Penny Rosenthal:
I have to share this story, I think this is a good place. In interviewing for positions in student affairs has been complicated. So I’m on campus doing an interview back in the olden days when they were two day interviews and what four or five meals, you know, and the Dean of students at this couldn’t meet make the two days, the schedule was booked. So we met for a brunch on Sunday, and the Dean said to me, go ahead, have a mimosa, I’m going to drink. Go ahead. And I said, no, thank you. I know. So she had pointed, I didn’t go ahead and have one. No, I really, I don’t, I, you know, it’s okay. I know you’re not supposed to drink at interviews, but I’m going to have one. So she did well, she got louder and louder, and I’m a more uncomfortable because she’s getting more, putting more pressure on me to help one. And I finally said, okay, I maybe should have said this earlier, because now I’m going to say it, and you’re going to feel horrible, and I don’t want you to feel horrible. I’m a recovering alcoholic. And she just, this beam just went, oh my God. And she got real embarrassed since she stopped drinking that she hired me. So I’m okay with that, you know, but that was incredibly uncomfortable. And again, to Becki’s point of, I was at that time almost 40. So I had other skills about speaking up and standing up for myself than a 25 year old might not have had, they might have drank at the interview thinking that that would be important in that moment. So imagine that the dynamics, so, so when a person says, no, thank you, stop.

Heather Shea:
Hello. Welcome to Student Affairs Now. I’m your host, Heather Shea. Today we are discussing campus supports and resources for college students in recovery with the authors and editors of a recent new directions for student services monograph. Student Affairs Now is the premier podcast and learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope you’ll find these conversations, make a contribution to the field and are restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays, and you can find us at studentaffairsnow.com.

Heather Shea:
This episode is brought to you by LeaderShape. LeaderShape partners, with colleges and universities to create transformational leadership experiences, both virtual and in-person for students and professionals. With a focus on creating a more, just caring and thriving world. LeaderShape offers, engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building to find out more, please visit www.leadershape.org/virtual programs or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn. This episode is also sponsored by EverFi how will your institution rise to reach today’s socially conscious generation. These students rate commitments to safety, wellbeing, and inclusion, as important as academics and extracurriculars. It’s time to reimagine the work of student affairs as an investment, not an expense. For over 20 years EverFi has been the trusted partner for over 1500 colleges and universities with nine efficacy studies behind our courses. You will find, you will have the confidence that you are using the standard of care for student safety and wellbeing, with the results to prove it. Transform the future of your institution and the community you serve.

Heather Shea:
Learn more at everfi.com/studentaffairsnow. As I mentioned, I am your host, Heather Shea. My pronouns are she her and hers, and I am broadcasting live from East Lansing, Michigan near the campus of Michigan state university, MSU occupies the ancestral homelands of the Anishinaabeg – Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Peoples. And I am thrilled today to have three individuals on the episode who have led the field of student affairs in addressing alcohol and other drug issues on college and university campuses. So thank you all three of you for, for being a part of the conversation today, as we talk about how we can support students who are recovering for alcohol from alcohol or substance use disorders. So I’m going to have each of you go around and introduce yourselves and talk a little bit about your pathway your current role and maybe about your interest in this, in this topic and serving students in their recovery. And I’ll start with Penny. Welcome Penny.

Penny Rosenthal:
Thanks Heather. My name is Penny Rosenthal. I am the Director of Student Advocacy at Riverland Community College. My pronouns are she her and hers. And my interest in this, my path to this work I think it’s, I was just getting ready for today and thinking about 31 years ago, I went to the college that the community college that I work at now, five years into my recovery from alcohol. And now I have the opportunity at the school and in the town that I began my sobriety life at, and I have the opportunity to frequently to help students who are in a place that I was related to alcohol and drugs, but certainly related to, I need to get back into school. I want to be back in school to improve my life for myself and my kids. And it’s such a joy. And to be here with my two colleagues that we worked on this, this monograph together and with you, Heather is such a treat a great way to spend the afternoon. So thank you.

Heather Shea:
Thanks so much, Penny. Thank you so much for being here. Becki I’ve known Becki for a long time, so it’s great to see you.

Becki Elkins:
Good to see you too. Heather,

Heather Shea:
Tell us a little bit about your, your pathway and interests.

Becki Elkins:
Thanks. I’m Becki Elkins. I am an Associate Professor in the Student Affairs Administration Program at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse where I’ve been for five years after a long student affairs, higher ed career in, in various areas. And my pathway to Penny was thinking about the same, same sort of topic and thinking about how did I land here? And in particular, I was thinking about that because yesterday I celebrated 23 years of sobriety from alcohol and drug use. And the first time I attempted to get sober I was 19 years old and a college student and it was a student affairs professional who actually intervened and suggested that might be something to think about for me. And so it’s always to some extent, been this real interest for me in, in terms of understanding what would have made my experience different. And, and so as a faculty member, I’ve had the opportunity to conduct some research on college students in recovery. And yeah, so that’s, that’s been my pathway. I think I forgot to say my pronouns. She, her, hers are my pronouns.

Heather Shea:
Thank you. Thank you.

