Getting a college degree has always been difficult, but in the age of COVID, smart-phones, and bubble-wrap parenting, some might say it’s harder now than ever before. Just take it from Meghan Becker – she’s the Director of Student Care and Well-Being at Baylor University, where she heads up the Care Team, Baylor’s unique departmental solution to providing mental health resources to over 20,000 college students across it’s in-person and virtual campuses. In Part 2 of their conversation, Rick and Meghan pick up from where they left off in Episode 56 to get to the bottom of just what exactly causes so much anxiety and depression in undergrad and graduate students nowadays, and how Baylor is leading the charge in handling student stress for better outcomes.
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00;00;09;00 – 00;00;36;01
Rick Hoaglund
Welcome back to OnTopic with Empathia! In the second part of our series on Baylor University’s care team, we’re focusing on the impactful work they do. We’re continuing our discussion with Meghan Becker, the director of student care and wellbeing at Baylor University. You’ve been talking about a- a large increase, especially during certain times of the year where your caseload is getting bigger and bigger. Do you think that caseload would go down if they had help sooner?
00;00;36;04 – 00;01;15;27
Meghan Becker
Yes, yes, yes! You know, when I first started this job seven years ago, I- that’s what I said. I was like, you know, and we do do a lot of preventative things here at Baylor? But I was- I remember saying, really the prevention starts in kindergarten. The prevention, the resiliency, education, the calling it for what it is, you know, different things like that all start way before they get here. You know, by the time they’re 18, they have patterns established, health issues already, you know. So I definitely think there could be some sort of prevention starting when they’re young.
00;01;16;00 – 00;01;33;06
Rick Hoaglund
And I would guess, especially when they’re very young. Lots of parental involvement in that. Especially when they’re very young. I mean, it probably tapers off a little bit in high school because the student is able to sort of, you know, self-report and things like that. But when they’re very young, they don’t they don’t know. They don’t know!
00;01;33;06 – 00;01;43;17
Meghan Becker
Right! Right. Yeah, I think so. And a lot of that takes, you know, parents and guardians being aware of what’s going on and admitting that there’s struggles, and…
00;01;43;17 – 00;02;05;16
Rick Hoaglund
What do you do when there’s a lot of conflict on campus? It could be world conflict. It could be political conflict. It could be… things- and, and students traditionally become involved in lots of causes, like in history. If you look back through all of history! Students get involved in causes! How does your team help with that sort of thing?
00;02;05;18 – 00;02;55;07
Meghan Becker
Yeah, it’s a good question! And we have a really strong relationship with the folks in student activities who tend to have a pulse on that? And then also Baylor PD, the Baylor Police Department, we have a really strong relationship there. And I will just say on our campus, we don’t have a lot of protests because we have a pretty strict policy around that. We have expressive activities and- and we will always be looped in to when those are happening. And if they’re bigger or they anticipate they will be more escalated, we would be present there. But then also the campus community knows that if a specific student is struggling because of this, we have a student right now who is really, really anxious about the election. And so we’ve seen him several times. And so we just try to stay with our pulse on that.
00;02;55;10 – 00;03;30;20
Rick Hoaglund
What about off campus? I would imagine that’s just a pressure for student because their life while a lot of their academic life is all on campus or a lot of it is on campus, a lot of their social life and stuff probably takes place in other places. I’m guessing that you’re seeing a lot of, I would call it, influence on your students from outside your campus community, from outside your actual campus. It could be the news! It could be when they go out shopping, they’re seeing stuff. It could be when they go out at night and have a good time. Are you seeing a lot of students that are bringing stuff from outside the campus?
00;03;30;23 – 00;04;11;19
Meghan Becker
We don’t see a ton of that. We don’t know why. You know, Waco in general and Baylor tend to be a little bit more apathetic to big world issues. And I don’t know, we don’t I just was in a meeting the other day where we were talking about that. We pay attention to things. We have some great leaders in our risk management area who pay attention to the things that are happening in the world, but in general, there’s not a lot of concern or things that have come up. Big things, you know, small here and there. And again, like I said, we touch base about those and then, you know.
00;04;11;21 – 00;04;23;27
Rick Hoaglund
Do you work with other college campuses? Just in general to see, you know, just basically like about student life, student- student needs student wants, student expectations, that type of thing.
00;04;24;00 – 00;05;17;07
Meghan Becker
Yeah. We don’t very much not in town for sure, because it’s kind of an apples to oranges, you know, a community college is really different, but we don’t. I mean, and then just in general, we don’t really reach out. We’re on message boards and discussion boards and things like that. But we tend to not for any reason other than busyness and this is going to sound very arrogant, and I don’t mean for it to sound this way, but we’re a pretty well oiled machine to where we have the support, the connections, and the partnerships to be able to feel like we can adequately serve students in a way that is pretty effective. Now we go to conferences and, you know, learn from and have a really strong network at the conference. But really, we don’t do a lot of reaching out to other schools.
00;05;17;09 – 00;05;21;27
Rick Hoaglund
In a typical year, how many students do you help?
00;05;22;00 – 00;05;46;24
Meghan Becker
Last year it was 2000… we had 2587 referrals total. So I’m not quick on the math, but so that’s the referrals. And then this year already we have had 2500, and that was up higher from the year before by about….
00;05;46;27 – 00;05;56;10
Rick Hoaglund
I would guess then you’re- you’re able to say, hey the need is increasing for your team but you don’t foresee any drastic decline.
