In “The Quiet Crisis: Student Mental Health, Social Anxiety, and the Future of College Success,” host Dr. Frank A. Gomez speaks with Dr. Amanda Morrison, Professor of Psychology at California State University, East Bay, about the mental health challenges many college students experience quietly and often without drawing attention. Dr. Morrison explains how depression, anxiety, social anxiety, loneliness, trauma, and life stress can appear through withdrawal, avoidance, missed classes, limited participation, or a reluctance to ask for help. The conversation also examines the growing influence of social media and self-diagnosis, including the importance of recognizing genuine distress without treating every uncomfortable experience as a clinical disorder. The episode highlights practical ways faculty and campuses can support student well-being by creating low-pressure opportunities for connection, building stronger classroom communities, encouraging students to face manageable challenges, and helping them develop confidence through experience. Dr. Morrison also discusses the role of kindness, belonging, human connection, and technology in shaping the future of student success. This thoughtful conversation reminds listeners that supporting mental health requires more than counseling services. It requires empathy, prevention, community, and a campus-wide commitment to helping students feel seen, supported, and capable of succeeding.
Host: Dr. Frank A. Gomez
Guest: Dr. Amanda Morrison, Professor of Psychology at California State University, East Bay
Runtime: Approximately 38 minutes
Student mental health challenges are not always loud or visible. They may appear through withdrawal, missed classes, limited participation, loneliness, avoidance, or a student’s hesitation to ask for help.
In this episode of the All Things STEM Podcast, Dr. Frank A. Gomez speaks with clinical psychologist and psychology professor Dr. Amanda Morrison about depression, anxiety, social anxiety, self-diagnosis, and the pressures affecting today’s college students.
Dr. Morrison explains how faculty can recognize students who may be silently struggling while creating classroom environments that encourage connection, healthy risk-taking, and personal growth. The conversation also explores the complicated influence of social media, the importance of distinguishing normal discomfort from a clinical disorder, and how kindness, belonging, and human connection can support student success.
Listeners will learn about:
00:00 — Introduction
An overview of student mental health and the quiet challenges students may experience.
01:03 — Dr. Morrison’s Career Journey
How an influential high school psychology teacher inspired her interest in research, clinical psychology, and anxiety disorders.
06:22 — Recognizing Quiet Mental Health Struggles
How depression, anxiety, and social anxiety may appear through withdrawal, avoidance, limited eye contact, or reluctance to ask for help.
10:12 — Depression, Anxiety, and Social Anxiety
The differences between low mood, lack of motivation, fear of judgment, and worry about the future.
13:45 — Supporting Students Through Course Design
The effects of high-stakes assignments and the value of smaller opportunities that allow students to build confidence and stamina.
18:29 — Social Media and Self-Diagnosis
The benefits of greater mental health awareness and the risks of turning ordinary stress, sadness, or shyness into a diagnostic identity.
24:47 — Are Students Experiencing More Distress?
Why increased reporting reflects both greater awareness and real increases in the challenges students face.
27:49 — Loneliness and Campus Connection
How repeated, low-pressure interactions can help students develop relationships and feel a stronger sense of belonging.
33:43 — The Value of Small Talk
Why simple conversations can create familiarity, safety, and trust.
34:41 — Kindness, STEM Learning, and Technology
Dr. Morrison discusses research on engagement, classroom kindness, and using technology to support rather than replace human learning.
37:23 — Closing Reflections
A reminder that student well-being depends on empathy, community, resilience, and meaningful human connection.
Mental health challenges may be easy to miss because students who are struggling often become quieter rather than more disruptive.
Faculty do not need to become therapists, but they can create learning environments where students feel safe asking questions, making mistakes, and connecting with others.
Students’ distress should be taken seriously, while recognizing that anxiety, sadness, loneliness, and discomfort are also universal human experiences.
Avoiding uncomfortable situations may reduce anxiety temporarily, but gradually facing manageable challenges can help students build confidence.
Community does not always develop automatically. Instructors can create opportunities for relationships through stable groups, paired discussions, icebreakers, and meaningful classroom interactions.
Technology can help students overcome barriers, but it should strengthen human potential rather than replace learning, mentorship, or connection.
“The confidence follows the experience. It doesn’t precede it.”
— Dr. Amanda Morrison
Dr. Amanda Morrison is a Professor of Psychology at California State University, East Bay. She is a clinical psychologist whose teaching, research, and clinical work focus on anxiety disorders and their treatment. Her work explores how people can move from avoidance toward engagement and how classrooms can cultivate kindness, belonging, confidence, and student well-being.
Listen to this episode and explore past conversations at calstate.edu/allthingsstempodcast.
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Frank A. Gomez- 00:00:00
Hello, I'm your host, Doctor. Frank Gomez, and this is All Things STEM. Today we are joined by Doctor.Amanda Morrison, Professor of Psychology at California State University East Bay, to discuss student mental health in higher education.Amanda helps us look beyond the most visible signs of distress to understand the challenges many students face, including depression, anxiety, social anxiety, loneliness, trauma, and life stress.We also discuss the rise of mental health awareness, the influence of social media and self diagnosis, and what faculty and campuses can do to better support students who may be silently struggling.
Frank A. Gomez- 00:00:00
Hello, I'm your host, Doctor. Frank Gomez, and this is All Things STEM. Today we are joined by Doctor.Amanda Morrison, Professor of Psychology at California State University East Bay, to discuss student mental health in higher education.Amanda helps us look beyond the most visible signs of distress to understand the challenges many students face, including depression, anxiety, social anxiety, loneliness, trauma, and life stress.We also discuss the rise of mental health awareness, the influence of social media and self diagnosis, and what faculty and campuses can do to better support students who may be silently struggling.
Speaker 0 - 00:00:39
We explore why student mental health matters and why supporting students requires more than just counseling services alone.It requires community, understanding, prevention, and a campus wide commitment to student success. Let's dive in.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:00:53
Amanda, it's great to have you here today on all things STEM Podcast. How are you doing?
Amanda Morrison - 00:01:00
I'm doing very well. Thank you, Frank, for having me.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:01:03
Great. Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, let's just get into it. Okay? You're a clinical psychologist. I don't have to tell you that. You know what you are. Okay?But tell us a little bit about how you arrived at your current place in your career and especially how, why, etcetera, you are studying anxiety disorders.
Amanda Morrison - 00:01:25
Sure. I could go way back. I had a really influential high school teacher who taught psychology and had us run an experiment.And I just thought that was the coolest thing. I majored in psych.I was always curious about how mental health difficulties begin in people and how they can improve with treatment.But I really wasn't sure if I wanted to pursue purely a research education career.
