and intellectual growth. Those findings arose from graduates looking back over their student experience and evaluating them. Faculty have significant influence over perceived self-worth of students.

Third, several speakers noted that one of the impediments to progress on student well-being is the segregation of student support services from the academic side of the house. Here, we may be suffering from the medicalization of social support. A recent presentation from the leaders at the Counseling and Psychiatric Services to a Georgetown faculty governance group was greeted with several faculty asking how they could help. It was a wonderful validation of Georgetown faculty culture of care for the whole person of our students. They want to be part of the solution.

At the conference, the scholars who are actively studying the well-being of students and the epidemic of calls for mental health services were helpful on this score. They thought that faculty were an untapped resource for reducing the stress and anxiety of our current students. Some of their ideas were simple disciplines that every instructor could adopt. Email a different student in the class every couple of days and ask how they were doing. Be direct that they’re welcome to talk about their progress, on any course they’re taking, or in their lives in general. Use email or text to spontaneously praise a good piece of work submitted as part of the class. Stop one student after each class to ask how they’re doing. Be on active alert to changes of behavior and seek out those students for a quick positive interaction.

As one gains more and more experience in teaching and the ebb and flow of the semester, it is easy to forget that for almost all of our students, they are experiencing class events for the very first time. They need feedback and attention both as performers in the class, but as naïve navigators of a set of logic inherent in the content of the class. Thinking of each class as a new culture, with its own norms, and practices underscores how important the role of instructor can be to the students.

A 30 second conversation conveying our care for the student can be life-changing for the individual. As instructors, we have enormous power for good in the lives of our students.

It’s unwise and unfair to delegate all of the social support and psychological nurturing of our students to Student Affairs professionals. We are all the safety net.