By Pushpa Iyer with Jason Buchanan
Thanks to all who took the time to complete our poll on self-care in the interactive section “Reflection and Response” in Issue 6. We always learn from reading your thoughtful comments and are always excited with the resulting discussion it generates amongst members of our community.
Be sure to fill out our next poll on the topic of student organizations so we can hear your thoughts and opinions. Click here to read about the topic, and here for the poll.
We received 127 responses from members of the MIIS community. We realize that this is not a representative sample size, but find the submitted answers help elucidate our collective understanding of what self-care means to our community. We would also like to take a moment to state that these polls are only meant to generate discussion and are not treated as surveys to be linked to any decision.
The first question was: “Is self-care a priority for you?” The majority of respondents (59.06%) said that self-care was sometimes a priority. A significant proportion said that it was always a priority (34.65%), and a very small minority said that it was never a priority (6.3%).
The next question asked readers to consider self-care culture in reference to the article and links in the issue. “Has self-care culture gone too far?” The responses to this question indicate a high degree of variability with little consensus. Most answered that it has not gone too far (40.94%). A little less than a quarter agreed that it had gone too far (24.41%). A large portion (34.65%) was unsure.
When asked if MIIS as an institution should emphasize self-care for students, respondents agreed in larger numbers. Nearly three quarters (73.23%) answered that the institute should indeed emphasize self-care. Less than seven percent (6.3%) said that MIIS should not and 20.47% were unsure.
We sincerely thank all those who took the trouble to add comments explaining your poll choices. Here are some themes that emerged from reading your thoughts:
- Who pays for self-care?
A majority of the respondents felt that MIIS as an institution should emphasize self-care; of these, many felt that MIIS already did, although some others thought more could be done. A few individuals asked who would pay for self-care programs with the fear that money for support services would need to come from student tuition. Given that tuition costs continue to rise, the fear of a further increase in costs is understandable. It is not surprising that the MIIS community is asking this question. Bethany Knickerbocker, in her article, says this concern among students is high and quotes Dodge Data and Analysis to say that much of the tuition money spent by universities is on construction (in providing facilities). So when requests are made for dedicated spaces for self-care, the concern for many is: will these costs be covered from tuition money? The answer is probably “yes.” This trend seems no different in the U.K. either, where Lucy Skoulding says only a small percentage (17%) of the tuition money goes towards enhancing teaching and improving the student experience. Over 55% goes to improving facilities and providing services, including mental health services and student services. The other option is for students to budget some money for self-care from their finances instead of paying the universities high tuition to deliver services. Amanda Ripley, in her article, does an in-depth analysis of the cost of higher education in the U.S. and concludes just like the others that universities spend most of the money in infrastructure and non-teaching services. This is the advice that Elyssa Kirkham gives: budget for self-care, make sound financial decisions, get a financial mentor, and even hire a professional who can help you with financial planning. Her advice comes from linking financial health to self-care. To conclude, this is a critical question to ask: who pays for those self-care services? At the same time, given that tuition is so high, it is also useful to ask what other services can academic institutions provide their students.
- Is self-care an individual concern or institutional concern?
Some commenters agreed that students at a graduate school like MIIS are adults. Therefore, as adults, shouldn’t students be able to figure out the self-care practices that suit them the best and not expect the institution to provide these services? Some of these comments were in connection with the above-discussed topic of who would bear the cost of self-care services, but there were also comments about not coddling students. For some, there is a sense that self-care needs vary, and each individual should find their own time, space, and method to deal with their stress, anxiety, or any other mental health issues. Haley Cummings, in her article, provides excellent tips on the kinds of things every student could do to practice self-care. Many of those who opined that the responsibility for self-care falls on the individual also contended that self-care culture had gone too far.
Contrary to the argument that self-care is or should be an individual effort, Douglas Dowland says that students may struggle to care for themselves and that we should make a collective effort to care for each other. Many times, a simple pause to check in with someone else will help them consider ways to find self-care practices for themselves. Finally, another fascinating perspective from Deborah Cohan, who writes about the need for faculty to practice self-care. An overwhelming majority of articles available online talk about student self-care needs and approaches, but few focus on providing tips for faculty. Cohan advises faculty to say “no” to students, setting boundaries, not being always available, remembering that students need to work more than faculty, and take a 10-minute “sabbatical” every day! We find Cohan’s advice potentially clashing with the perspective of many that faculty need to be caring for students. However, we can always argue that we (faculty) cannot take care of others (students) if we do not take care of ourselves. It would be interesting to stretch this a bit further and ask how graduate students in a school like MIIS can extend support to faculty to practice self-care.
- Pervasiveness of popular self-care culture
Our article last issue on this topic explored the question of whether we were going too far with self-care culture, and it seemed that many of our community members are concerned about the kind of self-care we wanted to emphasize at MIIS. Respondents wanted to make the distinction between self-care and “treating yourself.” Multiple respondents mentioned they felt compelled by social media or by popular culture to participate in what one individual termed “mainstream self-care.” This version of self-care is widely perpetuated by apps like Instagram, encouraging users to live their best life in the name of self-care. Often, this principle of living your best life comes at a cost. According to one commenter, activities like burning a candle, taking a bubble bath, and drinking tea might make them feel better. Still, these activities don’t meaningfully address “the underlying feelings of burnout, frustration, or sadness.” Moreover, mainstream portrayals of self-care seem to ignore that not everyone has the financial means to practice self-care the same way. At this time it is important to note that we cannot really judge anyone for being confused by the various versions of self-care and the many ways it is interpreted. Self-care is just complicated (read this, this, and this). Overall, it appears that respondents recognize the limitations of self-care as it is popularly portrayed in social media. One participant remarked, “So maybe self-care and treating yourself are different?” It is time we made this distinction clearer.
- Mixed messages from the institution
There was a sense we got from some of the respondents that we are giving mixed messages about self-care at MIIS. On the one hand, we seem to emphasize self-care, but on the other hand, we stress our students with work and create a culture of rewarding people for being busy and stressed out. At least one respondent was clear that it was not just the job of student services to provide or promote self-care. Self-care culture could only be built if faculty and staff would get behind it. MIIS may not be the only institution that suffers from this confusion — academia in general pits students against one another, fosters competition, and rewards people for overworking. Read this and this to understand how these mixed messages from academia might impact self-care culture in our institutions.
To conclude, we all believe in the need and importance for self-care. The concept and practice of self-care is complex and, as this article states, in some ways each institution will need to create its own specific kind of space for self-care.