Amanda Morrison - 00:01:51
I loved statistics courses and research methods, but I also thought that I might be good at clinical work and I might like it.So after undergrad, I pursued a master's degree at San Diego State where I wanted to get more research experience and that's when I really started focusing on anxiety disorders and their treatment.And we were trying to understand how computerized tasks could modify the attention of folks with anxiety which might then ameliorate their anxiety. And I just really loved researching anxiety.Think there was probably always an intuition that maybe I have some personal experience that might make me good at working with folks with anxiety.
Amanda Morrison - 00:02:36
So I decided to pursue a PhD in clinical psych, which would allow me to keep both of my passions in my life, both the research component and the clinical work.So I went to Temple University in Philadelphia. And then as part of a PhD, have to do something called a clinical internship.So I moved back to California to do that at the Palo Alto VA and did a postdoc both in research and clinical work so I could get licensed.And then I was really fortunate to find an academic position here in the Bay Area at Cal State East Bay.
Amanda Morrison - 00:03:11
So I am both a professor and I teach undergrad classes, both research methods courses, as well as kind of upper division clinical site courses.And then I also have a small private practice. So I see adults with anxiety disorders, OCD, PTSD. So I get to continue my passion with doing all of it.And I think teaching sort of falls in the middle of research and clinical work in a lot of ways where you get to meet students where they're at, experiment with new ways of teaching and helping them to learn and discovering their own passions.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:03:48
Usually I don't hear too often people who say they were influenced so heavily in the, I don't know, in the non STEM or traditionally non STEM areas.So was there some sort of psychology course or area in another discipline that this teacher had so much of an influence on, you know, what you became later on?
Amanda Morrison - 00:04:22
The high school teacher that I mentioned, I think his influence was more in making me interested in the STEM aspect of psychology because he taught us about the experimental method and we went out and conducted an extremely rigorous, if I might add, experiment where we collected data and analyzed the data, made predictions.
Amanda Morrison - 00:04:46
So I think it was more that I'm interested in people. I guess in high school is when I started witnessing people struggle with different mental health difficulties.I noticed a girl with an eating disorder. It was just very apparent and obvious, some friends who were struggling with substance use issues.So I think that curiosity was just kind of a natural one and wondering, you know, how can two siblings from the same family with the same apparent environment and similar genetics, how can they end up in such different trajectories with mental health suffering sometimes?
Amanda Morrison - 00:05:23
So I think it was more the classroom that instigated the STEM interest and I was always interested in working with people.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:05:31
Well, that's great. I'm glad, you had that rigor in that course, which, is not, or perhaps it's not as commonplace now, anymore. But that's great.So, you know, let's get a little bit now into not that that wasn't a lot of meat there, but more into the meat of and you alluded to it in terms of having some friends in high school that had, you know, anxiety, dependence on whatever.Okay. You described student mental health struggles as quiet rather than obvious.You know, as faculty members and to those of us we know who are in staff or administrators or, you know, friends and it's their family.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:06:22
How what are those signs that we might be more cognizant of of one's children, of one's relatives, even of one's parents who are suffering from it, one's friends?How do we kind of pinpoint them? And first let's go with those signs before we get into how do we help these people.
Amanda Morrison - 00:06:49
Yeah, you and I have talked before and I've mentioned this idea that a lot of mental health struggles are quiet and I contrast that with the idea that some mental health difficulties seem to be sort of loud and noticeable.They're the ones that are often depicted in movies, even sometimes in exaggerated or harmful ways, but they draw attention.If you see someone talking to themselves and they're not making sense, it gets a lot of attention.But some of the most common mental health disorders are much more internalized like depression, the single most common mental health problem.
Amanda Morrison - 00:07:24
It's characterized by sadness or more kind of like a numbness, like a lack of positive emotions and joy. And people withdraw from activities, they withdraw from people.And similarly, anxiety can be visible, like if a person is kind of panicking, hyperventilating and wants to run away from a crowded place.But a lot of anxiety is very quiet and meaning people may not notice that the person is suffering internally from it.And probably the most quintessential example of the quiet type of anxiety is actually the most common anxiety disorder behind phobias, which is social anxiety disorder.
Amanda Morrison - 00:08:06
And that's when people are afraid they'll do or say something that embarrasses or humiliates themselves.And because of these fears, they often avoid social situations or if, you know, they have to go through them, they're enduring it with a lot of distress.So I see a common theme underlying depression, social anxiety, other internalizing problems is social avoidance.So the person suffering is often removed or not vocal from other, around other people.
Amanda Morrison - 00:08:36
So as professors, I think we know there are shy students in our class, there might be a lot of them actually, but the ones with social anxiety disorder, they might struggle to ask the professor very basic questions like if they need help on a problem, if they have a really important question, even if they might fail the course without asking, they might still not ask it.
Amanda Morrison - 00:08:59
Or if they're depressed and they're feeling hopeless, they might start not coming to class because they feel so hopeless about passing the class.So I think some of the signs are the sort of like the withdrawing, the avoiding, even subtle signs like not making eye contact or not initiating conversations with the peers who are sitting around them.And I also want to mention in kids because you said maybe signs in kids or loved ones, irritability is a really close cousin of anxiety.So when you've got a kid that seems to be kind of grasping for control or a little extra irritable, anxiety is something you might want to think about.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:09:44
You know, when I was teaching, you know, for many years, used to say, there are no dumb questions.And I don't know if that is in vogue now to say something like that, but it was for me to kind of draw out those students that even those questions they think everybody else in the room knew the answers to, they could easily feel free about asking them because I wasn't there to judge.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:10:12
Okay. I always thought that, you know, only God can judge, need for better words. Okay.So so when you look at and you meant you alluded to this, you know, the difference between or, you know, they kinda are grouped together, depression, anxiety.How can, you know, faculty, and especially since we're in that kind of work space, I don't know if it's our job to try to pull people out of those shells that they've probably been in sometimes for decades.But I think firstly is how can we understand what these students going through?
Frank A. Gomez - 00:10:47
But how can we, you know, lower the temperature so that we still can do our jobs, which is to teach, and we could optimize their learning experience even though they are, you know, need for better words, you know, very introverted or whatever we wanna call it.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:11:05
How can we you know, what's the take home lesson for people who are teaching at all grade levels, K through 20?
Amanda Morrison - 00:11:12
Yeah, okay. There's a lot to unpack there. Let me make sure I think about all those questions.So in better understanding or understanding depression and anxiety, they are what's called commonly co occurring or comorbid if you want to use a medical term, but anxiety isn't a symptom of depression per se and likewise, depression isn't a symptom of anxiety per se.
