A Reality Check on Collective (Un)Wellness
Words offered during a wellness check-in (Fall 2025)
A couple weeks ago, I conducted a wellness check-in with my undergraduate class, and received a reality check that continues to unsettle me as I attempt to “settle in” to life at UC Berkeley. As predicted, students felt stressed and anxious about midterms and physically tired. However, what struck me was the openness and vulnerability that students communicated about experiences that I consider to be unwell. Indeed, there were a spectrum of responses, personal successes and struggles that students named to express the extent to which they felt balanced and imbalanced across body, mind, spirit, and heart.
As an instructor, the terms that stuck out to me were academic stress and anxiety over midterms. From a student and a learner perspective, I resonate with this sense of pressure to “succeed” academically because of my own socialization into a belief that grades matter and course outcomes matter. In class, I spoke about using this mid-semester temperature check as an opportunity to reflect and re-evaluate one’s time management and prioritization skills and their ability to be both efficient and effective with their time. I asked them to consider drafting and manifesting goals for each of their goals that are realistic and feasible, and I wondered about the possibilities of considering the deeper learning they want to pursue in their courses.
As a future ancestor and a woman from an older generation speaking to a younger generation, the terms that really concerned me were disconnected, isolated, homesick, alone, and tired. I shared that I also resonate as someone who moved across an ocean and a continent for my undergraduate journey and again for this faculty job. But I also acknowledged the privileges I have now, the basic needs that are being met and the energy that I am able to spend building relationships with colleagues to ensure I have a supportive community. I urged the class to center their personal “why” by revisiting their personal statements for college. I asked them to reflect on their reason for attending college and being here at UC Berkeley and dealing with the institutional pressures on top of an already exhausting and highly stressful sociopolitical landscape. In essence, I asked them to reflect on their sense of purpose, and perhaps, their sense of responsibility for enduring at such a competitive institution.
We also revisited definitions of community offered by students in our intellectual space. At the beginning of the semester, a student wrote the “community is something we practice.” I wondered how do we practice community? How do we get to a space where we feel comfortable and secure meeting new people or continuing intellectual conversations beyond the classroom. Another student wrote, “communities are powerful and impactful amidst strife.” How do we tap into this power? What are our commitments to care for one another knowing that we have students who are experiencing personal strife? Another offered: “communities require effort to listen, learn, and grow?” I wondered, are we going to hear one another? Are we open to learning, to expanding or shifting our paradigms? Finally, a fourth definition: “Communities form out of common understanding and a desire to connect.” I believe learning is a social process, and in this institutional context, a basic need. I wondered, what does it mean when students feel isolated and alone? One could argue that this basic need is not being met, and as a result, learning is impossible.
Shortly after presenting the results from the wellness check-in with students, I asked them if they have completed a similar check in for other classes. Surely, I thought, their professors can sense these emotions and precarious states of being percolating their classrooms. The response was a resounding no. Instructors only want feedback on their teaching practices, the students shared. They haven’t asked us how we’re doing.
This is a reality check. What will it take for us to huli the system so that more students know their instructors care for them and in turn, have more positive connections with people and place? What will it take for body, mind, spirit, and heart to be more balanced? What will it take for us to be collectively well?