Eran Hanke:
Thanks so much for being here. Eran, welcome. Hi, I’m Eran Hanke and my pronouns are she her hers. I’m an Assistant Professor in Counselor Education at the University of Northern Iowa. However, prior to becoming a faculty member and working to train counselors, I worked for a number of years as a college counselor. And specifically I worked in a medical school where I worked with physicians, physician assistants in training and got to see the real life struggles of students in, working through mental health concerns in addressing substance use issues. And part of the passion came from folks who were in recovery and doing the work and seeing opportunities for advocacy that were really missed. Let me give an example, for instance, when physicians need to apply for licensure post-graduation, they need to disclose mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment.

Eran Hanke:
And so I would write letters of support or advocacy for the clients who I’d served. The challenge was I could have met with three students last week, knowing that they may or may not have been clean or sober in terms of their educational journey. And some of the stigma attached to folks who were doing the work of recovery and having that carry with them. So just seeing it from the counselor angle and then seeing it as an advocacy issue was really significant to me.

Heather Shea:
Thank you so much. I love the mix of folks we have on this episode today. And I think we’ll talk a little bit about how the team of authors came together, but I think, you know, all of us are approaching this from different perspectives. And so I really appreciate you all being here. But I want to start, I always, I kind of often start the podcast with, let’s talk about language, right?

Heather Shea:
And you talk about this at the beginning of your, of the monograph, that language is changing and language is contested and political. And maybe Eran, you know, given your history with counselor education can you talk a little bit about what is recovery and why is that the language, the current language of the field, maybe how it differs from other language that’s been used or is still in use in the past, like addiction, sobriety, alcoholism, you know, all of those. So can you talk a little bit, what does recovery mean?

Eran Hanke:
I’ll start with some, some different ideas, and then I’m going to look to Becki and Penny to jump in on this. One of the things that’s been really significant about embracing the language of recovery is really looking at the whole person and really understanding that in people working on recovery, they’re working on being healthy, they’re working on being whole, they’re working on their wellness.

Heather Shea:
And so there’s been a shift in thinking about what is the problem what’s problematic use and how do we language and discuss maybe what it looks like to struggle as well as what it looks like to move through that struggle. And so for me, that language of recovery is about hope. It’s about resilience. It’s about understanding that there are setbacks and missteps and that they’re collective community invested in a process and, and giving people agency in that. So that’s been really significant in terms of that language. I think that there’s been some shifts away from addiction language, excuse me, into more of the substance abuse and away from substance abuse language to substance use disorder. Because when we talk about abuse and when we talk about addiction, we often begin to label folks and we begin to pathologize. And I think one of the first steps that we can take is, think about what is the language conveying and how do we center on the human being, because we are not the sum total of our struggles. And so I think that that’s been a really significant shift in that language and thinking. And so that’s kind of where I come from with that is moving toward here’s the clinical language. We can debate the politics of that. And how do we think about it in terms of affirmation and who these human beings are, who are courageous and taking steps to get their education and do really good things in the world. Penny, Becki, you want to jump on that?

Penny Rosenthal:
Yeah. It’s amazing how that takes me back to early, early sobriety and early recovery. When, when for me identifying as an alcoholic in recovery was primary. First thing I thought you needed to know about me. And after 31 years of that, it’s like, yeah, you don’t need to worry about that anymore. You know, but, but at the time, and I was 31 when I got sober. Well, which now everybody knows how old I am. How about that? The, the language is powerful, but when a person is in trying to transform themselves and those weighted words that can have so much meaning for other people and then give the belief that they have, they know everything that they need to know about you. It can be limiting and it also can cause just too much, too much damage and backtracking at a time when an individual has so much more to give.

Penny Rosenthal:
But also they’re just, they’re walking a line of perhaps not being able to recognize their strengths and also where they’re, where they’re needing help. So that language is incredibly powerful, both in a negative and in potentially powerful way, positive way.

Becki Elkins:
I think it’s also really interesting though, when you think about it from an identity context, and we talked about this a little bit in the monograph, but, you know, I think about my personal way of thinking about my recovery journey. And, and I think this is, I think this is really important because if you’re just a, you know, if you’re just a person who’s sitting in listening to people have conversations, it’s important to recognize, am I speaking for myself or am I speaking sort of broadly? And, and so, and that’s where in the you know, in the monograph, we do talk about language as politicized and, and it’s, it’s important.

Becki Elkins:
I believe for people to use the language that fits best for them. I, myself, I refer to myself to this day as an, as an alcoholic and addict, that is the language that I use. It feels like it’s part of my identity but it feels like I came to that sort of over years of working. Whereas, you know, I was at a conference last year and a man stood up and, and, and he said, you know, I’m, I am this many years liberated from alcohol and drugs. And throughout the conference, I had encountered him a number of times and that, and that was really important to him that notion of I am a liberated person. And so that was part of his identity in ways that’s different from mine. And so I think that’s where it gets complicated, right?

Becki Elkins:
Because the language that we use also is attached to the ways in which we think about our own identities. And so you know, when, when I’m talking on the one hand I’m hesitant to say a person with a substance use disorder that feels clunky to me, and it feels inauthentic to me, right. And yet when I talk to students today, that’s in many ways the language that they use. And so I think it’s really important to attend to, as we do with other arenas identity to really attend to what’s the language that is being used by the individuals where the power and conflict sources in the language that we use. And what does it communicate or not communicate about both individuals and our capacity to help individuals.

