{"id":24911,"date":"2024-09-18T08:18:37","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T08:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hfd.phee.dev\/how-can-universities-support-students-in-complex-crises\/"},"modified":"2024-11-05T11:35:06","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T11:35:06","slug":"how-can-universities-support-students-in-complex-crises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hfd.phee.dev\/en\/how-can-universities-support-students-in-complex-crises\/","title":{"rendered":"How can universities support students in complex crises?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]The HFD blog series “Toolbox on Student Wellbeing in the Digital Age” deals with the relationship between student mental health and digitalization processes at universities. Tanja Brock and Jan Schuhr provide helpful ideas for promoting health in everyday university life in the form of a toolbox. In the fourth and final part of this blog series, complex crises among students are addressed and possibilities and limits are shown as to how lecturers can deal with these situations appropriately. <\/strong>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]In the course of their professional biography, lecturers gain a variety of insights into students’ individual life situations. They are constantly making decisions about how to deal with the knowledge they gain about their respective lives. This also includes the students’ personal crises and extensive need for help<\/strong>. <\/span>Current studies on the health and social situation of students<\/span><\/a>and corridor discussions with colleagues highlight students’ personal cirses: Bullying, experiences of discrimination, suicidal tendencies, grief, sexual violence, clinical illnesses and other serious impairments.<\/strong> The pandemic has shown us that the increased use of digital study formats has an impact on the (in)visibility of individual characteristics and needs. This influences how people communicate their concerns and requires new ways of dealing with crises and difficult life situations for students. In the following, I would therefore like to discuss in more detail which tasks and actions are compatible with the role of the lecturer<\/strong> and promote an effective help process for students in complex crises. I understand “complex crises” to be situations or experiences in everyday teaching and study life which, as indicated in the examples above (“bullying, ….”), require an acute response to help. <\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]This article is based on the qualitative study by Schuhr and Brock (2024) in which lecturers (n=8) and students (n=21) at Saxon universities were interviewed in summer semester 22 and winter semester 22\/23 about their experiences and ways of dealing with psychological stress in everyday (digital) university life. Likewise, their own study experience (2015-2022) and the first teaching assignments from winter semester 22\/23 onwards provided numerous impressions of the emergence and accompaniment of student crises, so that in the interests of transparency the following narrative is presented in the first-person perspective. <\/span><\/i>[\/vc_column_text]

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Responsibility and limits in the role of:the teacher<\/h2>\n <\/div>[vc_column_text css=””]The teacher’s own positioning with regard to a suitable and appropriate (responsible) relationship, which they can adopt and on the basis of which they act, is primarily based on their own experience and individual moral views. The prerequisite for successful relationship work with students (in the context of crises as well as in everyday life) is to be aware of these resources, i.e. the <\/span>knowledge from experience and one’s own moral views<\/b>. Dies erm\u00f6glicht einerseits die Schaffung von Rollenklarheit, welche essentiell f\u00fcr die betroffenen Studierenden und einen gelungenen Hilfeverlauf ist. Andererseits wird die Mehrheit der Lehrenden, unabh\u00e4ngig davon, inwieweit sie involviert sein m\u00f6chten, als <\/span>Contact person for individual crises<\/b> of students or witness them.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]Targeted <\/span>directed expectation management<\/b> therefore seems obligatory and is also beneficial if a teacher is unable or unwilling to (actively) support certain problems.<\/span> Proactively communicating one’s own boundaries is therefore a significant help<\/b>as this reduces the likelihood of experiencing rejection and disappointment when seeking help. (Fear of rejection is a key reason why students do not make use of psychological and social support services (Kosyluk et al., 2021)). Furthermore, especially in a challenging and stressful working environment such as higher education, there is also a need for <\/span> concessions and measures for psychological self-protection. <\/b>This does not mean <\/span>not,<\/span> opening the first meeting with the request not to disclose any private concerns, especially if these are particularly serious.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]One possible hint could be:<\/span>[\/vc_column_text]
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``I teach subject X, that's what I can do and that's what I'm trained for. I am aware of the various problems and crises that people go through during their studies, but this neither empowers me nor equips me with the competence to help you. You will therefore find a list of contact persons at our university for your various needs at the end of each set of slides after the literature sources. By referring to the colleagues, I do not mean to express a lack of interest in you; on the contrary, precisely because I am interested in you, I am interested in dealing with your personal concerns in an educated manner.``<\/section>\n
