‘An increase of feeling helpless and hopeless’: CC mental health professionals on impacts of COVID-19
Plus, the Career Center on how to search for jobs during a pandemic
Good morning, and happy Wednesday. On this pre-pandemic date in 2020, Colorado College students enrolled in a Half Block started their in-person classes. (This year, some students are participating in a fully-remote J Block, a ninth block created by the college to provide additional flexibility for enrollment during COVID-19.)
Today, three mental health professionals from CC discuss the challenges of providing accessible support to students during the pandemic. Also, the Director of the Career Center explains how COVID-19 has affected job prospects for college graduates.
➡️ICYMI: On Monday, our resident microbiologist Phoebe Lostroh gave her weekly forecast for El Paso County, Colo. She also explained the B117 variant found in Elbert County, and Gov. Polis’ decision to loosen COVID-19 restrictions across the state.
✉️In Your Inbox:
Over Winter Break, two staff members, two on-campus students, and one off-campus student tested positive for COVID-19. Since move-in for the spring semester started on Saturday, one staff member and three on-campus students have received positive results.
All students coming to Colorado Springs for the spring semester will be tested for COVID-19 upon arrival. The college asks students to adhere to enhanced social distancing protocols for a ten days after their first test, and then schedule a second test after that period as an extra precaution.
Photo provided by Cameron Howell ’23
As the pandemic drags on, CC tries to make mental health care more accessible
Even as the COVID-19 vaccine provides an opportunity to combat the virus, there is no inoculation for the mental health impacts of the pandemic that could stretch on after it ends.
In March 2020, a poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that around 45% of Americans said the coronavirus pandemic was harming their mental health, with 19% of respondents saying that it had a “major impact.” In May, the Washington Post reported that a federal emergency hotline for people in psychological distress saw its use increase by over 1,000% from the same time last year.
Colorado College students are no exception to the decline in mental health. Bill Dove, Director of the Counseling Center and Psychological Services at CC, said the college’s psychiatrists have prescribed more antidepressants this year than they have in years past. The Counseling Center also increased staffing levels by 5% this school year and added evening and weekend appointments to accommodate students with different class schedules, Dove said.
Yet despite what Dove presumes to be an increase in students struggling with their mental health, the number of people seeking counseling through the college has remained roughly the same as it’s been in the past, he said.
“Our numbers did not spike dramatically, but the neediness and the level of depression did increase pretty consistently,” Dove told The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project.
One challenge the pandemic poses for access to mental health care is the lack of telehealth appointments for students in need. Dove said that because telehealth laws vary from state-to-state, sometimes mental health professionals need to be certified in both the state they’re providing care from and the one they’re providing care to. This means that students living in certain states may not be able to receive aid from CC counselors.
Some states, such as Maine, have allowed for flexibility regarding telehealth licensing and care provision during the pandemic, but others, like Montana, have not. Dove said the situation is a “total mess” but that the Counseling Center has mostly been able to work around it. A lot of colleges have stopped seeing students outside their states because of the varying telehealth laws, Dove added.
Heather Horton, Director of the Wellness Resource Center, has also encountered issues with being readily available for students.
“The access issue is definitely a challenge… My non-clinical role in the Wellness Resource Center is that I often had students who would just come by and say, ‘hey, would you have a few minutes to talk?’” Horton told The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project. Now, “it’s pretty hard to come, you know, knocking on my Zoom door,” she said.
Horton said that one way the Wellness Resource Center is working to improve access to mental health care during the pandemic is through an app called YOU At College that they acquired and purchased for roll-out this month. The app is a customizable wellness resource for college students with content around three main aspects of college life: academics and career, physical and mental health, and purpose.
Other people are trying different approaches. CC Chaplain Kate Holbrook said she adjusted her work schedule to be more accessible to students in different time zones. She started working much earlier in the morning, or late at night, because there might be people in places like China or Europe who want to speak with her, she said.
“There’s more students who want to talk, but then a lot more cancelling,” Holbrook told The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project.
Dove said in general, he and other mental health professionals are seeing an increase of people feeling helpless and hopeless in the face of COVID-19. The pandemic exasperates the symptoms of those who had previously been suffering from anxiety or depression, he said.
“We’re grieving these many, many deaths, and also the many severe injuries and probably symptoms that will persist for many thousands of people beyond just the illness itself,” Dove said. “All of that leads to significant grief in both individuals who are going through it and those people who they’re close to.”
Some mental health professionals are calling societal grief about COVID-19 a collective trauma. Disrupted lives, uncertainty, financial anxiety, and being stuck in a dysfunctional or abusive living situation could all be sources of trauma for students, Horton said.
