Reflections on the Process and Outcomes of the AJCU Commission on Student Mental Health and Spiritual Growth: Towards a Hope-filled Future
Experts tell us that our young people are going through a mental health crisis at a time when they also express low trust in religious institutions but keen interest in spiritual questions and concerns. These reports mirror our own anecdotal experience as a faculty member and chaplain working with young people at Loyola Marymount University and College of the Holy Cross. How do we accompany our young people and, as members of Jesuit institutions of higher education, respond to their concerns and needs at this time? Thus, when we were invited to co-chair the AJCU Commission on Student Spiritual Growth and Mental Health: Towards a Hope-Filled Future, we were both energized and daunted by our charge.
Prior to this invitation, we had never met. However as we spent time getting to know each other, we discovered we had similar desires for how we wanted to work together and lead our group, using three key principles. First, we wanted to find a way to center student voices given the nature of our charge and the fact that students were not represented on any of the commissions (see our film Circle of Hope). Second, we wanted to create a hospitable space that enabled creativity and collaboration, one that was based on a sense of community. Third, we wished to honor the time commitment made by members, by taking care with group process and providing guidance that would move towards visible outcomes.
In the spring of 2023 as we invited folks to join the commission from a broad cross section of the AJCU network, they came to the conversation asking important questions raised by our charge, such as: “Are we willing to look at the culture of our institutions that contributes to the sense of despair our young people experience?” “How will we ensure that we create processes and engagement that prioritizes students who are often on the margins?” and “Who will listen and what will become of the work that we do?”
The Springtide Research Institute’s report, The State of Religion and Young People: Mental Health – What Faith Leaders Need to Know, lifts up three qualities of organizations that help support their mental health: Such organizations have structures that enable social connections, align tools with expectations and help develop a sense of purpose among young people. As we reflect back on our work with the Commission, we recognize how the questions our colleagues asked of us as we began our work reflected these same qualities of connection, alignment of resources with expectations and purpose.
Our Commission’s work involved spending time building community, sharing struggles and hopes by prioritizing time to check in with one another along the way. We also broke up into small groups based on our areas of specialization, so that each group could contribute their distinctive perspectives. Each small group shared the research, best practices as well as a few recommendations they had identified with the larger group. As we synthesized what we had heard from the groups, two themes emerged. First, the need for our commission’s response to be holistic and interconnected, reflecting cura personalis. Second, that we needed to honor and understand our diverse personal and institutional contexts. With this, composition of place also became critical to our responses.
As we synthesized the fruits of our small group presentations, we also uncovered resources, challenges and goals at three levels of response: individual, interpersonal and institutional. At the individual level, recognizing the importance of purpose, we wanted to move towards a vocational discernment of God’s love for each of us, and the intrinsic dignity and belovedness of each person in this context. How do we support our students (and ourselves?) in growing in interior freedom and sense of purpose? Interpersonally, we saw being in “right relationship” as key, moving towards solidarity and accompaniment with others, especially those on the margins. How do we come to clarity about the quality of our relationships and the kinds of beliefs and practices that contribute to—or detract from—personal and collective flourishing on our campuses? Finally, institutionally, we viewed a whole person education and the formation of persons “for and with others” as our shared goal, which requires institutional reflection in the spirit of cura apostolica. How can we form “integral and integrated” persons who model authenticity, vulnerability and solidarity for the global common good through our policies and institutional priorities?
Reflecting upon these different levels of responses, we again divided into different subgroups, this time with one focused on relational best practices and the other on institutional tools. Together, these became important elements of our visible outcomes. The institutional practices group developed a discernment tool based in Ignatian principles that enabled a communal process for examining institutional policies through the lens of student concerns and impacts. The relational practices group identified examples of relational practices across the AJCU network and beyond, as well as resources for strengthening these practices.
Our work together as a commission required building relationships to foster connection, making sure that our desired outcomes aligned with available resources, and sharing a sense of purpose, believing our work mattered for AJCU. Our commission is a microcosm of our institutions. We need to broaden our conversations around mental health beyond services available to students or even employee wellness, as important as they are, to look at our campus culture itself. Drawing on the resources in our Ignatian tradition, might we be bold enough to prioritize connection, expectations and purpose in our way of proceeding as we seek to live into our mission as Jesuit colleges and universities in these precarious times?
By Marybeth Kearns-Barrett and Jennifer Abe