Pandemic and Post-pandemic Mental Health
By Tim Chartier with Susan Denny and John Brunelle
Susan Denny
The 2020-21 academic year offered many challenges in adjusting to new modes of instruction and also to life itself in a pandemic. Classrooms and office hours supported learning, which intrinsically included mental health check-ins and adjustments inherent in our uncertain world. To reflect on the year gone by, for advice on summer rejuvenation, and for tips as we consider our next academic year, I turned to Susan Denny, a counselor at Davidson College, and Dr. John Brunelle, Clinical Director of Counseling at Davidson and also a counselor for the college.
John Brunelle
Tim Chartier: Susan, as a counselor at Davidson College who works to create a safe place to support students’ mental health, what advice do you have for faculty on supporting our students? What advice do you have for students?
Susan Denny: I think it is important to remember that these students are doing something that we never had to do as college students, and we do not know all of the unique challenges that arose for them due to the COVID restrictions. With this in mind, I think it is important to be patient with students, and for students to be compassionate towards themselves. Encourage students to ask for what they need, and know that students do not always know what they need. Creating a safe space for students to come and talk about how the pandemic has impacted their ability to meet their goals for your course could open a door to working together to figure out how the student can succeed in their academic goals. We can all keep in mind that people experienced different challenges including trauma during the pandemic. We can first acknowledge the pain and suffering that was experienced, and then we can glean the growth, resilience, and strengths that faculty and students developed as a result of the challenges.
Tim Chartier: John, how do you see this?
John Brunelle: My biggest piece of advice for faculty is, somewhat ironically, to apply science and math in thinking about how to holistically support students’ mental health and overall well-being. First, with the science of human and brain development in mind, we need to remember that these students are still in a critical late adolescent period of brain development in which all kinds of fine tuning and pruning are taking place. This includes areas of the brain responsible for intellectual, emotional, and social functioning. I believe the significant volume of work at Davidson compromises all of these by creating a situation/environment that leads to significant sleep deprivation and chronic stress, both of which lead to an array of poor mental, behavioral, and intellectual performance outcomes.
I often compare Davidson to an academic boot camp that would be an ideal training ground if we were preparing Green Berets/Navy SEALS to compete in a life/death game of Jeopardy! or It’s Academic.
I know I am in danger of stepping into a hornets’ nest of philosophical and pedagogical debate that I’m not qualified to enter or engage in. However, I simply ask faculty to “do the math” when considering their syllabi and the tangible/practical demands of their courses; starting backwards from 168, or better yet, from 112 (accounting for a baseline need of 8 hours per night of sleep), and then remembering the students have three other courses and extracurricular responsibilities that are either strongly encouraged or mandated by their particular station on campus (e.g., work study, volunteer work, leadership roles). Although this is harder to measure, I also believe faculty should consider the diverse privilege among our student population, to take into account that some students have personal, food, financial, or family insecurities that require more hours and mental energy to address, above and beyond their Davidson responsibilities.
Another math problem that I believe we all need to sort out at Davidson is defining the “workday” and “work week,” respecting and honoring the boundaries of not only the students but ourselves. I can’t tell you how many times my promotion of self-care and physical boundaries to my student clients has been directly compromised by weekend exams and assignments and late night/weekend email or syllabus additions that lead to panic attacks or insomnia. Sorry for the long answer on this one, but I passionately believe that the rigor at Davidson is too reliant on the volume of work. I know on an intimate level how smart and caring the individual faculty and collective academic community are at Davidson. Can’t we be more creative and nuanced in keeping Davidson challenging and rigorous without it being unhealthfully and uncompromisingly busy?
Tim Chartier: What unique challenges and insights arose counseling students during a pandemic?
John Brunelle: Students had more time, less energy, less social and academic stimulation—a perfectly imperfect combination of boredom, meaninglessness, and low motivation that led to the highest rates of anxiety and depression we have ever seen at the counseling center. It highlighted that students need a “sweet spot” of work and restorative time, balancing mastery and intellectual challenge with social/emotional/behavioral gratification.
Susan Denny: I have only been a counselor at Davidson during the pandemic, since I started in March 2020. However, I’ve been a counselor for college students for many years. While the pandemic was a huge source of challenges, last academic year also brought about racial reckoning and a controversial presidential election, which also impacted students’ mental health. The pandemic did create unique challenges from grief and loss to interpersonal conflicts to isolation and loneliness. While at college, students were keeping an eye on each other, and felt the internal conflict to allow their roommates and peers independence in deciding how to abide by the restrictions and to know the consequences that arose (quarantine) if they did not hold their friends accountable. This was a unique conflictual situation that caused stress throughout the year for students. Of course, loneliness was a challenge, and while loneliness itself is not new on college campuses, the common way to support someone is to encourage steps to meet others, and this was no longer an option. As the restrictions loosened in the spring, I was able to guide lonely students to meet people outside their residence hall. Students were also impacted by grief and loss of what they expected from their college experience, and personal losses due to COVID deaths.
Tim Chartier: What advice do you have for faculty and students for the summer?
Susan Denny. Reflecting on how the past year has affected all the aspects of one’s life would be helpful in healing and preparing for the fall semester. Self-compassion steps include self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness, and can be a gentle approach to processing our emotions. The first step to self-compassion is self kindness, which means we acknowledge that we will suffer in our lives, and we are gentle with ourselves during painful experiences. Next is common humanity, knowing that we all suffer. This could be especially true during the pandemic. While we all experienced it differently, we all experienced some common suffering, which makes us feel less alone. The term mindfulness gets used a lot; however, in this context it actually refers to acknowledging the emotions you feel and felt about how the pandemic affected and continues to affect you. Accept that these feelings are valid and that there is no “right way” to feel or act. Mindfulness in this context also requires one not to over exaggerate their feelings, and sit with their thoughts and feelings to validate what is actually happening. My advice is to practice self-compassion this summer. That means checking in with yourself, your thoughts and your feelings and deciding what you need from this day or moment to meet your goals for the day and to be gentle with yourself.