Amanda Morrison - 00:11:37
There are folks who experience challenges with just one and not the other. But because they are correlated, more people experience a problem with neither or with both.And then to complicate matters, some quote symptoms are common to both like insomnia or irritability or difficulty concentrating.See the main difference is in the sort of characteristic emotions and moods and consequential behavior.So with depression, it's associated with low mood and typically a lack of energy and motivation.
Amanda Morrison - 00:12:12
And anxiety, on the other hand, is characterized by fear, anxious apprehension, anticipation, worry about the future.So a depressed person might withdraw from friendships because of a lack of energy or maybe feelings of worthlessness.Whereas a socially anxious person might withdraw or pull away from people for fear of being judged negatively, even though they might desire the relationship very much.I wanted to say that my mentor Rick Heimberg in grad school used to say that there's a paradox for the socially anxious person that they feel simultaneously like a tiny speck of dust that doesn't matter and like everyone in the world is paying attention to them and judging them at the same time.
Amanda Morrison - 00:12:54
And so obviously it can't be both simultaneously but for a person who's just depressed, it's more in a state of not caring. It doesn't matter what others think.It doesn't matter what I do. You also asked some questions about what can we do? Maybe I'll save that.I think you have some other questions too about how in a classroom community we can address kind of pull out these students?And I think the broad answer to that is by creating a sense of community and fostering relationships among students.
Amanda Morrison - 00:13:27
And we might not always think about that as our job as the professor.I certainly don't think the professors need to become therapists, but I think there's things we can do in a classroom community to help cultivate safety in the classroom for students to take risks and connect with each other.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:13:45
So on that note, what might be some of those mistakes that you might have encountered that we might have done in the past of our x amount of, you know, decades of, you know, more so I than you, decades of teaching that we could maybe avoid next time with with students.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:14:07
You know? Because, you know, in my younger years, I was probably more of an introvert than I am now. I've had to kinda burst out of that forcibly.I never considered myself a a speck of dust.But I think in some ways, we probably all felt that all eyes were on us, and we wish we could just hide under a table or be the size of a speck of dust, which, you know, we aren't either.We aren't a speck of dust.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:14:35
But I compare it to a statement where where I I read that most people really don't care what you look like what you're wearing or oftentimes what you're saying because in their lifetimes it's really just a flash of time.And most people will not remember that.But to that one person where they think the attention's on them, it can last and last, then they get very stressed out and what have you about that.So what might be some of those mistakes?
Frank A. Gomez - 00:15:08
And if you wanna give answers to how to avoid those mistakes faculty can make to avoid them, that would be also advantageous.
Amanda Morrison - 00:15:19
Yeah, I mean, I'm hesitant to say that anything that's been done previously is always bad and everything we do now is always good.I think the context matters so much and the students you're working with matters so much.And I just want to, I was laughing with, I don't know, like shared empathy for your experience of being an introvert.I imagine so many professors, maybe especially in STEM disciplines, would call themselves introverts.
Amanda Morrison - 00:15:44
And so maybe that gives STEM professors a particularly good insight into understanding how their students might be feeling so you can have some natural empathy to draw in there.I do think some, let's see some things that are maybe not great to draw out a person struggling with depression or anxiety is, and I know this is just good pedagogy at this point, but having very few high stakes assignments I think can be really tough for students mental health because let's say they just miss, they didn't study enough or something happened in their personal life or they just messed up a problem on an exam and now that was worth 40% of their grade.
Amanda Morrison - 00:16:35
There may literally be no recourse for them to improve after that.But, you know, even worse, the discouragement they feel might turn them away from asking for help or doubling down and studying harder for the next exam.So I think, not having necessarily a million assignments but at least some smaller stakes assignments built in to and maybe even building up so that the early ones, maybe when they're feeling the least confident, they can build some confidence and stamina from them.
Amanda Morrison - 00:17:06
One fear I have as an anxiety researcher is that we as professors may, I want to be careful about saying this, I don't want to say that accommodations are not good.I think accommodations are legally required and very necessary.But one thing I worry about with anxiety in particular is that if we accommodate anxiety too much, then students don't get the opportunities to face their discomfort and learn to tolerate their discomfort.That's basically the underlying theme of cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders is to gradually slowly help people confront their fears.
Amanda Morrison - 00:17:47
And I think we all know that intuitively, you came out of your introverted shell.You said, quote, because I had to, But there was a point at which you realized I'm not going to get through this by trying, by avoiding.So I would like to see professors as appropriate kind of scaffolding and pushing towards approaching uncomfortable feelings and validating and normalizing that it's not easy along the way.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:18:15
Yeah. You can only take the train so much and so far of a distance.Eventually you have to get back on a plane if you're afraid of heights and flying, right? Yeah.
Amanda Morrison - 00:18:27
100%, absolutely.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:18:29
The issue of mental health awareness and the issue of self diagnosis. And I say that word self diagnosis with trepidation.Because people are not going to go into the doctors if they have a, to the dentist if they have a toothache, and to self not only diagnose, but to actually try to correct it.Okay.And I think the same thing with all these with social media and the ability to just get on one's phone, oh, I must have this, I must have this, I must have this.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:19:08
In the long run, are there more positives than negatives with students who are, quote unquote, and like I said, I say with trepidation, self diagnosing themselves?
Amanda Morrison - 00:19:21
Yeah, this is a really good question.And like you mentioned, a person who goes in with a toothache, they're sort of the best source of information as to do you think there's a problem with your tooth?Yes, I feel pain, therefore I know there's an issue here. And mental health research and clinical work is the same.We mostly know what a person is experiencing because we ask them and they have to self report.
Amanda Morrison - 00:19:46
Of course there are situations where we have to observe or collect collateral information but we ask people so they do have a lot of insight about how they are feeling.And this question of is social media kind of more good or bad? We talk about this a lot in the psychopathology class I teach with my students.And I've noticed just over the last eight years I've been teaching, they've become increasingly willing to self identify with all of the diagnoses we cover from autism and ADHD to anxiety and depression, even to really rare disorders like dissociative identity disorder.
Amanda Morrison - 00:20:23
I'll always have a student who's willing to raise their hand and identify in a classroom that they're experiencing this.So on the one hand, I love this for them and for society.I think it's great that students are speaking about their experiences, seeking support, advocating for themselves and others.And research even shows that college students are seeking treatment more openly now.