Eran Hanke:
Becki, can I jump in a little bit on that too? And this might take us in a slightly different direction, but sticks with the language piece when we train student affairs professionals, or when we train counselors, I think it’s really important to listen and hear and use the language that people use for themselves. At the same time I also think it’s really important that in our training programs, we work to help our clinicians, our student affairs professionals, to think about people first. And again, there’s a lot of debate in this, but in some ways I think the way that we language becomes the way that we think and what we believe. And so, and so that’s been that challenge, Becki I’ve had these conversations about, okay, when I’m training somebody, I’m training in person first language, and it’s really important for them to also hear and allow people to be able to speak to that.

Eran Hanke:
And so we’ve had some of those pieces.

Heather Shea:
I personally, I really like the word recovery also, and you speak about this a bit in the monograph about it’s, it feels, it feels optimistic and also early. And so can one of you maybe speak a bit off, off of our list of questions about the stages of recovery, because I think that’s the other piece that like, when we’re engaging with college students who might be in that early recovery moment, you know, that might, you know, surround us different set of needs than when students are farther into sobriety. I don’t know. The stages was an interesting kind of other piece of that.

Becki Elkins:
Yeah. I, I mean, I, I love the, I love thinking about the stages of recovery, because I think it it gives us opportunity to sort of hit on and address different, different dimensions of what students on the one hand might be needing. But on the other hand, also what they might be bringing to the table and in those contexts. And so you sort of think about early sobriety as less than a year of sobriety. And we talk about a lot about, you know, this is a, this is a moment Eran, you probably know all this better. I’m just talking away. You probably know this better, but this is a moment where you know, folks are trying to get a little, I mean, they’re trying to get stabilized. They might be trying to find housing. They’re probably trying to find new friends potentially, or figuring out how do how do I navigate my finances?

Becki Elkins:
How do I navigate going through these things that I have used drugs or alcohol to help me get through before? Right. So I used a lot as a student and so using connected to classes and studying was, was a big thing for me. And so how do I do that? And that, that is happening generally within that, within that first year, it’s sort of everything, you know, how do I go through the holidays? How do I, you know, all of those pieces sleep, oh, sleep is a great one. How do I sleep? And then you, then you sort of move into that stabilizing period where you have where you have more stable recovery. I think they say less than five years, I think. So that one to five year time range, where, where you’re not really in crisis mode of trying to try and to sort of turn your life upside down, but you’re still early in recovery.

Becki Elkins:
So you’re still navigating relationships and how to do you might, you know, how do I date, or how do I, you know, how do I talk in social settings if I’m not using? And so these are more the, you know, maybe I get my first job and what does that look like if I’m, if I’m not using it. So it’s, it’s more, it’s much more stable than that first year of recovery, but it still has I think some, some challenges at the same time, I find folks in that one to five year timeframe are the most exuberant about recovery. And in some ways, wow, what they bring to the table is really energizing. And you know, it can be great for folks who are trying to figure out how to stabilize their lives. And so there’s a lot of positive energy, I think, in that, in that stable, that initial stable recovery period.

Becki Elkins:
And then you have folks who move into long-term recovery. I’m thinking at that point, you know, for me, I hardly ever think about drugs and alcohol today from a perspective of wanting to use them, right. I’m able to have these conversations. I could not have had this conversation in the first year of my sobriety at all. And so you know, these are folks that have sort of moved into significantly more stable recovery and, you know, they’re sort of just navigating life and then also looking for what are the ways in which I, for, for many folks, not everyone, but what are the ways in which I contribute to community. That’s how I would sort of see those, those clusters of it. I don’t know, Penny, Eran, if you would agree with that.

Penny Rosenthal:
And all, and then all of that has to be negotiated with the different, in the different arenas that that person is. So campus, family employment, high school friends, you know, so and then also just building that, that’s the circles of trust and the circles of not just others, but myself that I can do this in test on the water rinse wash and repeat window.

Heather Shea:
Yeah. Well, and I imagine, oh, sorry, go ahead.

Eran Hanke:
I was going to say Heather Penny, you’ve talked a little bit too about the importance of that recovery capital and helping folks to build that recovery capital. And so the building blocks might be a little bit different or the needs might be a little bit different depending on where people are in their process. And there is a need regardless of where people are. So that’s been really important, an important takeaway Becki and some of the research you’re doing there have been some really interesting findings surfacing where students who are early in recovery are using some of the recovery skills and tools in order to navigate some of the initial academic challenges and creating that. And then it’s also been interesting to read about and observed some of your participants who have long-term sobriety and how they have really drawn on everything that they have done in different arenas, Penny, like you’re speaking of, and then, okay, this is a new arena.

Eran Hanke:
So what does it mean to be in a new arena here while having stability in these other areas? So just some fascinating concepts and opportunities for us to be supportive and listen, and think through how can we be there for students.

