the spiritual climate on campus
D A R T M O U T H | On Campus
Psychological Resilience for Life
INTEGRARE HOSTS WINTER ROUNDTABLE DINNER By Luke Brown, Dartmouth ’18
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n early February, student-athletes, professors, and other members of the Dartmouth community gathered at the Hanover Inn for Integrare’s Winter Roundtable Dinner. The event, themed “Psychological Resilience for Life,” featured guest speaker Dr. Stephen Gonzalez, Director of Mental Performance and Leadership Development in Dartmouth’s Athletic Department. Integrare’s dinners are “dedicated to fostering dialogue that explores the
their leadership skills and athletic capabilities. One intriguing idea brought up throughout the evening was how the character trait of resilience acts like a muscle. For a person's ability to be resilient to grow, it needs to be strained. Simply put, for a person to become stronger, they need to face a challenge. Or as James 1:3 puts it, “the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” Kent Dahlberg, who leads Inte-
difficult things and succeeding.” After the presentation by Dr. Gonzalez, dinner was served. The table groups, filled with varsity captains, professors, collegiate coaches, doctors, and other professionals, launched into discussions. This kind of dialogue is the heart of the Roundtable because of the “big questions” raised, according to Dahlberg. Attendees considered prompts: “In what way (if any) has a faith life strengthened your capacity to adapt
cussion back to the larger group. Dr. Gonzalez synthesized these comments and responded with his own observations about what the larger group had learned about resilience. He then answered questions from the audience. “The evening was a huge success,” Dahlberg said. “Conversing about how we can cultivate more resilience led naturally into observing ways a faith perspective and faith experiences strengthen some people’s capacity to
deal well with life.” “Understanding, valuing, and cultivating resilience changes the way a person views life’s inevitable challenges, setbacks, and disappointments — in ourselves, in our teams and organizations, and in people we are helping train or lead.” This change in perspective – in mind and heart – is one goal Dahlberg hopes to achieve through his organization’s thought-provoking dinners.
Stephen Gonzalez closed his remarks [at the Roundtable] with a quote from The Little Prince that Fred Rogers often noted in his PBS children’s program Mr. Rogers Neighborhood: “What is essential is invisible to the eye. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.” Dahlberg noted: “Resilience is a resource ‘invisible to the eye.’ So is our faith.” | cu
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Student Questions the Former Astronaut Image of Jesus in Art Offers Insight for In an article for The Dartmouth, COVID-19 Isolation
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to stressful circumstances and bounce back from adverse events [using a phrase from the definition of resilience]?” “How have you taken a difficult situation and asked, ‘What can I learn from this?’ — shaping that hardship to your advantage?” and “How did reframing it as a ‘learning opportunity’ help you step back, cultivate resilience, push forward, and as a result, grow?” After dinner, each table reported the most poignant parts of their dis-
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grare along with his wife Denise, reflected on this concept from Dr. Gonzalez’s talk. “The analogy of a muscle is apt,” he said. “You build resilience by encountering and learning to deal with hardships, setbacks, disappointments, failures — adversity of various kinds. If life is too simple, easy, and straightforward, we never need to develop resilience to cope with and overcome various struggles. A lot of the satisfaction we gain in life is precisely from overcoming
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intersection of contemporary academic thought, cultural thought, and Judeo-Christian thought on issues related to science, the arts, life, and religion.” Dr. Gonzalez opened the evening with a brief message about resilience, a topic he knows well. Before coming to Dartmouth, he worked as a performance psychologist with both collegiate athletes and infantrymen. Today, Dr. Gonzalez works with Dartmouth’s student athletes to develop
Dr. Jay Buckey, a former astronaut, knows something about staying mentally healthy while working in confinement. Buckey (Cornell ’77, Cornell School of Medicine ’81) is the director of the Space Medicine Innovations Lab at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, where he studies strategies to help people work effectively in small spaces for extended periods. A self-help research program is available online (geiselmed.dartmouth.edu) to anyone interested in learning more about the approaches that are used to deal with the psychological challenges of confinement. While the program is not
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In February, student leaders and community members gathered for Integrare’s Winter Roundtable Dinner at the Hanover Inn.
student Caris White discussed the origins of inaccurate depictions of Jesus in art and iconography. In “Recolored History: Art, Iconography, and the Myth of White Jesus,” White references a conversation with Guy Collins, a local Episcopalian Reverend. Collins stated, “There is this imaginary [image], and it forms and shapes our reality… If our imaginary [version] is only shaped by representations that are factually incorrect and only present one side of the pluralistic reality of the human race; if we only see one type of face in the imaginary, then we’re actually—in theological terms—denigrating the image of God in humanity.”
designed specifically for social distancing and shelter at home measures associated with COVID-19, Buckey believes that it has relevance in the context of the pandemic. “These resources are meant to make anyone better at stress management, depression treatment, and conflict resolution,” he says. The videos and information sheets in the research program were created for individuals who cannot get access to the outside world, such as those working in places like outer space and research stations in Antarctica. “There is no reason why people who suddenly find themselves stuck at home for long periods of time, alone or with others, shouldn’t also access these resources,” Buckey said.
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