In March of 2020, St. Edward’s University did what many other academic institutions did across the U.S and began remote learning due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Online and remote learning continued from the spring 2020 semester, through summer courses and the fall 2020 semester as well. St. Edward’s plans to continue remote learning for the Spring 2021 semester, like many other Universities in order to protect students and try to slow the spread of COVID-19.
While online and remote courses are necessary to protect students from the pandemic, the uncertainty that the COVID has brought, along with the transition to online courses has brought stress onto college students. According to a study, “Stress in America” done by the American Psychological Association 90% of adults aged 18-23 reported education as a significant source of stress. This is due to the unpredictability of the pandemic, which makes it difficult for those in this age group to plan for the future.
This increased level of stress has consequences. When Professor Emma K. Adam who teaches education and social policy at Northwestern University in Illinois spoke to U.S. News and World Report about this issue she reported that stress-related to education and other factors caused by COVID-19 can lead to “long term health and social consequenced.” Adam explained that these consequences can be due to increased loneliness and uncertainty among those aged 18-23.
The University of New Mexico, like St. Edward’s, has seen their courses go primary online. Dr. Patricia Repar who is a professor of music and internal medicine at UNM teaches a course, “Whole Person Care: Healing Arts I” that helps to teach students coping skills for stress.
Dr. Repar described her course as “an exploration of the transformative power of the creative process as it relates to physical, mental, and spiritual health.” The course focused on a wide range of arts such as visual art, music, movement, reflective writing, drama, meditation, guided imagery, various forms of bodywork, and energy medicine, and the role that these arts can play in holistic and integrative health care. The goal of the course was to introduce students to the healing arts and their benefits.
Annette Quintana who is a sophomore at UNM took healing arts in the fall semester while her classes were online and she was studying away from campus, living at home. Quintana felt the drain of being isolated but felt like the course was helpful to combat this issue.
“Stress during COVID has been hard because of the lack of human interaction, this course helped teach me that if we focus more on our own mental health and interacting with others in small ways, we can all benefit while staying distanced,” Quintana said.
In the course, Quintana chose to focus on Tai Chi because she was interested in the way it combined movement and breathing.
“It changed my perspective and helped me to focus on myself and what I was feeling. Tai Chi helped me get a sense of peace before I got ready for whatever the day held”
COVID of course affected the direction that the course went. In past years students would complete “community-engaged learning projects” which encouraged students to learn more about the healing arts by seeing them in practice at the Arts-in-Medicine Program at UNM Hospital and local retirement homes. This was not possible this year, but for her project, Quintana adapted and taught other students how to practice Tai Chi over Zoom and in socially distanced manners.
The stress that students are facing due to worries about the pandemic and online school are real, but learning effective ways to help cope with stress can help.