Graduate school is a challenge during the best of times. Grad school during a pandemic? A single look at all the MAs and PhDs with glassy eyes staring blankly over dark bags can tell you about that one. (Try it in your next Zoom seminar!) It was last summer, anticipating the difficult year ahead, that we had the idea. Why not create a group dedicated to supporting one another through the pandemic? In fact, why not create a permanent group dedicated to graduate student well-being? This is how MH&D came about.
The Mental Health & Disability (MH&D) caucus, an initiative local to my department at the University of Toronto, is housed under the Graduate Philosophy Student Union (GPSU). Its spirit is collaborative and communal in nature, and has been from its very inception: it was co-founded. Students Kristen Beard, Andriy Bilenkyy, Emma McClure, and I were the hivemind behind what truly became a passion project for us all.
Our brainstorming began with grad student mental health, a concern close to my heart as someone living with a mental health diagnosis. Kristen and Andriy wondered whether it would benefit the department to have a “mental health liaison” (that is, a graduate student familiar enough with the university’s mental health resources to help guide other students). At Emma’s suggestion, the position was expanded to include physical disability and accessibility resources. (Check out Emma’s Blog of the APA post on chronic illness!) It wasn’t long before we were all caught up in the planning, and a hypothetical future unrolled itself before our eyes with a glorious (and accessible) flourish. As our scheme continued to grow, we realized that the role we were developing was too large for one person. This would require a team, a community.
The decision to form a caucus through the GPSU came about through enthusiasm. The more we discussed our plans with our peers, the more interest they elicited. It appeared that the need for community and solidarity, only exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, was even greater than we had thought. If we were going to serve our community, a liaison to university health resources would not be enough. We needed to come together.
A recognized group came with several benefits, including a budget and an official avenue for bringing concerns to the faculty and administration. Kristen and I became the co-organizers, and the first item on our extensive to-do list became turning the caucus into something actual. We decided to offer three platforms of peer support: monthly “Disabili-Teas,” bi-weekly “Office Hours for Well-Being,” and a Discord server that could be accessible 24/7.
What are “Disabili-Teas”? These are organizer-moderated group meetings where caucus members come to discuss current stressors in a supportive, judgment-free environment. A rate of approximately once a month came to feel right, with Disabili-Teas becoming a place for us to check-in with one another about the previous month’s happenings. (Disabili-Teas have been held virtually over Zoom throughout the pandemic, but the caucus has plans to move toward a dual-delivery model in the future.)
“Office Hours for Well-Being” are one-on-one drop-in meetings hosted by Kristen, who has a certification in peer counseling. Many caucus members have university-provided training, which has helped both to educate and empower the community at large. Kristen’s office hours, she learned, were best held virtually as a “camera optional” or even “no camera allowed” space. The virtual model works well here, and we mean to continue with it even once pandemic restrictions are lifted.
The Discord server (which you might think of as a private forum) is open to more than just current students; it is also open to those who have recently graduated, as well as to postdocs. Our thinking in opening up the Discord membership is simple: we wish to be as welcoming and inclusive as possible. There’s no good reason MH&D can’t provide community for grad students throughout the many stages of their academic careers. Having members from all these stages only enhances the community, and many “unknowns” of the future are made less opaque by members further along in their careers.
The server itself has multiple channels (think forum threads) dedicated to common stressors, chronic conditions, morale boosters, and mental health resources, including a channel for urgent requests for peer support. It’s a lively, lovely space where members have been eager to participate in accordance with the server’s simple rules: 1) Respect the privacy of other members, and 2) Be kind. With these two rules only, the server has run itself without need for moderation.
Through these various avenues, MH&D has had incredible success. The majority of our current MAs and PhDs—and there are over sixty of us—are members of the caucus, demonstrating the incredible need being served. Now fully-formed, MH&D has three principal aims: 1) to maintain a friendly, accommodating, and non-judgmental space in which peers can share their experiences and support one another; 2) to be an advocacy force that will assist in ongoing improvements to make our department an ever-kinder space conducive to everyone’s well-being; and 3) to work toward the broader de-stigmatization of mental health and disability in academia.
My own mental health diagnosis has played a significant part in my development as both a student and a philosopher. Not only has it impacted the ways I learn, research, and write; my diagnosis has deeply influenced my philosophical interests. I highly doubt that I’m unique in this. But if so many of us are using philosophy as a tool to make sense of our experiences with mental and other health challenges, why isn’t this fact more widely known?
For the graduate students in my department, at least, the answer has been “stigma.” There are many serious and well-reasoned arguments against being transparent about one’s diagnosis. (See, for instance, the Daily Nous discussion of Peter Railton’s Dewey Lecture.) Many diagnoses are not well understood in popular culture, and so they come with a kind of social baggage. A disclosure of such a condition feels—and quite reasonably so—risky. Call this the “problem of disclosure.”
Of course, reduced stigma and the problem of disclosure create a Catch-22. In order to help reduce stigma, one perhaps ought (practically speaking) to disclose. But disclosing is risky, precisely because so many diagnoses do come with stigma. Open discussion can happen safely within the MH&D community, especially about problems like these. The founders of the caucus believe that open discussion in protected spaces is the first step toward a kinder and more accepting academia. It’s therefore our hope that MH&D will inspire similar initiatives in other departments (beginning with philosophy, but certainly not ending there).
Anyone looking to adapt the MH&D model might begin with Discord, Slack, or some other virtual space. Having this space has proven essential, since it’s here that regular interactions between group members can occur. This is especially important because it is often during “off” hours that stressors are on our minds, making community support especially important during evenings and weekends when we’re likely away from campus.
We recommend building outward from that platform, adding additional virtual supports before exploring in-person ones. We recommend this for two reasons: first, for the accessibility of everyone concerned, and second, because virtual spaces have communicative advantages. In our Discord server and at our meetings, caucus members have discussed sensitive information that is often difficult to discuss in traditional formats. For many subjects, it’s simply easier to type out what’s on your mind than it is to speak it. And when it comes to speaking, it’s often easier to address a screen than it is to address a circle of faces, no matter how well-meaning they may be.
Once these platforms of support have been established, the sky’s the limit. As MH&D continues to grow, we aspire to hold as many outreach events as possible, sharing the many lessons learned in our pandemic journey together. What happens from there, we can only guess. But we do so with optimism because we have MH&D.
The MH&D founders encourage anyone interested in starting their own initiative to comment on this post for more information.
Read more about MH&D and its founders, who recently won Graduate Student Service Awards for their work.
Alexandra Gustafson
Alexandra Gustafson is a Canada Graduate Scholar and PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto, working primarily on the phenomenology and epistemology of romantic love. She is President of the Graduate Philosophy Student Union (GPSU), co-founder of MH&D, and a member of the School of Graduate Studies (SGS) Mental Health Advisory Committee.
You can reach her at a.gustafson@mail.utoronto.ca
