coe-staff: A Message of Well-being from Professor Ellen McWhirter

[Randy Kamphaus]

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From R.W. Kamphaus, Professor and Dean
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Dear COE Students,

We, your COE administrators, staff, and faculty have been thinking about your well-being in this time of impending changes in courses and instructional modalities, potential threats to our health, and social distancing. Fortunately, we have considerable faculty expertise that can be of benefit to you as you adjust to these new circumstances.


Dr. Ellen McWhirter, Ann Swindells Professor of Counseling Psychology, was kind enough to prepare the following thoughts and actions for you to consider during this time of adaptation and adjustment. Thank you, Ellen!

In preparation for next term, please keep in touch with your faculty and staff. For undergraduates, please see the new advising resources that can be accessed on our COE website home page (https://blogs.uoregon.edu/coeadvising/).

Wishing you and yours well,

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As we all navigate this dynamic and unsettling situation, we offer the following considerations:
We are in this together. Mutual support and solidarity, respect and patience, kindness and empathy will strengthen us to keep moving forward day by day.

As educators, clinicians, prevention specialists, scientists, and practitioners in training, we have tools that we can engage with our loved ones, with each other, with our communities, and with our students, clients, research participants, and networks. We can:

·     Respond to misinformation, rumors, and escalation with steadiness, factual information, and vetted resources.
·     Respond to anxiety and fear with compassion and practicality.
·     Resist efforts to dichotomize, fragment, isolate, and blame groups of people.
·     Respond to our own fears and anxieties by seeking support, practicing mindfulness, exercising, practicing gratitude, and by applying our curiosity and creativity to this unprecedented situation.
·     Keep a schedule: Get up, get dressed, make a plan for work, academic, and social time. Don’t stay in the spot within your living space all day. Get outside every day.
·     Maintain a sense of humor, which can help generate solidarity in the midst of loss or fear.
·     Respond to distraction and lack of motivation by setting specific goals (hourly, morning/afternoon, daily), sharing goals with others to enhance accountability, setting limits on news consumption, including blocks of time that are disconnected from social and news media, and building a reward structure that fits YOU (going for a run, watching a show, calling a friend).
·     Channel frustration and anger into serving others, raising awareness about those who are most vulnerable, inviting constructive action to ensure others’ safety and well-being, and encouraging creative responses to this unfolding situation.

We are all being challenged to strengthen our tolerance of ambiguity, our flexibility, our persistence in the face of obstacles, our courage, and our patience. Some of us are better at these than others. That’s ok! It is a great time to be intentional about enhancing these qualities.

If you have ever questioned whether you belong in higher education/academia, we need your experiences and perspectives more than ever. Please infuse your life lessons, counter narratives, and practical wisdom into our conversations and actions. We need our collective energies and insights, including yours.

The months ahead hold challenges and many unknowns for all of us. Let’s face these together, with as much community spirit and caring as we can.

In solidarity,

COE Faculty, Staff, and Administration


Additional Information from the University of Oregon



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