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Tag: Well-Being

Published on Leave a comment on Combatting Zoom Fatigue
Computer stress
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Wow, we spend a lot of time on Zoom these days— for classes, office hours, workshops, committee meetings, and even happy hours! Zoom has been both a God-send and a time-suck. It is pretty user-friendly, and has allowed us in CAT+FD to keep offering events while also allowing me to stay in (better) touch with my siblings.

But after a long day of multiple Zoom meetings, I find myself worn out in a special way. My back hurts, my eyes are tired, and my ears are sore from my fancy Bluetooth headset. The Stanford University Virtual Human Interaction Lab recently studied “Zoom fatigue” and found four roots causes. Spoiler alert: they include having extended up-close eye contact, seeing ourselves on video all day, being stuck in front of our computer cameras, and requiring an increased cognitive load.

Check out this article which includes some simple fixes for each root cause (for example, reduce the screen size for Zoom, hide your own video). The article also includes the 15-item Zoom Fatigue and Exhaustion Scale that you could take to identify how videoconferencing is affecting you.

Have any tips that have helped you combat Zoom fatigue? Please share them!

 

Published on Leave a comment on Black Wellness in the Era of COVID-19

The following event is sponsored by our friends at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. We are sharing here because we think this timely topic may be of great interest to Xavier faculty and staff. For more information, and to register, please visit the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. 

A virtual retreat with Ruth King and Kamilah Majied
Broadcast live via Zoom on Sunday, June 7th
3:00 – 5:00 pm EDT

We are painfully living through what the emerging data confirm: that Black people are dying at disproportionate rates and experiencing more negative economic, legal, health and safety consequences due to COVID-19 and the ensuing Shelter in Place mandates. This is having a profound impact on our communities and on each of us personally and professionally. We also know that the causes and effects of these difficult times are deeply rooted in generations of injustice and neglect. Yet, our well-being depends on our response as leaders. It is time that we gather as Black practitioners, educators, artists, activists, and leaders and share the wisdom of our beautiful collective community.

We invite you, our beloved Black community, who do so much holding, caring, and leading, into a space of learning about how meditative practices can help us awaken to and sustain our physical, emotional, social, and communal wellness.

All the practices offered in this 2-hour session will seed your capacity to further nurture wellness in the Black communities you practice and lead in, thus enabling you to feel more fortified in guiding your respective communities towards surviving and thriving through the pandemic and beyond.

Join us for this pre-Juneteenth celebration of Our Black Lives as we learn together how to liberate and nourish our well-being and that of one another.

For more information, and to register, please visit the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. 

Published on Leave a comment on Bringing Theory to Practice Is a Team Effort

We are pleased to announce that the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development has been honored with a grant from Bringing Theory to Practice. The grant will support a one-day seminar on "Well-Being & Sustainability at Xavier," which is planned for Saturday, 23 January 2016, 9:30AM-2:30PM in the Mellon Seminar Room (Library 532B). Please mark your calendars.

We didn't do it alone! This grant proposal was a team effort in collaboration with diverse campus constituencies, including the Mellon Faculty Community of Teaching­ Scholars Fellows, the Xavier Contemplative Inquiry Team, Academic Affairs, Student Services, the Department of Public Health Sciences, the Counseling & Wellness Center, and Campus Ministry.

For more information, please see our wiki.

Published on Leave a comment on Conversation #34: Well-Being

Download Conversation #34

Debra Park

A conversation with Debra Park on teaching, learning, and well-being.

We have to help our students learn how to develop healthy habits which will improve not only their academics but of course their mental health in general... If we're going to teach our students then I believe as teachers we need to develop our own personal well-being habits.

After retiring from teaching high school psychology for 33 years, Debra Park, M.A., “graduated” back to college and has been teaching undergraduate courses at Rutgers University, Camden NJ. As a Part-Time- Lecturer in both the Psychology department and the Institute for Effective Education/Teacher Prep, she has taught Introduction to Psychology, Human Development, Psychology of Happiness and Well –Being and Behavior Management to both traditional and non-traditional students. Debra is past-chair of the Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools, a committee of the American Psychological Association and has served on the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education and APA’s National Standards Working Group, revising the high school standards for psychology. She served on APA’s Membership Board from 2009 – 2012 and was Division 2, Society for Teaching Psychology Membership Board Chair 2012- 2015.

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