Heather Shea:
I think this is fascinating. And I I also imagine, as we think about students in transition, you know, into an and through different arenas, right? So graduation first job, you know, like anticipating how some of those transition moments or moving off campus. Right. So like, what does that transition moment look like and how do they continue to gather skills and abilities to, to address? That’s, that’s fascinating. So I want to switch gears just a moment and talk about the monograph. It is available for folks on their libraries websites. If your school has a, has a subscription, or you can purchase it from Wiley.

Heather Shea:
The, the monograph is called College Students in Recovery and Creating Space for Student Success. Which I really appreciate the tie to student success because I think what’s important is that it similar to the word recovery, it connotates this kind of positive, you can move to that place of being successful. But Becki, I’d love to hear it. Like, how did you, how did this come together? Tell me a little bit about the team of authors besides the, besides the three of you who contributed. And then we’ll get to kind of, what, what do you hope for this to be out in the world?

Becki Elkins:
Yeah, fantastic. So I think we start the, the editor’s notes by saying this monograph was 30 years or 20 over 20 years in the making maybe 23 to be exact. So what’s I think lovely about this moment and for me about the monograph is that Penny and I were working together in an office in Texas A&M when I was first trying to get sober for real, not as a college student anymore. And you know, our, so our recovery journeys crossed paths and we’ve moved on and done lots of different things over the years. And a number of years ago, I had an experience at a national conference that sort of presumed drinking that was in the culture of the, of the conference. And I called Penny to talk about it.

Becki Elkins:
So we’re having this great conversation and it led us to a discussion of, can you imagine, you know, this is what it’s like for me in my you know, late thirties to have this experience. Can you imagine what it’s like for a college student to be trying to navigate sobriety early, early sobriety, early recovery, and that led to some early discussions about, we should write about that. We should, we should really think more about, you know, how, how we could help student affairs professionals better understand the experiences in particular of college, students in recovery. So, you know, we had a lot of brainstorming chats and number of years passed. And as a new faculty member I received a grant to do some research on college students in recovery, and that rekindled you know, I learned some new things and that rekindled these conversations with Penny.

Becki Elkins:
And so we we went back revisited that conversation. And I guess I’m just bold and, and just went up to some people who had presented at conferences and said, we’re thinking about doing this monograph. We’d love to have you write with us. And you know, those folks led us to other folks who are prominent in the collegiate recovery field. So sort of a nuance, I think of it as sort of it’s often under the umbrella of student affairs, but to some extent, it’s, it’s somewhat adjacent. You also have public health folks. You have psychologists, counselors, lots of, lots of folks in that arena. And so we just started asking folks, and we did some, did some research and looking at who are these collegiate recovery programs? Where are they housed and just went out and did some cold calls to ask if folks would be willing to write with us and to our surprise, they said, yes.

Becki Elkins:
So that’s, that’s the team of particularly the chapters that focus on the, on the the specific CRPS and then Penny and I both knew some colleagues that were doing either work on writing on identity or writing on also collegiate recovery college students in recovery and their experiences. So we just kind of clustered this group together and, and it, it took off from there. And, and I, what I love about it is something that you mentioned earlier, Heather, which is it’s a broad range of folks not everybody’s in student affairs. A lot of times college counseling is housed in student affairs, but they’re not necessarily seeing themselves seeing themselves working more as collegiate slightly, like I said, a little adjacent, so I love it. Yeah.

Heather Shea:
Now that it’s out in the world and available Penny, talk a little bit about, you know, who do you anticipate reading using this book and monograph, I guess it technically is. And what outcomes do you hope come from this being out in the world and available for our student services, student affairs communities.

Penny Rosenthal:
There are so many misperceptions about students with alcohol and drug issues. So I think the first primary audience for this, this monograph are professionals in higher education. So the people that know students that work with students, and I say people because it could be faculty, it could be student affairs, it could be a janitor in the Res Halls, you know, that is seed behaviors that are, they might create a concern. And and then, you know, educating them on me you know, understanding that the individualism broken the individual needs help, and what one end, what one person can do to help, you know, if somebody happens to say to you one day, and then I have this thing with alcohol, and which is what Becki said to me one day, and they went, and let’s go back and talk more about that.

Penny Rosenthal:
What is this thing with alcohol? And and then how to, how to approach how to engage and care for it’s not complicated, it’s humanistic. And so that would be the, that would be the primary, you know, as the individuals on campus. I think parents reading this could be incredibly useful to parents understanding just the the all of the triggers, but all of the I can’t remember the word determined that it’s a what’s the, what’s the term for what a campus is. It’s so supportive of alcohol and drug consumption. It is a hostile environment to be in sober. I can’t remember it’s abstinence hostile. They think that collectively we do have a good brain so that parents can understand what their, what their child, the student is struggling with and, or celebrating on campus as they both try to remain sober and also gain an education and get ready for the rest of their life.

Penny Rosenthal:
So it’s a number of different people. I could an individual, a students read this and find resources and information you bet, and that what would be delightful about that is if they did find the system or the systemic aspects that would be helpful to them individually. And then they went to a student affairs professional, or a Dean of students, or vice president of student affairs and said, could you do this here please? Because this would really help me. And so it’s it’s approachable to almost anyone that has an interest and, and tell me who that wouldn’t be, right, because this is about caring for the, all of the humans and particularly this, this aspects of humanity that tends to be forgotten, or it, that it is such a an issue that people don’t want to look at, because maybe they have to look at themselves in that.

