Monday Message: On Trauma.

Good morning, Student Affairs Roadrunners:

I’m tired of writing these messages; messages where I attempt to make sense of some devastating event that is impacting our community or provide some small amount of solace to folks who are carrying a weight.??I’m tired of the absolute lack of solutions being implemented in communities across our country, of the lack of courageous leadership needed to enact strategies that are already proven to make our communities safer and cherish the lives of our Black, Latinx, and API neighbors.??Tyre Nichols should be alive today; 12 people in Monterey Park should be alive today; 7 workers in Half Moon Bay should be alive today.??The list is endless.????

The American Psychological Association says that “Trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event…”??Short term reactions include shock and denial, but longer term manifestations of our response to trauma can include chaotic emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships, and physical symptoms like headaches.??Over time, folks can develop post-traumatic stress disorder where symptoms like flashbacks, bad dreams, frightening thoughts, avoidance of people or places that are reminders of the trauma, and having difficulty sleeping and/or angry outbursts.??Certainly, the repeated murders of Black and Brown men and women, or of mass shootings in schools and celebratory spaces in communities near and far have produced these reactions in many of us, and I hope that we will be a community of healing for our students and colleagues who need a community of support.

And yet, we are reminded every day in our “normal lives” that the systemic racism built into the very fabric of our society is pervasive and acute.??While many of us understand PTSD in the context of veterans returning from war, recent scholarship has shown that “a greater frequency of racial microaggressions was significantly associated with greater traumatic stress symptoms, and that school or workplace microaggressions were the type of microaggression that was most associated with traumatic symptoms” (Nadal, Erazo, & King, 2019).??Let me put it this way, for many members of our community, simply existing in a world defined by systemic racism can lead to PTSD.??

As we collectively work toward healing and reconciliation,?I’ve been reading about trauma-informed practices.??What would our experiences, our leadership, our culture here in Student Affairs feel like if we adopted this approach????The article hyperlinked above provides 6 strategies for adopting trauma-informed leadership:

1. Cultivate safety.
2. Promote collaboration and empowerment.
3. Acknowledge that trauma is not equally distributed and make decisions accordingly.
4. Cultivate empathy.
5. Practice emotional maturity.
6. Find time to look inward.

I know I do not always nail each one of these; I don’t think anyone really does.??But the journey is the thing.??I invite you to join me in refining your leadership practice and building a community where, as Provost Tatum once told me, “people can come to heal.”???That’s the MSU Denver that I aspire to help create.

With love,

Will