THE SEARCH FOR BALANCED IMBALANCE Perspectives from Student Life Within COA, wellness goes far beyond the physical and even the emotional. When Dean of Student Life Sarah Luke, or Sluke as she is known to students, thinks of wellness, she thinks about five interlocking circles that include physical, mental, spiritual, recreational, and aesthetic wellness. On Week 9 of winter term, five current resident advisors, or RAs, took time out from their studies to talk about campus wellness. Our conversation began with a discussion of how they operate as RAs, but soon delved into how they seek to encourage self-understanding for their housemates and for themselves.
Donna Gold: So, what would you say most focuses your time and attention as student leaders? Anjali Appadurai '13: I think wellness is about balance, but my personal take has always been that it's not about total balance all the time, and there's no authority involved because everyone has their own equilibrium. It's not about, "you shouldn't be stressed," because stress happens, and it's OK, but rather encouraging people to be aware of themselves, to know when they are getting to an unhealthy point — and after that finding space and opportunity for finding resources for health. … It's more of an organic approach. Joe Perullo '14: How I interpret wellness in relation to COA's message is that I think it really is important to have this balance between allowing students to go into uncomfortable spaces, and figuring out how to deal with that without letting them go off the deep end — and being very conscious of the subjective
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experience that students go through. And yeah, it's kind of this balancing game of encouraging students to push their boundaries, but also helping them in those times.
way. Through the Student Life team we're watching everyone. We have multiple people, because different personalities attract different needs. When something is amiss we know.
Janoah Bailin '14: Maybe total balance actually means being imbalanced sometimes. What I really like about this school is that we recognize that all these areas of wellness play into each other and affect how we work … so it's a very roundabout way to get out the thing we want to get out — your goal or area of focus — but it's a recognition that all these areas will help to get at a more effective person.
Donna: This is not typical of other colleges, is it?
Amber Igasia '15: I see our role as being resources for the community; we confer with Sarah Luke when someone's struggling. We are the points in a web that pull things together. Janoah: Right. And the safety net lies in the dispersal of those points, if you have a wide enough net and connect all the points in the right
Brittany Cullen '14: It's really unique to COA. I have way more responsibility than friends in my role at other colleges. At other schools, the RA might be a resource for referring students to study skills, but at COA we know our residents, we know when they're doing well, and we know when they're struggling; and even after you refer them to help, you have to be there with them as they go through it. Amber: Because we're such a small school, and we have a ratio of about one RA to eight students, we have the ability to build that relationship. It's almost preemptive, because when you have a good relationship with your residents, you are able to see when someone is struggling. We have that
College of the Atlantic Magazine