Amanda Morrison - 00:20:47
I think the potential harms are there, especially because of the confidence social media gives people in self diagnosing.You know, they watch a sixty second video and they can become sort of fluent about some diagnostic criteria but a sixty second video is validating, it doesn't do differential diagnosis like a professional would be able to do, you know, figuring out whether it's this or that or not a diagnosis at all.
Amanda Morrison - 00:21:17
And you think another real harm is potentially that ordinary feelings of stress and shyness and sadness become converted into an identity of a disorder like I can't do this because I'm socially anxious.I think that potentially has harms, especially in this developmental period of adolescence and early adulthood where people are growing and changing so much.And then I generally want my students to think curiously about their own mental health and to think about the context they're in.So I want them to recognize that all humans experience anxiety and sadness, loneliness. These are universal.
Amanda Morrison - 00:22:02
And a diagnosis is really reserved for experiences that are intense and very persistent and occur in contexts in which we wouldn't normally expect them to occur and they're interfering in the person's ability to live their life the way that they want to live it.
Amanda Morrison - 00:22:20
So, you know, the struggle I think is helping to validate how they're feeling while also helping them to understand what clinical diagnoses are.And so professors obviously don't need to all become diagnosticians but I think we can help to normalize, you know, before a big exam. It's normal to feel anxious.Anxiety is something that actually helps us prepare for something important.We can maybe gently distinguish between stress and a disorder by saying things like, you know, after the exam for most folks these feelings of anxiety settle down but if you feel like it's affecting many areas of your life, it's preventing you from doing the things you want to do, it might be worth talking with someone about.
Amanda Morrison - 00:23:03
So knowing when to refer someone to counseling I think is an important job that professors have as well.And I'm not really shy about advertising the counseling service to my students and I think more often than not, it's better to on the side of caution than not providing enough support if you see a student that might benefit.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:23:25
Yeah, I wonder how many people claim to be autistic by watching a TikTok video,
Amanda Morrison - 00:23:30
That one and ADHD are all over my feeds, all over. Yeah. And so I think it's a nuance. There are benefits but there are some potential harms I think.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:23:41
Yeah, yeah, yeah.I mean, when I was teaching, I used to say, and I still believe this, that if I don't get a little anxious or a little nervous before giving a lecture, then it's time to get out.And certainly, those nerves and that anxiety, not that it was huge, but certainly when I was, you know, 30 years old, starting off and hadn't taught other than TA ing in grad school.It's like you need to know the the material. You don't wanna be, like, caught off guard by a question.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:24:20
And in in effect, we're all performing when we're teaching in some way. It's It could be entertainment.I mean, and I kind of look at it that way and kind of when I get talks the same way.So I always believe that a little bit of anxiety and a little bit of nervousness is actually good for the system.And I always felt that it allowed me to perform at an even better and higher level than if I was just, you know, calling it in, if if you know what I mean.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:24:47
So so here's the the question for you that I'd like to ask. From your perspective, are today's college students really experiencing more anxiety and depression?Or are we simply measuring and talking about it more openly?
Amanda Morrison - 00:25:02
I'll give the typical researcher academic answer. I think it's both. Don't think it's either or.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:25:09
Wonderful PR and good PC question. That's the same.
Amanda Morrison - 00:25:14
The easy way out. No, but let me justify. So students are reporting more distress and we are also sort of better at naming it.I do think social media for better or worse has made students more educated. So that's definitely for better.There's evidence from studies in college students like the Healthy Minds survey that young adults are experiencing real increases in depression, anxiety, suicidality.And stigma has also decreased and treatment seeking has increased. So students are more willing to disclose what previous generations of students may have kept more hidden or personal.
Amanda Morrison - 00:25:58
But of course there is the question of might this be genuine anxiety and depression or rather is it over reporting of normal feelings?And so I think the challenge is not to dismiss what students are saying.You know, they're just talking about it more, but also not to overpathologize every painful human experience.Students are facing real stressors, housing instability, food insecurity, financial pressure, discrimination, family responsibilities, uncertainty about jobs in the future.
Amanda Morrison - 00:26:30
So I do really try to hold both truths both in my clinical work and as a teacher that distress is real and their context matters and that not every distressing experience is a disorder, but that all students deserve support.So it doesn't have to be a disorder in order for us to have empathy and want to support a person.I want to come back to that thing I mentioned earlier that one thing I do worry about is that if students begin to interpret every uncomfortable feeling as evidence that something's wrong with them, they could inadvertently start to avoid the kinds of experiences that help them grow.
Amanda Morrison - 00:27:09
And we know from decades of research on anxiety that avoidance often provides that short term relief from anxiety, but it can maintain anxiety over time.College is supposed to include moments of discomfort, giving presentations, meeting new people, interviewing for internships. So what students experience as obstacles are often the richest opportunities to build confidence.The confidence follows the experience. It doesn't precede it. So I try to help validate their emotions while helping them to discover they're more capable than they sometimes believe.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:27:49
We don't hear too often about people having COVID anymore. But certainly during the COVID era, need for better words, what came out a lot was the issue of loneliness.And, you know, certainly being alone is does not necessitate a bad state of one's being. Being lonely is a whole different a whole different story.And we do hear this and see this with a lot of our students and especially when there's been a change to a lot of online courses.In fact, I asked recently one student that I came across.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:28:40
You know, when you're on Zoom, do most students show their faces, or do they just have their screen of their picture? Because almost everybody just shows their picture.And I thought, you know, I'm not teaching anymore.I wonder how those faculty are feeling just talking to a bunch of screens that they don't know who's behind the screen, if they're asleep, if they're actually there.But you don't know what the lifestyles are of all those students that are there. And the same thing with faculty, they just show their screens also.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:29:17
So what can faculty do to reduce this inherent loneliness and help students build their support systems?
Amanda Morrison - 00:29:27
Yeah, I was one of those professors who struggled with the, am I just talking to a screen of black empty screens?I want to ask them to turn their video on but I don't know what they're handling in the background if they're cooking dinner for their kids while they're listening to lecture, don't want them to feel put on the spot.So what can instructors do to help reduce loneliness? I think community and relationships are so important for reducing loneliness and for learning.Most of my students at Kelsey East Bay, they commute sometimes really long distances or a lot of traffic.
Amanda Morrison - 00:30:08
Many of them have, you know, work and family responsibilities outside of school. They also have little extra time outside of school and work.So the classroom I think becomes a primary place for them where community can happen or at least community with peers in college can happen.But relationships don't just, you know, emerge spontaneously all the time, especially for the more introverted students.So I draw from social psych research, which shows that relationships happen when people repeatedly interact in low stakes interactions.