<\/section>\n <\/section>[vc_column_text css=””]The quotation example indicates the second central requirement for the role design of teachers: to act as a mediator between students and support services. The fact that university lecturers are mediators, i.e. <\/span> link between student needs and other university departments<\/b> are or should be a regular concern in the recommendations for action of the universities’ social and health-related service providers as well as in the statutory<\/span>duty of care for employed university lecturers.<\/b> The actions and duties of the mediator depend on numerous factors and include, as in the example above, providing information on contact persons, but also immediately reporting cases of serious discrimination and sexual harassment and violence to the Rectorate and the official contact persons (see Rectorate of the University of Stuttgart, 2022). <\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]The essential moment in the spectrum of different requirements, ideas and understandings of a mediator’s task for lecturers can be understood in such a way that <\/span>university lecturers are empowered with skills that enable them to provide students with certain protection and assistance.<\/b> This can be achieved proactively and preventively by providing information on the understanding of one’s own activities and responsibilities and those of other university bodies. Although this does not prevent the emergence of and confrontation with crises, it creates favorable conditions for a successful course taken with assistance and influences the <\/span>narrative for dealing with individual crises.<\/b> If teachers are confronted with having to react to a crisis observation on an ad hoc basis, this poses a major challenge of <\/span> making the right decisions in the heat of the moment. This is a particular challenge<\/b> although the role as a mediating actor has not changed …. <\/span>[\/vc_column_text]
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Informed stakeholders make informed decisions<\/h1>\n <\/div>[vc_column_text css=””]… it is particularly important, however, that skills for effective support and transfer are available on an ad hoc basis. This requires <\/span>understanding of individual crises and knowledge of how to access help<\/b> and institutions. It is therefore important to understand the issue that has been identified as a crisis by the person concerned or by colleagues. This is due to the simple fact that experiences are always subjective and, in particular, when it comes to the acceptability of certain experiences and circumstances, the <\/span>interpretation sovereignty lies with the person concerned<\/b> The case and its quality as a crisis are therefore inseparable within the mediating aid treatment, even if the link contradicts the knowledge or the teacher’s own dogma of reason. It is therefore not up to the teacher, for example, to question the classification of the person affected by an experience as discrimination. <\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]At the same time, validating an experience does not constitute a supportive reference or an understanding approach. For example, a “positive” evaluative reference can result in involvement in the course of the case, in which the teacher is held responsible for the outcome of (non-)assistance or the case assessment of the specialist unit is influenced. The probability that teachers <\/span>react empathically and non-judgmentally to individual crises<\/b> can be assumed to increase if this is combined with <\/span>knowledge about the current situation of the students.<\/b> The simplified mnemonic can first be used to understand the basic attitude and action that can be applied in response to a crisis observation: <\/span>[\/vc_column_text]
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``I understand your situation and what it means for you and I think it is a good and important step that you have brought this to my attention. I think the best way for me to help you is to put you in touch with job XY.``<\/section>\n
<\/section>\n <\/section>[vc_column_text css=””]In the second sentence, the other core aspect for help reactions becomes clear, the <\/span>knowledge about access to help.<\/b>. Dabei ist die Anforderung bez\u00fcglich des Zugangs hervorzuheben. Zwar ist ein Wissen \u00fcber Hilfestellen fundamental f\u00fcr eine sinnvolle Bezugnahme zu den Bedarfen Studierender, welches u.a. durch den regen Stellenwechsel im Hochschulbetrieb von einer gro\u00dfen Organisation in die N\u00e4chste mit einem nicht unerheblichen Aufwand und in Eigeninitiative erarbeitet werden muss. <\/span>For a person in crisis, however, contacting the relevant authorities is a much bigger challenge<\/b>than it is for the majority of teachers. This does not mean that teachers, because it is supposedly easier for them, now have to take on, for example, the search for a therapy place. Within the university organization, however, a different (faster) reaction follows, for example, to the receipt of a message from a teacher’s e-mail address than to a message from a student’s e-mail address (although there are certainly also opposing experiences here). <\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=””]Assuming that there is more direct communication between lecturers and other departments at a university (through a collegial relationship, the same office corridor, joint participation in staff meetings, etc.), or that they are at least closer to each other due to a similar daily work routine, the contact appears to have a lower threshold. Furthermore <\/span> complex crises generally limit the scope of action to areas that are familiar and known to the person concerned<\/b>as the majority of their own resources are taken up by the crisis or used to cope with everyday life. The fact that students turn to teachers in search of help can therefore also be due to the fact that other people and agencies in the respective life situation cannot be reached. This does not mean that teachers are responsible for the outcome of the help process, but they do have a significant influence on it. <\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″]
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These steps are helpful:<\/h2>\n <\/div>[vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n