00;05;56;12 – 00;06;21;05
Meghan Becker
No, we did not foresee any drastic decline. No. You know, and I think one thing that we really my- my team, you know, the one I mentioned, Dr. Jim Marshall, he is really working hard to create a, you know, this culture of resilience and- and creating a campus of resiliency. And so we’re doing some things to try and be preventative.
00;06;21;07 – 00;06;38;29
Meghan Becker
So if anything, you know, I feel like we’re kind of going up, but our hope is that we would be going up at a slower pace than if we were, you know, not doing any of the prevention and- and educational resiliency pieces? That’s our hope anyway.
00;06;39;01 – 00;06;56;06
Rick Hoaglund
So the resiliency piece to me is really interesting because in this case, like resiliency can be from personal experience or from lessons that you’re teaching or from some of the outreach that you’re doing. Are you finding that it’s working? Like, do your students rely on past experiences or is everything new to them?
00;06;56;08 – 00;08;26;14
Meghan Becker
Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, I think that this generation of students have been raised with parents who have tried to protect them from lots of things. And so, you know, rather than allowing students to experience hard things, we have kind of bubble wrapped them for 18 years, and then they come to college and remove the bubble wrap, remove the supports and remove everything. And the students are like, wait, I can’t do this, you know? So I think that we’re seeing less resiliency in this generation, which is why, you know, I think it’s because of the environment. I think our culture, you know, we’re just more fearful or more educated about things that can happen. Things are just different than they used to be. They have the world literally at their fingertips on their phone. And, you know, I was thinking the other day, even these students have never not had someone taking a picture of them all the time. All the time someone is taking a picture, wanting a picture, wanting to document you know, and they’re just living kind of out in the open, you know, and have been. But then there’s this really, I would say there is a common thread of fear throughout the entire thing, and it’s throughout our entire culture that kind of creates this anxiety, this lack of resilience, this this inability to make decisions. And so that’s what we’re trying to combat with this resiliency class.
00;08;26;17 – 00;08;39;12
Rick Hoaglund
Did the pandemic have any effect, or is the pandemic simply being used as an excuse? Because I keep hearing it over and over as a reason. There’s a piece of me that wonders, is this really the pandemic or is this just an excuse?
00;08;39;14 – 00;10;30;19
Meghan Becker
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it’s a both- I don’t think it’s an excuse. So I do think that it had an effect for sure. You know, if you think about students from all over the place, some were literally at home for a year and a half somewhere home for half a year, some were in masks, you know, everything got switched and turned upside down. And so I think if you think about people who are just moving right along and then their whole entire world gets stopped, and then you don’t know what kind of home environment they’re going to. You don’t know what kind of educational environment they’re going to. And so for at least two years, I would say the world, you know, was- was in complete disarray. But if you have a generation who has already, is already wired to be a little bit less resilient and not be able to do hard things and have family who is bubble wrapping them. And then they are given this entire world shift, not just a worldview shift, but literally everything about their day in and day out has completely shifted. That’s going to create some turbulence, right? In someone’s life! It just is, I mean, including us. You know, I do think, though, that the students ability to bounce back or inability to bounce back, their inability is greater because of the ways that they have been raised, phones at their fingertips, parents coddling them, taking care of them. You know, the world is just a more fragile place. I think it’s a both-and. I do think, you know, sometimes people do like to use it as an excuse. But more often than not, we’re seeing people move away from that excuse because we’re so far out.
00;10;30;21 – 00;10;51;23
Rick Hoaglund
And is there anything about the care team that you’d like people to know that say, maybe they don’t really know about? Like, is there a piece of a care team out there that you’re like, hey, this is being underutilized or people don’t understand it? Or maybe it’s just even the mission of your care team. Like, do people really get what you do?
00;10;51;25 – 00;12;23;25
Meghan Becker
I think part of what I would love for people to know is that it’s hard to care for people all the time. It is hard to care for people. And then if you’re in an institution of higher education, you’re doing the best that you can as a human being, while also creating partnerships and connections with your constituents, your stakeholders. So you have parents, you have administration, you have faculty, you have staff, you have students, you have other students, you have organizations. I just think sometimes the burden is great. But I will say the theme that we have here at Baylor are people who care about their work, and they show up every day to do work with students because they care about people, not because they’re getting paid. And I think that makes all the difference in the world. Now, obviously they want a paycheck, but the motivation is because of care and desire to see students helped. You know, because research shows a student’s life outside the classroom really does impact their life inside the classroom. And so in care team services, that’s what we like to do, is to make sure that they’re connected in in their life outside the classroom. So ultimately they can be connected inside the classroom to be successful and graduate. And our hope is that they become different people when they graduate than they were when they walk through the door.
00;12;23;27 – 00;12;27;00
Rick Hoaglund
Is there anything you’d like to add that we haven’t asked?
00;12;27;03 – 00;12;32;09
Meghan Becker
I don’t think so. I mean, I feel like I have said a lot of words!
00;12;32;12 – 00;12;59;18
Rick Hoaglund
Thank you for joining us! If you’re a part of the Baylor community or know someone who might benefit from these resources at Baylor, reach out to the care team. They’re here to help! Remember, support is just a step away. To hear other episodes of OnTopic with Empathia, visit our website, www.empathia.com. Follow us on social media @Empathia, and subscribe to OnTopic with Empathia to hear new episodes as soon as they go live.
