Mental Wellness in Tumultuous Times: Protecting Your Institution’s Most Important Assets

This AGB blog post is the first in a series on mental wellness in higher education.

It might have been unthinkable until recently that the federal government would strip critical research funding, forbid attendance by certain types of students, dismantle a wide variety of specific government-funded programs and agencies, use pressure tactics on specific institutions to hold funding hostage, and in other ways gut established operations of institutions of higher education. It’s enough to send leaders, including boards, into shock.

I believe that’s exactly what it’s intended to do. “Flooding the zone” is a classic technique that is being accompanied by inconsistent reinforcement of directives and whip-sawed decisions. One prong of the effort overwhelms the audience with information, directives, and decrees, and another prong reverses them on what seems to be a whim but a different whim than the first whim. The tactics produce chaos. Chaos is the enemy of hope because of its impact on competence and confidence.

Hope is a key currency in higher education’s future and the economy of good leadership for faculty members, staff, students, alumni, and other key stakeholders invested in the outcomes of higher learning. How does chaos impede competency and confidence and how might leadership respond?

The first requirement is to shift the frame, casting the experience of deliberately induced chaos as a form of trauma. After all, if leaders, faculty, staff, students, families, or others in the institution’s focus of concern feel so overwhelmed by the chaos that they think they might be, at a minimum, losing their minds, become badly injured, or die, their brains process the experience as traumatic.

With chaos, an individual’s disrupted focus and attention, accompanied by their strong emotional reaction, means the brain’s alarm system trips. When that happens, executive functions (planning, problem-solving, emotional regulation, and so forth) go offline. Higher-order thinking skills are inaccessible. Receptive and expressive communication is stunted, limiting the amount of information people can process. Physical survival is the first goal. Competence and confidence in previous skills drop in favor of those skills required for survival.

And while a leader’s rational mind might tell the individual it’s silly to think such chaos might have such a profound impact, ask around. How are people sleeping? Are they jumpier? Grumpier? Anybody’s gut acting up? Are people more emotional and less able to manage what they feel? How are the musculoskeletal complaints? How’s work quality and the rate of errors and sick leave?

Why is this important to you as board members and institutional leaders? To begin with, few people are trained to problem-solve effectively and make great choices when and while they feel seriously threatened. Only first responders and combat-exposed soldiers get that training—and they learn to override their reactions to respond in deliberate ways. Chances are, most of an institution’s leaders might not have that training or experience. They are simply not trained or experienced in making high-value decisions under chronic threat. This means your team operates—appropriately—at a deficit during chaos.

Let’s add a layer to that. First, feelings of competence and confidence are lower, and communication is more challenging. Now, slather on the difficulties people have simply managing their feelings. The low-level rumbling of mass reactions to chronic threat is itself a degradation of the competence and confidence people have shown in the past. When you add the personal histories and experiences people bring with them to the institution, the chaos and tumult increase, and the stress feels like a rubber band about to snap.

When there is external chaos, your dream is for everyone to respond with exceptional relational skills in the areas injured by previous or anticipated exposure. Higher education leaders need to recognize the overwhelming, traumatic environment that exists today on many campuses and respond proactively. Hone those skills—patience, adaptability, empathy, and so forth—when times are good, so they are ready for use when chaos and threats develop. Already in a threatening environment? The most powerful tool you have is your willingness to use tools that foster resilience already in your toolkit and to add more.

Takeaways for Governing Boards

What can the board, which might only visit campus a few times a year, do to understand this environment and protect the missions of their institutions?

Governing boards might begin by:

• Looking at their own board orientation for new trustees. New board members need to understand the challenges facing the campus administration, faculty members, staff, and students.
• Making student (and administration, faculty, and staff) levels of wellness and distress a regular part of their meeting agendas.
• Considering their own composition to ensure that they have the right mix of skills and expertise.
• Including strength-based, trauma-responsive perspectives in their focus on campuswide wellness.

Key Questions for Board Discussions

• Does the board understand its fiduciary duty to protect the well-being of the campus community?
• Does the board have the right mix of skills and expertise? Are there trauma-responsive trustees?
• How often does the board discuss mental wellness and individuals’ personal distress on campus?
• Which committee is responsible for wellness (including clinical services) on campus?
• What measures might reflect levels of mental well-being and distress on campus?
• Should the board explore the relationships among mental distress, resilience, test scores, and graduation rates?

Elizabeth Power, MEd, is the founder of the Trauma Informed Academy and an adjunct instructor in psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center.