Penny Rosenthal:
So, yeah, that’s kinda, that’s kind of who we thought, you know, some of my experiences in, and I have to share this story, I think this is a good place in interviewing for positions in student affairs has been complicated. So I’m on campus doing an interview back in the olden days when they were two day interviews and what four or five meals, you know, and the Dean of students at this couldn’t meet make the two days, the schedule was booked. So we met for a brunch on Sunday, and the Dean said to me, go ahead, have a mimosa, I’m going to drink. Go ahead. And I said, no, thank you. I know. So she had pointed, I didn’t go ahead and have one. No, I really, I don’t, I, you know, it’s okay. I know you’re not supposed to drink at interviews, but I’m going to have one.

Penny Rosenthal:
So she did well, she got louder and louder, and I’m a more uncomfortable because she’s getting more, putting more pressure on me to help one. And I finally said, okay, I maybe should have said this earlier, because now I’m going to say it, and you’re going to feel horrible, and I don’t want you to feel horrible. I’m a recovering alcoholic. And she just, this beam just went, oh my God. And she got real embarrassed since she stopped drinking that she hired me. So I’m okay with that, you know, but that was incredibly uncomfortable. And again, to Becki’s point of, I was at that time almost 40. So I had other skills about speaking up and standing up for myself than a 25 year old might not have had, they might have drank at the interview thinking that that would be important in that moment. So imagine that the dynamics, so, so when a person says, no, thank you, stop.

Heather Shea:
Oh my goodness. Wow. That, that’s a really powerful story. And also, I think, you know, calls a bit into question, how are, and Becki referred to a conference. I was at that same exact summer meeting and remember this quite well. How our field is really integrated in an alcohol use mindset, which is problematic. And in the cases that you talk about and in the case of our professional development and oh my gosh. So much we could talk about there for sure. I do want to jump for following along, I’m going to jump to question seven, because I am curious about the publication of this monograph coming out in the middle of a pandemic. And there was a lot of media attention. I think there still is on the uptick in drinking specifically, right. During a pandemic, as a coping mechanism, or because people don’t have other things to do.

Heather Shea:
I don’t, I don’t know all those components there, but could Eran, could you talk a little bit about how this reflected or was reflected within college student populations? And I’m thinking also specifically about college students who are not on campus, right. Who are studying from their homes. And Penny mentioned that an audience could be parents, right? Like how, how do students in recovery kind of navigate maintaining and also addressing this like very stressful event that we were all still in the middle of kind of,

Eran Hanke:
I think Heather, you’re, you’re touching on it there, that, that it’s evolving, it’s evolving, you know, week to week, sometimes moment to moment for folks. And there are lots of conversations happening on a professional level, as well as informally with students about how do we navigate this? And that’s a question that continues to come up. So we’ve been working on different ways to think about how do we connect and how do we form community and how do we bridge this, this distance, whether it’s that, that across zoom distance or, or other sorts of challenges because huge part of the recovery processes, is having that community.

Eran Hanke:
And, and so what we’ve seen is we’ve seen people really kind of coalesce around support services. We’ve seen increasing access via zoom meeting things, or just kind of informal networking or students really showing resilience and checking in with each other. So those are some of the positive things that this is afforded creativity of how do we connect? And you know, what connection might not mean just in my residence hall right now, it might mean hopping on a meeting that has been going on, you know, every hour on the hour, but this might be a whole collection of folks it’s across the country coming together. So there’s that positive. I think Heather, what you’re speaking to is also the challenges increased isolation, increasing in terms of, of trauma and stress, going back into dynamics or situations that may have on some level contributed to using in the first place.

Eran Hanke:
And so that’s where we’re seeing a lot of the challenges. And, and so how do we navigate some of those pieces? How do we enhance our outreach efforts also? How do we, what does navigational capital or recovery capital look like in this context? And we’re trying to prepare for fall. And what does that look like? You know, we’re going to have students who are grieving a number of losses. We’re going to have students that are elevated into living in kind of constant threat state survival mode. And what does that mean? And I’m not sure that we have solid answers yet, but here’s where I’m going to defer to my colleagues a little bit, that we’ve got positive things happening in terms of people being creative and coming together. And then we have these exacerbated risk factors and challenges, Penny, Becki, what are your thoughts on where we go or what have you seen on your campuses?

Becki Elkins:
So, I’ll just jump in quickly to say I think certainly certainly the risk factors that you identified Eran are, are, are huge. I think, I think you’ve layer into that other identities and that becomes even more complex. So I worry a lot about what is happening for our trans students today and in particular our I think about our trans students of color who are trying to navigate substance use disorders and are potentially back in contexts that are not, are not affirming for them. So I, you know, I think a lot about who the specific students are that I might know and where they might be in, what does that look like then on a larger scale of sort of our subpopulations of students and what those risk factors are. I have to tell you though, I’m looking to the fall and I’m thinking I’m sorta thinking we’d seen nothing yet because I think that if you think about sort of our alcohol culture, our drinking culture, and increasingly our drug use culture you know, that if we are back sort of fully on campus, for many of us have not been there, but we have all of our students back on campus in the fall and folks are vaccinated and bars are open.

