The 2020 Election and College Campuses, What Most Don't See

Discussing politics on LinkedIn is not one of my favorite pastimes. As a professional, it's rarely in my best interest to share my personal political views in a public forum. Reading others' political views proves troublesome as well. As a southerner, I was raised from a young age to carry one heck of a grudge and, these days, as a good little granny-taught martyr, I simply don't have the capacity to carry the weight of my own reactions to a professional peer's offensive-to-me political rant. So there's that.

For this read I ask you to clear your mind of any agenda, slant or bias. Please hear these words: A not-small number of today's college students are scared of this presidential election.

These students have fear in their hearts and in their minds. They fear for their personal safety and they are anxious about the impact this election and its ugly tail may have on their health, wellness, long-term success and, at times, even their short-term survival.

As a grown adult with two young children at home virtually learning, I recognize my family is cocooned and insulated enough to be able to sell this near-full-year isolation as family moments. We are in a position of privilege where we get to manage today's realities on behalf of our children.

Many of our students on college campuses are young adults. Anxiety used to present as homesickness and we all giggled about the inevitable freshman 15. Today we have a pandemic. And, like a horrid cherry on top, a polarizing presidential election.

There are numerous things many outside of higher education don't see right now. I think the more we all know, the more we all grow.

• Student anxiety. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, students were already feeling isolated. While we've seen a significant uptick in student engagement as on-campus activities result in feelings of belonging and connectedness, students still spend more time living and learning online. Insert the election. The 2020 presidential election is teeming with online rhetoric, divisive political ads and even our nation's top leaders' own words continue to poke fun at fear, downplay the existence of real bias and circulate smiling threats of what is surely to come post-election. Students on college campuses see it all. Anxiety is defined as "a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome." We can't pretend the anxiety isn't real or valid for our students as they are sharing their concerns freely.
• The support services. All within the higher ed community continue to wrap services around students to support them through today's unprecedented realities. In higher education, students are our treasure. From supporting student leadership's requests for grace in attendance policies (so students can exercise their right to vote) through increasing visibility to and availability of counseling services, campuses continue to listen and respond to our students needs during this election season. As an IT leader and after hearing of student concerns for safety and well-being, we gladly jumped through hoops to escalate our previously longer-termed implementation of a mobile panic button solution. Yes, the campus has blue-light emergency phones scattered about and a strong campus security team, but we're not ruling out that our students might need help from any location. The mobile app went live last week, as requested, in advance of next week's election. They now carry safety in their pocket.
• Staff anxiety. As a result of today's realities, higher education staff members are not only carrying the weight of increased work stress, economic fears and home life pressures, but also we carry the anxieties of our students. University students are our responsibility and, as we consider it an honor to support them even in the impossible times, these are some next-level impossible times. Higher education has always been an industry whose core is comprised of caring for the whole person, development of mind/body/spirit and deeply intentional support. Whether we are teaching our students or supporting the teaching and learning process, higher ed staff interact with our campus every day and the increased anxiety is palpable.

Whether you can relate or not, as just one member of the higher ed workforce, I humbly request you display some empathy for those that struggle where and when you may not. We control our behaviors before, during and after the election and, while this is only one perspective, our behaviors are not only learned, they are watched.

As adults bicker back and forth online about politics, our children in many ways appear to have out-matured the whole lot of us. But we need to not forget that the students in our care on college campuses, while possibly behaving more maturely than the rest of us, are much closer to childhood than we are. And they are scared.

Check on your friends in higher education. Check on your friends with kids in higher education. Check on today's students. We will get through this and, I have no doubt, we will be stronger for it. Tomorrow's workforce will show a level of resilience and grit like we've never seen, but now's the time. It may very well take a village for us to get there and our nation's village needs awareness and empathy.

Meanwhile, me? I'm currently working on my own version of the freshman 15. Please send coffee and pie. Hang in there higher ed!

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