Reid Anctil
Class of 2022
Can you talk about some of the challenges that undergraduate students face and how well-being strategies might help them?
Towards the end of the semester, you usually have finals or midterms, and there’s usually a lot of stuff coming at you. In the well-being courses, they discuss different tools such as deep breathing that you can use in the moment to calm yourself down and keep going.We discussed something called Zorro circles, and it’s basically like taking something big and breaking it down into small components so it seems more manageable. Instead of like, “Oh, I’m going to go out and write this 100 page paper about a movie,” you break it down to introduction, the different things you’re going to talk about, and you break it down into those small pieces so it’s like, “Oh, I just have to do the introduction today. Oh, I only have to write five sentences here.” So I think that’s how well-being helps. And then it also helps with everyday stress because life doesn’t really follow a set plan. You might have a plan, and then it takes a left turn and you’ve got to figure out how to adapt to that. Positive psychology and well-being are all about looking at how you can adapt and still stay positive despite changes.
Can you describe some of the ways that well-being is infused into the student experience at Champlain?
To start with the courses, they have the positive psychology course, which is called the Mindcraft Course with Dr. Quinn, which is really fun. I really enjoyed it, I took it freshman year. And then I’m currently taking a music and well-being course, Music for Health and Well-being with Dr. Colombo, which is about all these tools that you can use to improve your well-being and change your perspective and outlook.In EHS, Psychology is a smaller major, so the professors all know you. If you need a break, you can talk with the professors. Sometimes I’ve had times where the whole class was feeling stressed about something and we mentioned it to the professor, and the professor’s like, “Here’s how it will change that up,” or “Here’s how we’ll move the schedule around so that it’ll work best for you guys.” And they can still get the stuff that they want in, but they’re just kind of more mindful of where people are at. I think they really try to build breaks and stuff into the classes.
Can you describe the resiliency workshops to me and tell us a little bit about whatyou're getting out of them?
So, the resiliency workshops have been a collaboration with Champlain, Harvard University, and Mass General Hospital in Boston, and they’ve had Dr. Aude Henin comes in. She talks us through resiliency training once a week for an hour. It’s always really fun. I look forward to it every Wednesday. It’s like a little break in my day that I get to do resiliency and mindfulness stuff. Basically, she’ll review what we’ve talked about the previous week, talk about how we’ve applied it in our lives, talk about it with the group, then she’ll teach us a new concept, a new tool that we’ll practice with her in the space. And then she gives us a little assignment to do in between this day and the next week. It’s all about looking at it through your personal life, like how you’ve experienced these different things that she talks about and how the resiliency workshop can help you get through those obstacles that you’re facing.