Becki Elkins:
And I think that we’re, I think we’re gonna see a, sort of a boom in that culture from even what we have now. And then I think that opens the doorway to some other potential problems. And, and I’ll just name one of them really quickly. And the research that I’ve done folks in early recovery will tell you that the worst times of their recovery experiences are the 10 minutes before, and the 10 minutes after class, right, where they’re in class, they’re heading to class and there’s this rapport building chit chat that is going on that is often, often focused on what’d you do this weekend? Or what are you, it’s Friday afternoon where you had, and what are you drinking? What are you doing? And so even their classroom, which they perceive as it should be a safe space is not that for them, it’s there it’s fraught with challenges to their recovery, especially for folks early, early on. I think if we see a boom in our, in our alcohol and drug use culture in the fall I think, I think that’s going to be even more complicated for students walking into those spaces.

Heather Shea:
Yeah. Yeah. I think you really hit on something. I think that’s, that we’re hearing a lot of with regard to you know, students feeling like they missed the traditional first year experience. Right. So making up for lost time and students who chose to come to camp, even though the residence halls weren’t open, chose to come to east Lansing anyway because they didn’t want to miss out. Right. So without all of the supports of the residence hall environment and I, so yeah, I think you’ve hit on some really interesting things too, for us and our listeners to kind of be aware of and cautious of, as we move into what fall is going to look like. I’m going to shift back to talking a little bit, and you mentioned this around the complexity of identity and you know, how for, for all folks, right across layers of identity experiences take on different meaning potentially based on positionality.

Heather Shea:
And there has been some critique right in the literature about the recovery movement being an all white space, right, where recovery for some folks and for white folks is a hero’s journey. But for our BiPOC individuals, there are different kinds of consequences of stating I’m in recovery. And we’re all white women here. So we’re, we’re opening up this conversation, but, you know, from our own lenses of course, but Becki, can you talk a little bit about how we can also think about the disproportionate impact and some of those larger equity issues around social justice and around identity that we might need to be paying attention to if we’re going to truly serve students in recovery?

Becki Elkins:
Sure. I think that’s I think it’s a phenomenal question, Heather. I think it’s, to me it’s a central question that we that we ought to be rustling with. I think, you know, if I sort of think about where I begin with this question it’s, I think we it’s essential that we have to recognize that our histories both the higher education community and the recovery movement, our histories are, are grounded in systems of white supremacy. And I think, you know, if we’re truly going to address this, we cannot shy away from recognizing that fact. And in particular, I think about Lori Patton’s work and the, and the, the, the propositions of, you know, what does it mean for us to acknowledge that our histories are, are rooted in white supremacy? What is it, what does it mean for us to understand that our knowledge structures are rooted in white supremacy?

Becki Elkins:
And I think about that in the context, even of language conversation that we’re having, right. That that is all you know, if you, you sort of stepped back from it and I will, this will in many corners cause disgruntlement and, and, and disagreement. But AA you think about AA, no matter how benevolent you might think AA is, it’s still a program that was created by white Christian men for white Christian men that has implications for the entire recovery movement. And, and how we think about that today, it’s rare that you go to a treatment program that doesn’t require you to use some sort of 12 step program in the process. And even though AA itself, isn’t pushing that it’s difficult to find a treatment program that doesn’t in some ways incorporate that. So, so our knowledge structures, how we think about that, if you want to you know, think about history of higher ed you know, same sorts of things in terms of our regeneration of knowledge, the big book of alcoholics anonymous, hasn’t been rewritten since the early nineties or the mid 1930s.

Becki Elkins:
And so it’s still uses right. It’s still uses he language and him language to you know, it’s very sexist. It’s, there’s, there’s very little mention of the experiences at all folks of color. It’s so it’s, you know, you walk into an AA meeting and that’s the first thing that’s handed to you. And and so it’s not surprising to me that in that sense you know, we don’t, we don’t find lots of, lots of folks of color using AA for instance. But it also speaks then to why our treatment centers are not very adept at working with folks of color. And then you see that the effects of all of that then on our campuses. So I think, I think we have to start there. We have to, we have to start by really wrestling with that issue.

Becki Elkins:
I think we have to recognize that the language then that we use is not encompassing. So when I say recovery and that, you know, I, I found this out by putting up signs and inviting people to participate in this study on college students in recovery. And I got a wonderful group of lovely white folks because that language resonates for them. And it doesn’t resonate for, for many of our BiPOC folks. And so how do we shift our, even our research or our thinking, or, or even our collegiate recovery program requirements, right? So we, we shift our language or open our language, so that it’s much more inclusive. I think we have to ask ourselves really critical questions. We have to ask the question who isn’t here and why aren’t they here? So we’re sitting on our campus and we’re talking about folks in recovery, and we’re talking about students in recovery.