John Brunelle: Not just for the summer but for all time: Mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness. From formal meditation, to seeking out mindful activities (e.g., walks in nature), to doing every task mindfully (i.e., when washing the dishes, only wash the dishes). Mindfulness is a simple “owner’s manual” for how the mind and body work, giving us a moment-to-moment guide on the what and why of our daily lives. It slows the day down for us, making us more productive and less stressed with substantiated short-term and long-term physical and mental health benefits.
Tim Chartier: The loosening of COVID-19 restrictions can be refreshing but also feel odd and even challenging after a remote, socially distant year. What advice do you have for faculty as we plan classes for the fall that may be hybrid or entirely face-to-face after a year of attending class (as a professor or student) entirely in a virtual format?
John Brunelle: I cannot think of a more perfect time to implement some of the suggestions I discussed in response to your first question. Although there were/are, without a doubt, some unprecedented challenges brought on by COVID-19, I strongly believe that the pandemic exposed more than created problems at Davidson. Overall, I was quite impressed with the creativity and compassion that Davidson faculty exhibited in responding to and coping with this new way of teaching/learning. However, I do worry that we may overcompensate this fall, attempting to balance traditional and remote, which ultimately could become additive rather than adaptive. I believe a “less is more” model of education is even more important with remote and/or hybrid learning. I think we all saw how mentally draining and time consuming it was, even though it seemingly afforded us more convenience and time. More than ever, we need time away from the consuming demands and distractions of technology; so yes, let’s do less of that, but let’s not feel obligated to replace it with more in-person demands.
Susan Denny: I think professors’ acknowledging that their students may have different thoughts and feelings about the loosening of COVID restrictions and that they are all valid is important. Depending on the class this may mean making time for a class discussion on the first day, and depending on the faculty’s comfort level, self-disclosing some of the professor’s thoughts and feelings. I think it may take a lot of energy for some students to get to class on time and be around each other for the entire day.
Tim Chartier: What advice do you have for students who struggled with remote learning? On the flip side, what advice do you have for students who prefer virtual instruction?
Susan Denny: An important question is what are the barriers to succeeding in the different instruction modalities? If a student has a learning disability due to the modality this can be assessed, and accommodations made through our Academic Access and Disability Resource office. I am not an expert in predicting the future, and I think that we are all going to have to be flexible in working and learning virtually and in-person. Again, using self-compassion to be gentle with ourselves as we acknowledge and feel the emotions and struggles with the challenging modality, know that we are not alone, and ask for help in strengthening the skills we need to be successful. If we can have an environment where creativity and trying new strategies to challenge ourselves is prioritized, and success comes through failure and not in spite of failure, we may develop a more positive or growth mindset.
John Brunelle: I empathize with both types of students and really have the same advice for either—balance the convenience and accessibility that technology provides while not being overly reliant on or captivated by it. Since the onset of the pandemic, regardless of remote or in-person engagement, I really emphasized what the pandemic exposed about ourselves and what this challenge could reveal to us. I encourage students to be aware, moment to moment, of what they are doing and ask themselves if it is contributing to or compromising their well-being; put simply, is it adding or subtracting positive energy. So, as I typically do but perhaps more earnestly, I would focus on the basics of time management and self-care. My time management is based on being intentional and creative about meeting four basic needs each day, those of mastery, emotional/social connection, fun/restoration, and survival. With self-care, I emphasize getting back to our early roots as humans and spending more time engaged directly with the physical/natural world, stimulating as many of the senses as possible, seeking pleasure and wisdom from the physical world rather than the mental world, especially avoiding the ease and temptation of the mindless, energy-sucking distraction of media binging.
Tim Chartier: Any final thoughts you’d like to share with faculty and students related to mental health?
John Brunelle: Oh gosh, I think I have shared too much already. But I guess, if we could all remember that they are really just kids---as smart and precocious as they are, they are still so young and so vulnerable, during a critical time with the stakes very high. Like all of us, they are smarter (intellectually, emotionally, and behaviorally) when they have had a good night's sleep.
Susan Denny: Be kind to yourselves. We have all been through a long eighteen months, and we all need kindness, connection, and patience as the demands of life change. Think about what you learned about yourself, what you want to continue to bring with you, and what parts of you and your life you are ready to let go of from pre-pandemic and pandemic. Know that your institution has a group of professional and caring counselors ready to support your students, and provide guidance to your faculty. One thing that has not changed….prioritize sleep, as it is so important to the developing brain. This may mean setting uncomfortable boundaries with peers, and not giving into our culture that tells us that our personal value lies in our accomplishments and busyness. Look around. Slow down.
John Brunelle is the Associate Director of Counseling Services at Davidson College. With 25+ years of experience in college student development, he has specialized in trauma and grief work, sports and other performance issues, existential depression and identity issues.
Tim Chartier is the Joseph R. Morton Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Davidson College.
Susan Denny is a mental health counselor at Davidson College who has provided counseling for students at various size colleges and universities for eight years. Susan lives in Davidson, NC with her family and enjoys spending time in nature, which is a passion she often shares with her counseling clients through walk and talk therapy on nature trails on the Davidson College campus.