This semester, Houghton’s Counseling Center will hold regular group activities to encourage community connection, reduce stress, and teach useful handicraft skills.
The new events, snappily named “Wellness Wednesdays,” were the brainchild of Dr. Bill Burrichter, Houghton’s Director of Counseling Services. “A few years ago,” said Burrichter, “when I first came into Houghton, I was tasked with thinking about comprehensive wellness program. I had designed a wellness wheel with 7 dimensions, including spiritual, physical, nutritional, and emotional. Within each of those dimensions, we started to think through current things we do here at Houghton.”
Although development of the program stalled due to slim financial and personnel resources, the Counseling Center staff continued to brainstorm new ways of connecting with students. “We kept circling back around to it,” Burrichter continued. “We kept asking about what kinds of things we could do to instill wellness among students here at Houghton, in areas that logically connect with social and emotional wellness and would still be beneficial to them.” The program was also designed to provide an enriching alternative to individualized spaces like dorm rooms and library carrels, allowing students to interact with each other and fellowship with members of the broader Houghton community.
Intergenerational connections are, according to Burrichter, an emotional and spiritual blessing that modern college students sorely lack. “One of the greatest tragedies of the current generation is that the blind are leading the blind,” he said. “Emerging adults are leading emerging adults, and there’s a great sense of disconnect between older generations and the emerging adults. One of the intents behind the knitting night was to bring some cross generational interaction.”
During the next Wellness Wednesday, which will be held on Feb. 21 between 6-9 p.m., Prof. Alicia Taylor-Austin will show participants how to create durable, elegant handmade journals. After the instructional session, Burrichter added, “several women from the community will talk about what journaling has done for their spiritual and emotional wellness,” adding another dimension of wellness to the program.
In a later workshop, he said, retired Houghton psychology professor and “phenomenal woodworker” Daryl Stevenson will guide participants through a simple project. According to Burrichter, this low-key session will give students a chance to “do a project together and glean some wisdom from Dr. Stevenson, who’s been here for almost 40 years. And he can benefit from youthfulness and enthusiasm of the current students.” Another planned activity, an evening of sushi-rolling with licensed nutritionist Rebecca Harter, was designed to “bring people together around an engaging activity and create a sense of wellness” while teaching a valuable skill.
“We needed to think more creatively about how we deliver service,” Burrichter said, summing up his motivation behind designing such interactive events. “We’ve been sitting in our office and waiting for students to come to us. That has worked for many years, but we can’t possibly serve all students in that capacity.” He described the traditional mental and emotional intervention process as “a funnel going upward,” which most students enter at the bottom through individual counselling sessions.
“This is an attempt to flip the funnel upside down,” he said, “and get as many students as possible into the big part of the funnel through programs and services, so that they can access the benefits of this programming.” While some students immediately feel comfortable in one-on-one conversations with a counselor, others connect more naturally to hands-on activities. “Maybe these wellness activities will give some students what they need,” Burrichter said, expressing a hope that students who attend the sessions will join one of the many support groups available or visit the Counseling Center on their own time.
“We’re trying to think differently and find a more efficient way of delivering services to an ever-expanding need,” Burrichter said. At the most recent knitting circle event, 20 current Houghton students and eight community members came together to share technique tips and encouraging words. “Those kinds of relationships are really valuable,” he added. “They reinforce what makes Houghton a valuable place.”