Amanda Morrison - 00:30:46
People tend to become friends with the girl next door, the boy next door because they have, you know, repeated interactions. They develop trust through something called reciprocal self disclosure.So it can be something as little as like, what did you do last weekend? I did this. So what did you do last weekend?So you're just sort of sharing a little bit more and a little bit more about yourself with someone else.And each time you share, you're giving a little bit of a green light to friendship development. And then also cooperating with others helps develop friendships.
Amanda Morrison - 00:31:17
So when we ask students to do group projects or group activities that can help them cohere.So I think instructors can, you know, they're not matchmakers, well, maybe sometimes, but they're not going to necessarily create friendships, but they can create the context where friendships could develop.So I'll get students to do a lot of the things that as an introverted undergrad I used to hate, but I'll do icebreakers very early on in the semesters, lots of little small class activities that involve interactions like think pair shares.And if possible, I try to have them be with like a stable partner or group for at least a while so they can work through that initial awkwardness to a little bit more comfort, you know, moving past the uncertainty of what's this person going to be like to, oh, we've already had four conversations.
Amanda Morrison - 00:32:08
What's the fifth one going to be like?And then you can try prompts that get students to, you know, speak a little bit more meaningfully or personally about the material, like have them talk with each other about one thing from the lecture that surprised them or, you know, what's one question that you're still having so they don't have to share it directly with the professor, but with each other, it normalizes the, you know, the uncertainty and the struggle in learning.
Amanda Morrison - 00:32:35
And then, you know, I try, I sometimes I have very large classes, but I try to learn their names and to have casual conversations with them as much as I can, you know, recognizing that students feel like they belong more when they have personal connections with each other and with the professor.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:32:55
You know, when you're talking about these small conversations, I read an article over the weekend about let's get rid of small talk when we get into elevators because do people really care about when you say, hi, how are you?Or what did you do over the weekend? And the person who wrote this article says, we need to get into more relevant conversations when we get into elevators.Because chances are, like I, he said, I really don't care really what that person did over the weekend. And if they're fine, that's good.If they're not fine, I don't care either. You know, something of substance.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:33:34
So I'm sure you're not advocating for something like an elevator talk, but that might be, you know, one of those little icebreakers that you need to break the ice somehow.Right?
Amanda Morrison - 00:33:43
Can I say something to that actually? Actually? I Sure. Have a lot of feelings about small talk as a social anxiety therapist.We have like whole sessions we devote to small talk. So I think small talk gets a little bit of a bad rap recently.Yeah, nobody wants to talk about the weather all day long or talk to lots of random strangers all day long.But I think small talk provides a really important function in relationship development, which is it's kind of the grease to beginning a conversation.
Amanda Morrison - 00:34:14
You can't jump in and say, tell me your deepest, darkest secrets. You'd be perceived as super unsafe to have a conversation with the view started there.So the like the weather conversation, it sets a tone and lets the other person start to develop a sense of like familiarity and trust with you.So yeah, we don't want small talk to go on forever but I think it's a necessary evil if you will, but I think it's necessary.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:34:41
So tell me a little bit about what you're currently working on right now.
Amanda Morrison - 00:34:46
Well, I was trying to think about this in kind of broad strokes.So I think a lot of my research is, you know, anxiety focused and I ask questions about how people, how to get people to engage rather than withdraw.So this is clearly related to research on anxiety where we know something called exposure as opposed to avoidance is what really helps people.So I'm interested in understanding what helps people to speak up, ask questions, seek mentorship, join research. How does this show up in college classrooms and in STEM?
Amanda Morrison - 00:35:23
How do we create environments that naturally support well-being?So you know, I've got a project that seeks to translate some research on kindness into an introductory STEM class where students are often feeling nervous about the material itself.So how do we, or if we intentionally cultivate kindness, can this sort of lower the anxiety in the classroom as well as cultivate a stronger connection and sense of belonging among the students, which might then have benefits for their learning.And, you know, as AI becomes, you know, everywhere, I'm also and have been interested in how we can use technology to expand human potential, but not replace it.
Amanda Morrison - 00:36:12
So some of my early research was on how computerized interventions for anxiety, which modify how we pay attention, how that can help anxiety.I never felt like that was going to replace a well trained therapist.I think that the human connection and the shared humanity is so important in learning and I don't think that will be replaced, but how do we use technology like AI to remove the unnecessary barriers for students that get in the way, like when they just feel stuck?
Amanda Morrison - 00:36:46
How can we use AI to help them get unstuck but not replace their learning? So yeah, those are some areas that I'm thinking about right now.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:36:56
Great. Well, you know, let's leave us off with the the proverbial AI and how it's going to potentially displace, replace, op space us all.And, hopefully, with it, there may be some positives that come out in terms of the student experience and students' mental health going forward. So thank you, Amanda.It's nice to have had you today.
Amanda Morrison - 00:37:21
Thank you so much, Frank. It was a pleasure.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:37:23
And that concludes this episode of All Things STEM. A heartfelt thank you to Doctor.Amanda Morrison, Professor of Psychology at California State University, East Bay, for bringing such clarity, compassion, and insight into a topic shaping the student experience in higher education.Amanda reminds us that student mental health is not always loud or visible.Sometimes it shows up quietly through isolation, avoidance, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and or a student's hesitation to ask for help.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:37:51
Her perspective challenges us to look beyond the squeaky wheels to pay closer attention to students who may be silently struggling.As students navigate academic pressure, financial stress, career uncertainty, technology, AI, and the lasting effects of the pandemic, this conversation reminds us that belonging, resilience, and human connection are essential to helping students thrive.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:38:14
Be sure to join us next time for another conversation to explore the intersections of STEM, education, research, and the lived experiences of the communities we serve.Stay connected by catching up on past episodes at calstate.edu/allthingsstempodcast, And don't forget to subscribe on Simplecast, Spotify, Apple products, or your preferred podcast platform.Until next time, stay curious, stay connected, and keep pushing for meaningful change. - 00:00:39
We explore why student mental health matters and why supporting students requires more than just counseling services alone.It requires community, understanding, prevention, and a campus wide commitment to student success. Let's dive in.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:00:53
Amanda, it's great to have you here today on all things STEM Podcast. How are you doing?
Amanda Morrison - 00:01:00
I'm doing very well. Thank you, Frank, for having me.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:01:03
Great. Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, let's just get into it. Okay? You're a clinical psychologist. I don't have to tell you that. You know what you are. Okay?But tell us a little bit about how you arrived at your current place in your career and especially how, why, etcetera, you are studying anxiety disorders.
