Karen Costa (she/her) Profile picture
Sep 22, 2020 8 tweets 3 min read Read on X
A thread on #MentalHealth, #ToxicStress, and #TraumaAwareness in #HigherEd...

With recognition that our leaders are also experiencing all of these challenges, are they acknowledging these realities?
What I'm hearing from faculty is no. People are drowning. Faculty, staff, and students are numb, traumatized, scared, and barely holding on by a thread. And they do not feel seen and supported by #highered leaders. There are, of course, exceptions. Those don't make rules.
I think sometimes our leaders feel like talking about these issues is not their job. It's the counseling office's job, right? No. Not right. Conversations about scope of practice can help move this conversation forward, perhaps. Image
Telling the truth is within your scope of practice. Telling the truth means telling the truth about the hard stuff too. Toxic positivity creates more stress and trauma. Business as usual won't cut it, not even close. We need our leaders to create spaces for the hard stuff.
And I was thinking this morning that maybe people who aren't trained in stress and trauma are oblivious and how sometimes when a person is drowning they look like they're waving.

They aren't waving. Your faculty, students, and staff are drowning. They need more help.
I don't know how else to say this. I spend the majority of my day with students and faculty from all over the country and the world. They are not okay. They need more help. They need you to create spaces to talk about the hard stuff.
Stop sharing resources about teaching online or HyFlex or whatever in the absence of any resources to support people's mental and emotional health. Stop doing that. Please. Prioritize care and well-being.
Empathy is within your #ScopeOfPractice as a leader in #HigherEd. Faculty, students, and staff should not have to seek outside resources to get this support. This should be woven into the fabric of our institutions.

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More from @karenraycosta

Oct 31, 2022
I wrote about ADHD, #AtomicHabits, ableism, Ungrading, and all the things.

#HigherEd
#ADHDTwitter
#AcademicTwitter

karenraycosta.medium.com/systems-arent-…
TLDR: ADHD is a life-threatening condition. Systems, routines, and structures keep me alive. Ignorant critiques of these strategies are ableist. Let's do better. Happy Monday!

#HigherEd
#ADHDTwitter
#AcademicTwitter
If you'd like to learn more about ADHD, there's a podcast for that!

#HigherEd
#ADHDTwitter
#AcademicTwitter

theadhdgallery.com
Read 5 tweets
Mar 31, 2022
Low attendance is understandable as we continue to recover from a global disaster while simultaneously experiencing repeated impacts/surges.

We have to design/adapt for this reality. Not for the fantasy of “back to normal.”

#HigherEd
#TraumaAware https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/images/fema-ccp-g
collective trauma: “a cataclysmic event that shatters the basic fabric of society”

#HigherEd

karenraycosta.medium.com/is-covid-a-col…
Faculty, staff, and students should not be left in the wind like this to wonder why this is happening. It’s infuriating tbh, and #HigherEd continues to be its own worst enemy.

We have to prioritize well-being and talk about trauma.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 3, 2022
Okay here goes nothing. A new thread 🧵about #CourseHero.

My name's Karen, I've worked in #HigherEd for 20 years, and this is the absolute last thing I want to talk about today. But, I'm compelled in the face of what I see as immense harm being done to students.
Yesterday, I wrote a piece about Course Hero. You can read it here:
karenraycosta.medium.com/we-dont-need-a…
I want to be as transparent as possible and encourage you to take nothing I say at face value. Don't trust me. Trust what you see.
To that end, here's how I've profited thus far from talking about Course Hero, for any who might wonder about my motivations. $1.19. Profit report from Medium s...
Read 16 tweets
Jan 24, 2022
great #OnlineLearning isn't necessarily media-rich. it's connection-rich.

the LEAST engaging online courses I've taken have been media-rich and connection-poor.
I see a lot of #HigherEd LD postings that seem to misunderstand this. That worries me.

pedagogy before tech
people before pedagogy

#OnlineLearning
btw all of this is covered in the research on effective #OnlineLearning particularly the work of xu and jaggars scholar.google.com/citations?user…
Read 4 tweets
Nov 19, 2021
so I woke up thinking about the "rigor wars," as one does
and I kind of feel like the debate over rigor, not to be dramatic, but it feels symptomatic of a (the?) battle for the soul of higher education
I want to give this "what do we talk about" a v.2. -our own educational trauma -the way we were taught -lack of
Read 10 tweets
Nov 18, 2021
I don't disagree with anything in this piece. What I find really interesting is the assumption that those of us who are advocating for caring pedagogy, grounded in a balance b/t support and challenge, have at any point become less rigorous.

#HigherEd
#ToxicRigor
And that to me is the mark of #ToxicRigor. When someone points to flexibility, humanizing, and support and says, "You're dumbing things down" or "You've sacrificed rigor," there's just no evidence of that, so something else is up.

#HigherEd
Read 8 tweets

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