Becki Elkins:
And I see an all white population of students. I better be asking myself about where are the students of color and our students of color in recovery on our campus? Do they not identify in that way, or do they simply identify collegiate recovery spaces as white spaces? And then what do we do about that? How are our policies excluding students of color? I think oftentimes you know, we have to wrestle with, with, you know, as student affairs professionals, we have assumptions about who does, who’s deserving of second chances. And these are folks who a lot of times who need second chances, you know, do we have grade forgiveness policies that allow folks entry into, into our campuses? What are our disciplinary practices, all of those things I think we have to, we have to think about and wrestle with. And then you know, I think finally for me really drawing on the principles of the strategic imperative for racial justice and decolonization from ACPA, my I think we have to, you know, we have to, in some ways really figure out how do we build authentic collaborative relationships with our colleagues who are in recovery and particularly our colleagues of color who are in recovery.

Becki Elkins:
And that, that is that is, that is a starting point. We have to do that as professionals of, we’re not willing to do it as professionals. We’re certainly not going to do it with students. And then I think my colleague Ting Wong talks about the surge D in clusters, right? So one cluster being about being honest, and open-minded, one cluster about centering relationships and community, and then one cluster about agency and really empowering both ourselves and our students. And then the last thing I’ll say is research research research. We do not know enough. We absolutely do not know enough about the experiences of college students of color in recovery.

Heather Shea:
Thank you so much, Becki. That was that was exactly where I was hoping we’d go with that question, because I do think it’s a really complex you know, and to not address, it feels like we’re just, you know, assuming everybody’s experience is the same, which is the basis of white supremacy. Right. and I think it calls into question the ways, all of the topics that we discuss on Student Affairs Now intersect with other aspects of identity. We can’t just talk about, you know, minority student experiences, white students experiences likely. Let’s, let’s switch to talking a bit about some of these better practices though, because I am optimistic and this monograph made me feel really optimistic that our campuses are starting to figure out some better practices that better serve students, you know, leads towards student success. And so Penny, can you talk a little bit about, you know, in general, what are some better practices that campuses and those who are listening today might be able to push towards.

Penny Rosenthal:
Providing students in recovery opportunities to cross paths with other students in recovery. So be that in housing, in particular, in housing, you know, having substance free housing options for everybody, but in particular, making sure that there’s enough space for students who wish to remain and enhance their sobriety and the recovery that benefits all, all students, you know you know, the social I’m having such bad brain day to day. The I can’t remember, you know, one in six students don’t say they drink, or, you know.

Heather Shea:
Yeah. The normative kind of campaign.

Penny Rosenthal:
And you asked students that everybody drinks well, really, they don’t, but, but that’s what you see. And that’s what you hear. And that’s, what’s in the news. And most students would rather go to school and do well in school and celebrate, but not where they live. And so crossing paths with individuals, having staff readily available to provide those answers to those questions that they have about academics about career paths with the identity that, that they’re walking with today. So and 24/7 access to meetings. There’s something that the media does not portray very well, that happens magically and a group of individuals sitting together and supporting each other. And if you have to go off campus to find that connection, what you’re missing is students in higher education in recovery. Becki and I have attended a few meetings that we could have walked away and just gone right straight to the bar because of what that felt like in that, in that meeting. And so you’ve got to have a peer you’ve got to have a peer connection, professional access and then the meetings in the, in the recovery program and the installation as well as isolation to the rest of the campus. Anything else that you would add Becki or Erin?

Eran Hanke:
One of the things I was thinking about as you were talking Penny is, is early alerts and how we approach early alerts are checking in whether you’re in an academic advising role or you’re in the residence hall. How are we asking questions and checking in, how are people doing, making sure that we’re asking about substance use just as a matter of practice. Another thought is that we have a whole range of possibilities from prevention to intervention. And I think what I’ve learned from my colleagues is there are multiple points of entry. And so what can we be doing on the front end? That’s one? And another piece is what can we do with our conduct policies? How are we thinking about those pieces and our responses that way, and who are we missing? You know, we’ve had students that just stopped showing up to class, you know, and in what way are they, they’re not on the conduct radar, but they, they have those concerns. Final thing I’ll say on this is campus resources are tight. We understand that, collaboration seem to be really essential. So if there are great community programs agencies, if there are things that campuses are doing that are in a general vicinity, are there ways to collaborate and build networks that way? And, and I think that that’s we’ve seen some real success in that.

Heather Shea:
That’s great.

Becki Elkins:
I think quick thing I would add is if you read the monograph one of the take, one of the things you may come away with is there are these sort of three programs that we highlight in the monograph and, and they are all collegiate recovery programs. And, you know, it’s important. I think for us to be really honest about the fact that less than 5% of institutions of higher education have these programs. So what can we take from those programs that we can do? What Eran just talked about in terms of collaborating with one another? So we don’t have to take the whole program, but can we take pieces of it? Are there, are there elements that are happening in those programs particularly in today’s resource short, shall I say world? I think that’s really, that’s really important to recognize. There are very few campuses with these kinds of programs. And we have literally, I think in 2017 study about what’d we say 1 in 10 students, college students with with a diagnosable substance use disorder. So that’s that’s a fair amount of our, of our populations that we could be doing short of having full on collegiate recovery programs.