Amanda Morrison - 00:01:25
Sure. I could go way back. I had a really influential high school teacher who taught psychology and had us run an experiment.And I just thought that was the coolest thing. I majored in psych.I was always curious about how mental health difficulties begin in people and how they can improve with treatment.But I really wasn't sure if I wanted to pursue purely a research education career.
Amanda Morrison - 00:01:51
I loved statistics courses and research methods, but I also thought that I might be good at clinical work and I might like it.So after undergrad, I pursued a master's degree at San Diego State where I wanted to get more research experience and that's when I really started focusing on anxiety disorders and their treatment.And we were trying to understand how computerized tasks could modify the attention of folks with anxiety which might then ameliorate their anxiety. And I just really loved researching anxiety.Think there was probably always an intuition that maybe I have some personal experience that might make me good at working with folks with anxiety.
Amanda Morrison - 00:02:36
So I decided to pursue a PhD in clinical psych, which would allow me to keep both of my passions in my life, both the research component and the clinical work.So I went to Temple University in Philadelphia. And then as part of a PhD, have to do something called a clinical internship.So I moved back to California to do that at the Palo Alto VA and did a postdoc both in research and clinical work so I could get licensed.And then I was really fortunate to find an academic position here in the Bay Area at Cal State East Bay.
Amanda Morrison - 00:03:11
So I am both a professor and I teach undergrad classes, both research methods courses, as well as kind of upper division clinical site courses.And then I also have a small private practice. So I see adults with anxiety disorders, OCD, PTSD. So I get to continue my passion with doing all of it.And I think teaching sort of falls in the middle of research and clinical work in a lot of ways where you get to meet students where they're at, experiment with new ways of teaching and helping them to learn and discovering their own passions.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:03:48
Usually I don't hear too often people who say they were influenced so heavily in the, I don't know, in the non STEM or traditionally non STEM areas.So was there some sort of psychology course or area in another discipline that this teacher had so much of an influence on, you know, what you became later on?
Amanda Morrison - 00:04:22
The high school teacher that I mentioned, I think his influence was more in making me interested in the STEM aspect of psychology because he taught us about the experimental method and we went out and conducted an extremely rigorous, if I might add, experiment where we collected data and analyzed the data, made predictions.
Amanda Morrison - 00:04:46
So I think it was more that I'm interested in people. I guess in high school is when I started witnessing people struggle with different mental health difficulties.I noticed a girl with an eating disorder. It was just very apparent and obvious, some friends who were struggling with substance use issues.So I think that curiosity was just kind of a natural one and wondering, you know, how can two siblings from the same family with the same apparent environment and similar genetics, how can they end up in such different trajectories with mental health suffering sometimes?
Amanda Morrison - 00:05:23
So I think it was more the classroom that instigated the STEM interest and I was always interested in working with people.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:05:31
Well, that's great. I'm glad, you had that rigor in that course, which, is not, or perhaps it's not as commonplace now, anymore. But that's great.So, you know, let's get a little bit now into not that that wasn't a lot of meat there, but more into the meat of and you alluded to it in terms of having some friends in high school that had, you know, anxiety, dependence on whatever.Okay. You described student mental health struggles as quiet rather than obvious.You know, as faculty members and to those of us we know who are in staff or administrators or, you know, friends and it's their family.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:06:22
How what are those signs that we might be more cognizant of of one's children, of one's relatives, even of one's parents who are suffering from it, one's friends?How do we kind of pinpoint them? And first let's go with those signs before we get into how do we help these people.
Amanda Morrison - 00:06:49
Yeah, you and I have talked before and I've mentioned this idea that a lot of mental health struggles are quiet and I contrast that with the idea that some mental health difficulties seem to be sort of loud and noticeable.They're the ones that are often depicted in movies, even sometimes in exaggerated or harmful ways, but they draw attention.If you see someone talking to themselves and they're not making sense, it gets a lot of attention.But some of the most common mental health disorders are much more internalized like depression, the single most common mental health problem.
Amanda Morrison - 00:07:24
It's characterized by sadness or more kind of like a numbness, like a lack of positive emotions and joy. And people withdraw from activities, they withdraw from people.And similarly, anxiety can be visible, like if a person is kind of panicking, hyperventilating and wants to run away from a crowded place.But a lot of anxiety is very quiet and meaning people may not notice that the person is suffering internally from it.And probably the most quintessential example of the quiet type of anxiety is actually the most common anxiety disorder behind phobias, which is social anxiety disorder.
Amanda Morrison - 00:08:06
And that's when people are afraid they'll do or say something that embarrasses or humiliates themselves.And because of these fears, they often avoid social situations or if, you know, they have to go through them, they're enduring it with a lot of distress.So I see a common theme underlying depression, social anxiety, other internalizing problems is social avoidance.So the person suffering is often removed or not vocal from other, around other people.
Amanda Morrison - 00:08:36
So as professors, I think we know there are shy students in our class, there might be a lot of them actually, but the ones with social anxiety disorder, they might struggle to ask the professor very basic questions like if they need help on a problem, if they have a really important question, even if they might fail the course without asking, they might still not ask it.
Amanda Morrison - 00:08:59
Or if they're depressed and they're feeling hopeless, they might start not coming to class because they feel so hopeless about passing the class.So I think some of the signs are the sort of like the withdrawing, the avoiding, even subtle signs like not making eye contact or not initiating conversations with the peers who are sitting around them.And I also want to mention in kids because you said maybe signs in kids or loved ones, irritability is a really close cousin of anxiety.So when you've got a kid that seems to be kind of grasping for control or a little extra irritable, anxiety is something you might want to think about.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:09:44
You know, when I was teaching, you know, for many years, used to say, there are no dumb questions.And I don't know if that is in vogue now to say something like that, but it was for me to kind of draw out those students that even those questions they think everybody else in the room knew the answers to, they could easily feel free about asking them because I wasn't there to judge.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:10:12
Okay. I always thought that, you know, only God can judge, need for better words. Okay.So so when you look at and you meant you alluded to this, you know, the difference between or, you know, they kinda are grouped together, depression, anxiety.How can, you know, faculty, and especially since we're in that kind of work space, I don't know if it's our job to try to pull people out of those shells that they've probably been in sometimes for decades.But I think firstly is how can we understand what these students going through?
Frank A. Gomez - 00:10:47
But how can we, you know, lower the temperature so that we still can do our jobs, which is to teach, and we could optimize their learning experience even though they are, you know, need for better words, you know, very introverted or whatever we wanna call it.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:11:05
How can we you know, what's the take home lesson for people who are teaching at all grade levels, K through 20?
