A brief interview with Wofford College Biology professor Dr. Lori Cruze on implementing self-care into the classroom and the science that accompanies that.
Dr. Lori Cruze, professor of Biology at Wofford College, was the only participant in Dr. Dorroll's self-care pedagogy workshop that hailed from a science department. Given this unique circumstance, her widespread reputation as a student-centered leader on campus, and her extensive knowledge of science, she provided me with great feedback and information surrounding self-care in academia.
Workshop Experience
Dr. Cruze and I began our conversation by discussing her experience and motivation behind registering for Dr. Dorroll's self-care workshop offered last summer. Dr. Cruze largely contributed her participation in this course to her own intrinsic desires. Although this workshop demonstrates techniques to implement into classroom settings, it also gives professors their own tools for managing the challenges and anxiety of their profession. Given the difficult work/life balance of higher education professionals, Dr. Cruze hoped to gain tools to grow as an individual and dedicate more time to her own wellbeing.
By her own mouth, Dr. Cruze felt that the workshop helped to meet these objectives through engaging with a variety of interesting and beneficial self-care practices. One of her favorite activities offered through the workshop was learning about the history of mandalas. This section of the workshop was led by art professor Scott-Felder and Dr. Trina J. Jones who presented the religious and cultural significance of mandalas (pictured below). Following this instruction, participants were encouraged to time themselves drawing, coloring, or painting a mandala without any interruption of technology.
Dr. Cruze took this a step further by measuring her heart rate before and after engaging with mandala art. This empirical study gauged how we can physically benefit from caring for ourselves. This concept is not new, however. Dr. Jason Wasfy, director of quality and analytics at Harvard's General Hospital Heart Center stated, “In certain cases, a lower resting heart rate can mean a higher degree of physical fitness, which is associated with reduced rates of cardiac events like heart attacks” (Harvard Health Blog). In this way, Dr. Cruze gained not only the benefit of relaxation and slowing down, but also more measurable physical benefits such as increased serotonin and lowered heart rates.
In the Classroom
Having benefited from many of the self-care exercises herself, Dr. Cruze decided to implement several of these techniques into her first year seminar class. Dr. Cruze incorporated the mandala that she loved into a class dedicated to coloring and concentrated creativity. She also put into action what she coined as "Failing Friday". On Fridays, students would write and reflect on how they felt they had failed that week. Rather than work for any solution to alleviate future failures, this simply gave the students and opportunity to reflect that failure often allows growth. Writing out these so-called failures allowed the students to acknowledge they are still alive, the world goes on, and they now have an experience in which they can learn and grow from. Another writing exercise prompted her students to write a letter of gratitude to a person the felt had positively impacted their lives. These letters allowed students to examine themselves more critically, and also provide emotional relief and joy to other people unexpectedly.
Aside from these structured assignments, there were also days in which students were simply instructed to have fun. Dr. Cruze brought in card games and board games and students selected how they wished to interact with the resources provided. We both agreed that this technique was something Dr. Dorroll would have loved because it stresses the individuality of self-care. The students were not being forced to choose a singular game they want to play to alleviate stress, rather they are encouraged to experiment with what actions they felt best benefitted them.
Thinking Forward
When focusing on Dr. Cruze's intentions for the future of her classroom as well as the future of self-care in higher education, Dr. Cruze shared many thoughtful ideas. One thing that she noted specific to Wofford, was a lack of any formal mission for pursuing mental health and self-care practices. In many other college mission statements that she had read, the institution specifically outlines goals to promote individual wellbeing and intuitive self-discovery. She felt that making self-care a mission rather than a loose objective holds the university or college more accountable.
Although she feels it may be a stretch to mandate a self-care general education requirement into higher education, she feels that there are steps that we can take to encourage better self-care legislation. One of these things is using her position to provide further empirical evidence supporting the benefits of self-care. As a professor of physiology, she hopes to lead more experiments on the benefits of self-care. This would allow students an opportunity to see first hand how their decisions to actively engage with self-care can positively affect them, as well as learn more on the human body in which they have chosen to study.
Sources and Additional Links:
Dr. Dorroll's Blog
Harvard's Health Blog
Other Empirical Self-Care Studies
https://pascal-wofford.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01PASCAL_WOFF/u102q/cdi_doaj_primary_oai_doaj_org_article_00810cedc689428989a0ab8118ca36a3