Heather Shea:
Yeah. Yeah. I said before we started recording that as I was reading through and prepping for today, I was like, what is MSU doing? And again, I am on a giant campus. It’s very dispersed in terms of what is student affairs. But with defined as I Googled, right. More information. So I’m like, and how is it that I did not know this before, right. I mean, this is our, all of our responsibility to know what resources exist on our campuses. And I did really particularly like the exemplars that you pointed out in the monograph, so that folks will have some good models to look at. As we always do, we run short on time. This has been a fabulous conversation. I so appreciate the three of you and all that you brought to today. And as we also always end on Student Affairs Now. This podcast is called Student Affairs Now what are you thinking about pondering troubling? You know, where is your, where is your mind going now? And I’ll go to Penny first.

Penny Rosenthal:
So recently Riverland Community College, which has a total of 4,500 students. So much different than Texas A&M or Michigan State. We moved, we shifted our counseling services office to advocacy services because there were no licensed counselors in the office and student needs had shifted. We contracted with the community to provide mental health services that Riverland pays for, for students that that would like that. But we’re hiring a social worker, bringing a social worker and a second staff in the, in the office. And so the advocacy and support that’s happening is, this is the best job I’ve ever had because you never know, you never know what’s coming in the door. And the, so what I’m thinking about future is that even for, I think frequently, if we built student affairs today, it wouldn’t look like this. And so as much as we can do the restructure and, and redirect of resources to meet the needs of that 1 out of 10 students in higher education. And, and how many of those also have mental health and learning disabilities and, you know and on, and on what I’m thinking about is doing more with more can we start that way instead.

Heather Shea:
Instead of this mindset of scarcity, right?

Penny Rosenthal:
Because the resources are there, can we just shift them? Yeah. And so maybe we could do more with more, and always, you know, the, the, the bulk of us can do more if we do it together. And to be more successful. It is I am, I am hopeful. I, you know, I, I don’t, I don’t want to go back to normal. I want to go back to better than normal. And I, so, because it feels like so much finally broke open that broke because it was broke, but it broke open to a place that we now can say, but what do we, what do we need that to me? Yeah. And I know that’s very vague.

Heather Shea:
Yeah, no, I think you bring up a really good point. And there’s a, there’s another episode of Student Affairs Now where Keith talks to three folks about what do we need to restore back to the way it was, what needs to evolve and then what needs to completely transform after the pandemic. And it’s based on an EDUCAUSE article, which talks about it specifically through the lens of technology, but the three who spoke about this in the podcast, just, I think really so I get what you’re saying really resonates with me, Penny, cause I think we have a lot of opportunity now, so we can look at it as that. Eran, what are you thinking about pondering troubling?

Eran Hanke:
I’m like, I’m the pre-tenure faculty member here. So I’m thinking about research.

Eran Hanke:
Oh, Heather, when you were talking about learning, what’s available and accessible on your campus, I think like a starting point is what are our resources who is already at the table and then how do we invite other people in? And, and I’ve seen, and I’m guilty of this too, like reinventing the wheel or trying to, when we’re, when we’re envisioning what comes out of broken. We don’t want to have the same voices at the table either. You know, we, we’ve got to think about that and are there different ways to collaborate? And I’m, I’m in a training position now, you know, are there ways that graduate students in student affairs and counseling graduate students can be resources on campus in some ways, in terms of promoting this resiliency and creating safe spaces and some thinking about that. Communication collaboration, and then Becki, we need to take that next step with the research.

Heather Shea:
Becki, what are you thinking about pondering troubling?

Becki Elkins:
Not that point. So you know, I’ve been talking, I think for, for a bit this spring about this question does sober mean white and that is the question that’s really troubling me at the moment and I’ll be perfectly honest. It’s troubling me on a professional level. It’s really troubling me on a personal level. I, my, my own sort of personal recovery efforts. And so trying to figure out how do we, you know, how, how do we create a more inclusive approach to and it doesn’t have to be the word recovery, whatever, whatever this magical thing is that allows life to be better for folks. You know, can we, can we find a way to be more inclusive in our approach to that? And you know, as an educator and, and a person who works in a graduate prep program I think a lot about how are these conversations getting to our particularly our masters students who are coming out and are going to be our new professionals and our future of the field, and how are we getting them to our doctoral students who are going to be sooner the folks doing our research, the folks leading our scholarship the folks making decisions at senior level capacities, and how do we get these conversations happening in those spaces?

Becki Elkins:
So I think those are the things that are, yeah. In my head a little bit.

Heather Shea:
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. And I, I do think there’s some actions to be taken, you know, and particularly who gets invited to the conversation at the table and master students have a voice right, too. So I love that. I am so grateful to all of you. Thank you so much for being on Student Affairs Now. Also thanks to our sponsors for today’s episode LeaderShape and EverFi. We so deeply appreciate your support. Huge shout out to Natalie Ambrosey our production assistant for the podcast who does all the behind the scenes work to make us look and sound good. If you are listening today and you’re not already receiving our weekly newsletter, please do visit our website at studentaffairsnow.com and scroll to the bottom of the homepage to add your email to our MailChimp list. And while you’re there, you can of course check out all of our archives. Now we’re at 43, I think episodes. So as you listened today, if you found this content useful, please do share it within your networks. My name is Heather Shea. Thanks again to the fabulous guests and to everyone watching and listening. Make it a great week, everyone