Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, communities worldwide have experienced the emergence of a dire mental health crisis. As a result, severe repercussions have taken place, which involves surges in rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide in our communities. The growing number of college students experiencing mental health concerns has prompted efforts in educational institutions to support the mental health and wellness of their students. St. Lawrence University provides us with an example of how educational institutions are grappling to provide mental health support to their students. While such efforts are taking place, our university’s administration has not directly addressed highly relevant forces that are impacting the health and wellness of students. Financial hardship, depression, family loss, PTSD, racism, sexism, illness—these struggles cannot be thoroughly acknowledged and addressed through stress alleviating activities and referrals to counseling.
Once every few weeks, SLU students receive an email from the Office of Wellness Education aimed at connecting and assisting students to campus health and wellness resources. The content of the emails contains the contact information of Advocates and the Counseling Center, followed by a list of events and activities SLU holds to promote wellness. They include the usual bracelet making, doggie de-stress, dance lessons, and gospel services—all activities that aim to assist students in navigating their stressors. At first glance, these events seemingly promote the wellness of our communities by offering “fun,” physical, and spiritual activities to students. Who wouldn’t want to spend some time with some cute dogs? If we take a deeper look, however, an underlying commonality of these activities is that they function as a temporary and simplistic solution to the much bigger and more severe issues of wellness and mental health on campus.
The framing of wellness, as displayed in the emails sent to the student body, is reflective of our institution reducing wellness to an individual act and issue. By solely sending emails that promote activities, such as tarot card reading and peer counseling, the onus of wellness is placed on the students, instead of addressing the underlying issues that are exacerbating the stressors in students’ lives. Wellness is presented as a choice for students, rather than a baseline and goal for our institutions and communities to meet. The normative, unattainable standards of productivity and experiences of discrimination are not centered in conversations involving wellness. Our institution has instead diverted attention away from the lived experiences of their different student populations and offered homogenous approaches to wellness.
Instead of our institution creatively reimagining ways to support their students, which can be translated through structural changes, emphasis is placed on individual responsibility in addressing wellness. These efforts further add to the layers of stress students experience. Offering such events ultimately draws into question whether students can “take a break” or “connect with others” when they are consumed with the stress of academics, supporting their families, and experiencing racist or homophobic behavior. Why is our institution solely investing in efforts that disregard the lived experiences and conditions of its students? Why can’t wellness be expanded and materialized into different shapes? Couldn’t we create structural changes to promote wellness? Why don’t we reevaluate our grading system or the workload put on students?
By rendering our students’ experiences invisible by disregarding their lived realities, it further marginalizes student populations. Moreover, it can gaslight students when they express concern over their own health and their dissatisfaction with the health services and events offered to them. Why aren’t we appreciative? It is not a question of appreciation, but a question of what is not being addressed in the wellness emails being sent out to the student body. The wellness discourse used in the emails distracts students from providing healthy criticism and amplifying the reality of systemic stressors in student lives.