Holbrook also emphasized the impact of collective trauma from the pandemic.
“I don't think as a country ... we acknowledge the amount of loss. The amount of the toll of the trauma,” Holbrook said. “I don’t know if I have the words for that ... it scares me. It makes me angry.”
Even after the cause of collective trauma subsides, Dove said that an expectation of returning to life before the pandemic is “overly optimistic.”
“I think it will be an emotional struggle for people to readjust to being social, whenever that time might come,” Dove said. “We forget that even the good things can be stressful if it's a big enough change.”
Mental Health Resources:
Counseling Center: 719-389-6093 or counselingcenter@coloradocollege.edu
Wellness Resource Center: hhorton@coloradocollege.edu
Chaplain’s Office: 719-389-7986 or kholbrook@coloradocollege.edu
Colorado Crisis and Support Line: 844-493-8255
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
‘Sometimes you just need someone to be a cheerleader for you’: How the Career Center is helping students through a pandemic
When it became clear in March of 2020 that the rapid spread of COVID-19 would drastically impact global economies, many corporations panicked. On March 23, General Electric’s aviation unit reduced its U.S. workforce by roughly 10%, laying off around 2,600 personnel. A week later, Macy’s, Inc. announced that it would be furloughing the majority of its 125,000 employees, keeping only the minimum workforce required for basic operations.
But despite dwindling employment rates as companies hastily shifted to online business operations, Megan Nicklaus, Director of the Career Center at Colorado College, says that new opportunities are abundant if students know where to look.
“While employers perhaps are not hiring in the quantities that they have in the past, they are hiring again,” Nicklaus told The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project. “There’s also become an increased need for different types of employees to work.”
Since the pandemic hit, the Career Center has focused on connecting students with evolving job requirements and workplaces, and has switched from in-person meetings to virtual appointments and remote Dynamic Half Block courses that teach skills like nonprofit fundraising and grant writing.
Nicklaus said the Career Center’s shift to online services has improved their ability to reach students, in part because alumni already established in professional fields find it easier to meet virtually, rather than in person, to help with job searches.
The Career Center has tried to be mindful of the different time zones CC students are spread across, Nicklaus said, and has developed on-demand content that ranged from virtual job fairs to a video series the Career Center posted on its YouTube channel addressing topics including advice on deciding to apply to graduate school to examples of interview styles.
For students in Colorado Springs, the Career Center has kept interview rooms available for use, with sanitizing procedures and other risk mitigation rules in place. The arrangement gives students a safe place for remote interviews when technological barriers present issues.
How recent graduates have fared during the pandemic
Despite the efforts the Career Center has gone through to make job searches during the pandemic successful, the Class of 2020 faced unique challenges, with many seniors looking for employment just when the pandemic struck.
“I think when March happened, companies had no idea what this means, how long is this going to last — they were just trying to figure out how they could support their operations,” Nicklaus said. “And now, they’ve had almost a full year to make plans, to project, to pivot.”
But given the stunted career options 2020 seniors faced, Nicklaus said some recent graduates will see competition from students graduating in 2021 who will soon be entering workforces. Despite these challenges, the Career Center has continued to work with the Class of 2020 through community groups dedicated to job searches and helping students with their mental health.
“Sometimes you just need someone to be a cheerleader for you, and to listen to what barriers you're encountering and give you some feedback on what you might be able to do differently,” Nicklaus said.
Nicklaus is optimistic that the Career Center will be able to help more 2020 seniors to secure employment, and added that she also had high hopes for students graduating in 2021 who sought her team’s help and began job searches early.
“While we may not physically be on campus, we are active and we are here,” Nicklaus said. “We are available to support and work with students, whether they have no idea what they want to do, or they have an exact idea of where they'd like to be.”
About the CC COVID-19 Reporting Project
The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project is created by Colorado College student journalists Isabel Hicks, Esteban Candelaria, and Lorea Zabaleta, in partnership with The Catalyst, Colorado College’s student newspaper. Work by Phoebe Lostroh, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at CC and National Science Foundation Program Director in Genetic Mechanisms, Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, will appear every Monday.
The project seeks to provide frequent updates about CC and other higher education institutions during the pandemic by providing original reporting, analysis, interviews with campus leaders, and context about what state and national headlines mean for the CC community.
📬 Enter your email address to subscribe and get the newsletter in your inbox each time it comes out. You can reach us with questions, feedback, or news tips by emailing ccreportingproject@gmail.com.