BY
Staff Reporter
Recently, the university gave students a “Re-coop Day” to replace its cancelled spring break. On March 30 – one of the two re-coop days – all classes were cancelled. The university planned a similar day for April 19.
The purpose of these breaks is to give students days to recoup from regular classes. The step was taken to discourage students from traveling amidst the pandemic.
Some professors think that the university is being neglectful and might not be giving its community enough time to reset.
“I’m really worried that it won’t be a full mental health recharge the way students really need,” Jennifer Trivedi, an anthropology professor, said. “And so I really hope that students are doing the best they can to take care of their mental health because it’s wearing on people.”
According to Trivedi, there has been an ongoing cycle: People haven’t had a break from things and are being worn down. She said that she understands the logic behind trying to reduce the amount of travel students have but believes that having a whole week versus a day has a very different impact on mental health.
Trivedi said she wonders if people have had the opportunity to recharge offline and mentioned that it is hard to disconnect when technology is the main form of communication during the pandemic.
“What do you have to prioritize for your own mental health?” Trividi asked. “I think that’s a really important thing to think about.”
Agnes Ly, a psychology professor, discussed the difficult balance between work and rest. In order to give her students a break, she made an assignment that would normally have been due that day optional instead of mandatory.
She and some of the other professors at the university have built in recuperation time for their students.
“I think many of us do recognize it is important to give some time for students to be able to take a breather and, and I call that sort of like the week to kind of ‘do what you need to do,’ whether that’s work on some other classes, take some time for yourself [or] just have a week where you have a lightened load,” Ly said.
According to Ly, the university does care about its students’ mental health as a whole, but they do not always know exactly what to do. She mentioned that it is difficult to take into consideration what needs to be done to limit travel due to COVID-19 but all the while, provide unstructured time for students.
Dianne Leipold, an organizational behavior professor, thinks that there is a lot of evidence on campus from the kinds of support services that are available that show that the institution cares about students’ mental health and told students to look at the positives and not the negatives.
“We talked about in psychology: affect, positive affect and negative affect — positive affect is when we keep our brains in a positive mood, happiness, joyousness, contentedness — those are all positive effect states,” Leipold said. “We, as people, we can work to keep ourselves in positive affect by focusing on meditation, gratitude journals, exercise, regular physical exercise, yoga – there are lots of ways we can help keep ourselves there.”
In response to students’ grievances over the lack of break, Leipold posed the question, “How can you think about this upcoming re-coop day to try to make it enjoyable? We all have choice, right?”
If a student chooses to complain about the re-coop days, others can do the same and might feel miserable. Leipold said that it is up to students how they feel: They can choose to see it as a gift instead of complaining about it.
However, according to some students, the university was doing little to care for their mental health by not giving them the week off.
The university posted on Instagram a sample schedule for the re-coop day last week, featuring events like a “self-guided botanical garden tour.” Many students reacted negatively in the comments section.
“Really wonder whose idea it was to take an actual break we needed during arguably the most stressful year of our lives through a pandemic. But yea a few emails and a day in the middle of exam week really makes up for that,” Jonah Hammerstedt, a student, commented.
“If you’re wondering if you should come here and give this school your money: don’t.
They ‘care’ about their students’ mental health but pull things like this. Thank you so much for this singular day!” Andrew Wolf, another student, commented.
The university’s offered two re-coop days may not be as desirable as other schools’ five wellness days or week-long breaks, but only the COVID-19 dashboard will tell if the mitigation strategy worked effectively against spring breakers.