Amanda Morrison - 00:11:12
Yeah, okay. There's a lot to unpack there. Let me make sure I think about all those questions.So in better understanding or understanding depression and anxiety, they are what's called commonly co occurring or comorbid if you want to use a medical term, but anxiety isn't a symptom of depression per se and likewise, depression isn't a symptom of anxiety per se.
Amanda Morrison - 00:11:37
There are folks who experience challenges with just one and not the other. But because they are correlated, more people experience a problem with neither or with both.And then to complicate matters, some quote symptoms are common to both like insomnia or irritability or difficulty concentrating.See the main difference is in the sort of characteristic emotions and moods and consequential behavior.So with depression, it's associated with low mood and typically a lack of energy and motivation.
Amanda Morrison - 00:12:12
And anxiety, on the other hand, is characterized by fear, anxious apprehension, anticipation, worry about the future.So a depressed person might withdraw from friendships because of a lack of energy or maybe feelings of worthlessness.Whereas a socially anxious person might withdraw or pull away from people for fear of being judged negatively, even though they might desire the relationship very much.I wanted to say that my mentor Rick Heimberg in grad school used to say that there's a paradox for the socially anxious person that they feel simultaneously like a tiny speck of dust that doesn't matter and like everyone in the world is paying attention to them and judging them at the same time.
Amanda Morrison - 00:12:54
And so obviously it can't be both simultaneously but for a person who's just depressed, it's more in a state of not caring. It doesn't matter what others think.It doesn't matter what I do. You also asked some questions about what can we do? Maybe I'll save that.I think you have some other questions too about how in a classroom community we can address kind of pull out these students?And I think the broad answer to that is by creating a sense of community and fostering relationships among students.
Amanda Morrison - 00:13:27
And we might not always think about that as our job as the professor.I certainly don't think the professors need to become therapists, but I think there's things we can do in a classroom community to help cultivate safety in the classroom for students to take risks and connect with each other.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:13:45
So on that note, what might be some of those mistakes that you might have encountered that we might have done in the past of our x amount of, you know, decades of, you know, more so I than you, decades of teaching that we could maybe avoid next time with with students.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:14:07
You know? Because, you know, in my younger years, I was probably more of an introvert than I am now. I've had to kinda burst out of that forcibly.I never considered myself a a speck of dust.But I think in some ways, we probably all felt that all eyes were on us, and we wish we could just hide under a table or be the size of a speck of dust, which, you know, we aren't either.We aren't a speck of dust.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:14:35
But I compare it to a statement where where I I read that most people really don't care what you look like what you're wearing or oftentimes what you're saying because in their lifetimes it's really just a flash of time.And most people will not remember that.But to that one person where they think the attention's on them, it can last and last, then they get very stressed out and what have you about that.So what might be some of those mistakes?
Frank A. Gomez - 00:15:08
And if you wanna give answers to how to avoid those mistakes faculty can make to avoid them, that would be also advantageous.
Amanda Morrison - 00:15:19
Yeah, I mean, I'm hesitant to say that anything that's been done previously is always bad and everything we do now is always good.I think the context matters so much and the students you're working with matters so much.And I just want to, I was laughing with, I don't know, like shared empathy for your experience of being an introvert.I imagine so many professors, maybe especially in STEM disciplines, would call themselves introverts.
Amanda Morrison - 00:15:44
And so maybe that gives STEM professors a particularly good insight into understanding how their students might be feeling so you can have some natural empathy to draw in there.I do think some, let's see some things that are maybe not great to draw out a person struggling with depression or anxiety is, and I know this is just good pedagogy at this point, but having very few high stakes assignments I think can be really tough for students mental health because let's say they just miss, they didn't study enough or something happened in their personal life or they just messed up a problem on an exam and now that was worth 40% of their grade.
Amanda Morrison - 00:16:35
There may literally be no recourse for them to improve after that.But, you know, even worse, the discouragement they feel might turn them away from asking for help or doubling down and studying harder for the next exam.So I think, not having necessarily a million assignments but at least some smaller stakes assignments built in to and maybe even building up so that the early ones, maybe when they're feeling the least confident, they can build some confidence and stamina from them.
Amanda Morrison - 00:17:06
One fear I have as an anxiety researcher is that we as professors may, I want to be careful about saying this, I don't want to say that accommodations are not good.I think accommodations are legally required and very necessary.But one thing I worry about with anxiety in particular is that if we accommodate anxiety too much, then students don't get the opportunities to face their discomfort and learn to tolerate their discomfort.That's basically the underlying theme of cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders is to gradually slowly help people confront their fears.
Amanda Morrison - 00:17:47
And I think we all know that intuitively, you came out of your introverted shell.You said, quote, because I had to, But there was a point at which you realized I'm not going to get through this by trying, by avoiding.So I would like to see professors as appropriate kind of scaffolding and pushing towards approaching uncomfortable feelings and validating and normalizing that it's not easy along the way.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:18:15
Yeah. You can only take the train so much and so far of a distance.Eventually you have to get back on a plane if you're afraid of heights and flying, right? Yeah.
Amanda Morrison - 00:18:27
100%, absolutely.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:18:29
The issue of mental health awareness and the issue of self diagnosis. And I say that word self diagnosis with trepidation.Because people are not going to go into the doctors if they have a, to the dentist if they have a toothache, and to self not only diagnose, but to actually try to correct it.Okay.And I think the same thing with all these with social media and the ability to just get on one's phone, oh, I must have this, I must have this, I must have this.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:19:08
In the long run, are there more positives than negatives with students who are, quote unquote, and like I said, I say with trepidation, self diagnosing themselves?
Amanda Morrison - 00:19:21
Yeah, this is a really good question.And like you mentioned, a person who goes in with a toothache, they're sort of the best source of information as to do you think there's a problem with your tooth?Yes, I feel pain, therefore I know there's an issue here. And mental health research and clinical work is the same.We mostly know what a person is experiencing because we ask them and they have to self report.
Amanda Morrison - 00:19:46
Of course there are situations where we have to observe or collect collateral information but we ask people so they do have a lot of insight about how they are feeling.And this question of is social media kind of more good or bad? We talk about this a lot in the psychopathology class I teach with my students.And I've noticed just over the last eight years I've been teaching, they've become increasingly willing to self identify with all of the diagnoses we cover from autism and ADHD to anxiety and depression, even to really rare disorders like dissociative identity disorder.
