As students return to campus this semester and the world continues to navigate the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, many may be experiencing anxiety.

For those struggling, it’s important to know supports are in place at ɫ����Ƶ to help manage these feelings.

A great starting point is the ɫ����Ƶ Wellness Center.

“We all need supportive and caring people to help us navigate the stresses and worries of life, people who can help us get through the ups and downs that we all experience,” said Donna Schiavo, clinical director of the Wellness Center.

Confidential counseling services are offered free, in both individual and group settings. For those not comfortable talking with a counselor, there are online tools and services.

is a virtual, peer-to-peer, anonymous support community where students can share their concerns. The online community is moderated by mental health professionals and offers students a safe place to draw strength and gain insights from peers.

Also available is , another free online resource that helps students better understand feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression, and suggests ways to manage these feelings. To register for an account, students can download the WellTrack app on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and register using their @student.bridgew.edu email address.

Beyond the Wellness Center, it’s important for students to know that community members across campus are invested in their mental health.

“Being a support system is our biggest draw for students to come in and vent, and ask for resources,” said Diana Mendes, interim assistant director of the Lewis and Gaines Center for Inclusion and Equity (LGCIE), located in the Rondileau Student Union.

For some students, there isn’t a safe space at home where they can express themselves, therefore they tend to suppress their emotions.

“When a student is experiencing so many different types of feelings and not being validated at home, that student often suffers in silence,” said LGCIE Interim Director Michael Walsh, adding that many students of color, particularly males, tend to suppress uncomfortable feelings.

Walsh said part of his job is to let students know they do have a place to turn to and that help is always available.

“The LGCIE is a safe place, where students can keep an eye on each other, have conversations and connect with others,” he said. “By having thoughtful, real, careful conversations, we’re able to understand what some of our students are dealing with in terms of their mental health.”

A Quiet Lounge is set up at the ɫ����Ƶ Pride Center where students can sit, relax, read, or work on homework. Coloring books, crayons, markers, puzzles, and paper are also offered in the lounge to help students unwind.

“You can always drop into the Pride Center between classes if you’re looking for a place to hang out, meet and be around other LGBTQIA+ people, find out more about different programs, events and social opportunities,” said Pride Center Director Carolyn Taggart. “I’m happy to meet with students one-on-one to assist them in finding resources.”

The Military and Veteran Student Center hosts ongoing events that focus on peer support, including one scheduled for May 4 where students can come together and de-stress during finals week.

This spring the center is also launching a Green to Grad program intended to bolster support for students transitioning from servicemember to student.

“Our goal as educators is to prepare students for life after college, and one of the things we should be fostering is the belief that it’s okay to be vulnerable,” said Brian Duchaney, director of military and veteran student services. “It’s important for us to be building opportunities for students to come together and share their experiences.”

Do you have a ɫ����Ƶ story you'd like to share? Email stories@bridgew.edu 

Our goal as educators is to prepare students for life after college, and one of the things we should be fostering is the belief that it’s okay to be vulnerable.

Just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down most of the country in March 2020, including in-person teaching at ɫ����Ƶ, Dr. Christopher Frazer had just finished a professional development exercise involving contagious outbreaks.

However, even that couldn’t have prepared him for what was on the horizon.

“Like most people, I thought the virus sounded concerning, but frankly it didn’t sound as concerning as a measles outbreak on campus,” said the executive director of ɫ����Ƶ’s Wellness Center.

It soon became apparent that COVID was something altogether different. Very quickly, Dr. Frazer and his staff, along with a group of volunteers that grew in number as the pandemic stretched from months into more than a year, ramped up what became a successful response to the health crisis.

“At first, we thought, how are we going to do this?” he said. Not only did the Wellness Center staff and ɫ����Ƶ administrators have to find a way to keep students, employees, librarians and faculty safe, study tours were also in progress, and those students had to be safely brought home. While the campus transitioned almost immediately to remote learning, Dr. Frazer and his staff put together a plan.

The plan included training for his staff, an intense program of testing and contact-tracing, educating members of the ɫ����Ƶ community about hygiene and the importance of wearing a face mask, recruiting and training volunteers, and, ultimately, the opening of a regional vaccination center on campus. Weekly meetings with the president and the cabinet were also instituted for the purposes of planning and to facilitate communication.

For Dr. Frazer and his staff of 11, along with volunteers from across campus, there were many long days. For instance, if in the early morning hours test results arrived showing that someone tested positive for the virus,
Dr. Frazer and his team had just a few hours to notify everyone who’d been in contact with that individual and get them to quarantine.

“It became kind of an around-the-clock operation,” he said. Dr. Frazer figured that Kelsey Gauthier, assistant director of events management, made up to 1,500 calls last year in an effort to notify students about test results and, at times, the need to quarantine.

The six-day work weeks and 12-plus-hour work days paid off. In the end, the campus experienced a positive test rate of less than 1 percent. Only one student ended up hospitalized, and that may have been for
a non-COVID reason.

“By and large, our students recovered very well and were able to convalesce in a manner that didn’t perpetuate the spread of the illness,” Dr. Frazer said. “We had a good system, but my mind keeps returning to the great people here who were willing to make this work.”

Those volunteers who went above and beyond, he added, were:

Testing: Greg DeMelo, G’11; Kathie Manning; Nick Burns, ’15; Kyle Bueno, ’18; Cathleen DeSimone; Eva Gaffney, G’01; and Jeanne O’Brien.

Tracing: Kelsey Gauthier, Jacklyn Walsh, Denise Diliddo and Shirelle Gurley.

Wellness: Cindy Calderon, Beth Archambault, Sara LaPlume and Lynn Grabau.

We had a good system, but my mind keeps returning to the great people here who were willing to make this work.