UPTLC 2024

TALK 1: “Self-care for students through work-life balance, community connection, and flexible time”

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the issue of self care for college students has been widely discussed for good reason.[1] The mental health of college students is not only imperative so that students can be productive as a practical matter, but it’s also ethical to foster an environment that supports well being. However, in order to properly address the well being of college students, missing from the conversation is the need for systemic change.[2] Self care has largely been defined as a deficiency of the individual rather than a societal problem. There are three ways that I would like to see the debate reframed in order to address systemic concerns. First, I argue that self-care is necessary, but with the current credit loads that students take it can often be unrealistic for students to make time for themselves. I propose that colleges reverse the trend of normalizing 18-credit hours per semester to a more reasonable load. For example, at Michigan Technological University, students have a financial incentive to take more classes and some majors’ default plan is for two of the four years to be 18-credit-hour loads to complete the degree on time.[3] This shift in culture would ensure that students have time to care for themselves and recharge. Second, one of the most important aspects of self care is connection. This has been missing since the pandemic and the trend of rushing through college has exacerbated this disconnect from community. When students feel connected, they perform better because their mental health is also better, allowing them to focus. When students are overworked, they feel isolated from peers because they do not have time to socialize with others. Students also feel overwhelmed if they cannot keep up with schoolwork and can develop a negative self-image that they are not meeting expectations because of a personal failing. Isolation exacerbates this. In contrast, in European countries the workload is less and therefore students have more time to forge connections, be it joining an extracurricular activity or regularly enjoying coffee with friends. This connection boosts mood and lets students recharge so that they can be successful when they study. Third, creating a schedule with more flexible time also has the added benefit that if a student gets sick or has a disability that makes tasks take longer, it is much easier for them to get caught up.[4] I draw on disability scholars (Moya Bailey; Ellen Samuals & Elizabeth Freeman; Janene Amyx Davison; Eric Darnell Pritchard), personal experience studying in the United States and in Europe, and personal experience as an instructor with students managing heavy class schedules. If we are going to take students’ mental health seriously, we would change the normative culture and reshape the economics to allow students to cultivate relationships and live in an environment with a realistic work-life balance. In short, this presentation focuses on self care for students through systemic change.

1. See, for example: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, “Protecting Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory,” 2021, accessed February 23, 2024, https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-youth-mental-health-advisory.pdf; American Council on Education, “New resources assess teletherapy vendors and effective mental health practices,” June 5, 2023, https://www.acenet.edu/News-Room/Pages/Mental-Health-Briefs.aspx; Ashley Mowreader, “Identifying effective – and ineffective – mental health supports,” Inside Higher Ed, June 14, 2023, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/health-wellness/2023/06/14/report-campus-mental -health-services-and-their.
2. See: Carolyn Kuimelis, “Celleges face more pressure to keep students with mental-health conditions enrolled, The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 8, 2022, https://www.chronicle.com/article/colleges-face-more-pressure-to-keep-students-with-mental-health-condit ions-enrolled.
3. For economic incentive, see: https://www.mtu.edu/admissions/financial/tuition/.
4. See: Ayla McGinnis, “OPINION: Limiting credit hours betters student mental health, balances the college experience,” The Sentinel: Kennesaw State University, October 28, 2019, https://theksusentinel.com/2019/10/28/opinion-limiting-credit-hours-betters-student-mental-health-balance s-the-college-experience-2/.


TALK 2: Do you find your students today to be less motivated to complete online work than they were a few years ago? In research since the publication of the Self Determination Theory field of research (Ryan & Deci, 1985/2008), motivation to succeed can be seen as a personal satisfaction with Competence (does a student feel they will be successful if they try), Autonomy (does the student feel they have choices), and Relatedness (does the task offer a relationship in the path to a goal). Using this framework, an online format that easily gives in to being designed as controlled, impersonal, and often uneventful when compared to in-person environments, it's not difficult to see why motivation gets harder to inspire-even as students overwhelmingly choose online over in person classes.

This presentation offers tips to season online classes with choices, positive feedback, and showing of concern to keep students coming back for more.