Amanda Morrison - 00:20:23
I'll always have a student who's willing to raise their hand and identify in a classroom that they're experiencing this.So on the one hand, I love this for them and for society.I think it's great that students are speaking about their experiences, seeking support, advocating for themselves and others.And research even shows that college students are seeking treatment more openly now.
Amanda Morrison - 00:20:47
I think the potential harms are there, especially because of the confidence social media gives people in self diagnosing.You know, they watch a sixty second video and they can become sort of fluent about some diagnostic criteria but a sixty second video is validating, it doesn't do differential diagnosis like a professional would be able to do, you know, figuring out whether it's this or that or not a diagnosis at all.
Amanda Morrison - 00:21:17
And you think another real harm is potentially that ordinary feelings of stress and shyness and sadness become converted into an identity of a disorder like I can't do this because I'm socially anxious.I think that potentially has harms, especially in this developmental period of adolescence and early adulthood where people are growing and changing so much.And then I generally want my students to think curiously about their own mental health and to think about the context they're in.So I want them to recognize that all humans experience anxiety and sadness, loneliness. These are universal.
Amanda Morrison - 00:22:02
And a diagnosis is really reserved for experiences that are intense and very persistent and occur in contexts in which we wouldn't normally expect them to occur and they're interfering in the person's ability to live their life the way that they want to live it.
Amanda Morrison - 00:22:20
So, you know, the struggle I think is helping to validate how they're feeling while also helping them to understand what clinical diagnoses are.And so professors obviously don't need to all become diagnosticians but I think we can help to normalize, you know, before a big exam. It's normal to feel anxious.Anxiety is something that actually helps us prepare for something important.We can maybe gently distinguish between stress and a disorder by saying things like, you know, after the exam for most folks these feelings of anxiety settle down but if you feel like it's affecting many areas of your life, it's preventing you from doing the things you want to do, it might be worth talking with someone about.
Amanda Morrison - 00:23:03
So knowing when to refer someone to counseling I think is an important job that professors have as well.And I'm not really shy about advertising the counseling service to my students and I think more often than not, it's better to on the side of caution than not providing enough support if you see a student that might benefit.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:23:25
Yeah, I wonder how many people claim to be autistic by watching a TikTok video,
Amanda Morrison - 00:23:30
That one and ADHD are all over my feeds, all over. Yeah. And so I think it's a nuance. There are benefits but there are some potential harms I think.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:23:41
Yeah, yeah, yeah.I mean, when I was teaching, I used to say, and I still believe this, that if I don't get a little anxious or a little nervous before giving a lecture, then it's time to get out.And certainly, those nerves and that anxiety, not that it was huge, but certainly when I was, you know, 30 years old, starting off and hadn't taught other than TA ing in grad school.It's like you need to know the the material. You don't wanna be, like, caught off guard by a question.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:24:20
And in in effect, we're all performing when we're teaching in some way. It's It could be entertainment.I mean, and I kind of look at it that way and kind of when I get talks the same way.So I always believe that a little bit of anxiety and a little bit of nervousness is actually good for the system.And I always felt that it allowed me to perform at an even better and higher level than if I was just, you know, calling it in, if if you know what I mean.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:24:47
So so here's the the question for you that I'd like to ask. From your perspective, are today's college students really experiencing more anxiety and depression?Or are we simply measuring and talking about it more openly?
Amanda Morrison - 00:25:02
I'll give the typical researcher academic answer. I think it's both. Don't think it's either or.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:25:09
Wonderful PR and good PC question. That's the same.
Amanda Morrison - 00:25:14
The easy way out. No, but let me justify. So students are reporting more distress and we are also sort of better at naming it.I do think social media for better or worse has made students more educated. So that's definitely for better.There's evidence from studies in college students like the Healthy Minds survey that young adults are experiencing real increases in depression, anxiety, suicidality.And stigma has also decreased and treatment seeking has increased. So students are more willing to disclose what previous generations of students may have kept more hidden or personal.
Amanda Morrison - 00:25:58
But of course there is the question of might this be genuine anxiety and depression or rather is it over reporting of normal feelings?And so I think the challenge is not to dismiss what students are saying.You know, they're just talking about it more, but also not to overpathologize every painful human experience.Students are facing real stressors, housing instability, food insecurity, financial pressure, discrimination, family responsibilities, uncertainty about jobs in the future.
Amanda Morrison - 00:26:30
So I do really try to hold both truths both in my clinical work and as a teacher that distress is real and their context matters and that not every distressing experience is a disorder, but that all students deserve support.So it doesn't have to be a disorder in order for us to have empathy and want to support a person.I want to come back to that thing I mentioned earlier that one thing I do worry about is that if students begin to interpret every uncomfortable feeling as evidence that something's wrong with them, they could inadvertently start to avoid the kinds of experiences that help them grow.
Amanda Morrison - 00:27:09
And we know from decades of research on anxiety that avoidance often provides that short term relief from anxiety, but it can maintain anxiety over time.College is supposed to include moments of discomfort, giving presentations, meeting new people, interviewing for internships. So what students experience as obstacles are often the richest opportunities to build confidence.The confidence follows the experience. It doesn't precede it. So I try to help validate their emotions while helping them to discover they're more capable than they sometimes believe.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:27:49
We don't hear too often about people having COVID anymore. But certainly during the COVID era, need for better words, what came out a lot was the issue of loneliness.And, you know, certainly being alone is does not necessitate a bad state of one's being. Being lonely is a whole different a whole different story.And we do hear this and see this with a lot of our students and especially when there's been a change to a lot of online courses.In fact, I asked recently one student that I came across.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:28:40
You know, when you're on Zoom, do most students show their faces, or do they just have their screen of their picture? Because almost everybody just shows their picture.And I thought, you know, I'm not teaching anymore.I wonder how those faculty are feeling just talking to a bunch of screens that they don't know who's behind the screen, if they're asleep, if they're actually there.But you don't know what the lifestyles are of all those students that are there. And the same thing with faculty, they just show their screens also.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:29:17
So what can faculty do to reduce this inherent loneliness and help students build their support systems?
Amanda Morrison - 00:29:27
Yeah, I was one of those professors who struggled with the, am I just talking to a screen of black empty screens?I want to ask them to turn their video on but I don't know what they're handling in the background if they're cooking dinner for their kids while they're listening to lecture, don't want them to feel put on the spot.So what can instructors do to help reduce loneliness? I think community and relationships are so important for reducing loneliness and for learning.Most of my students at Kelsey East Bay, they commute sometimes really long distances or a lot of traffic.
Amanda Morrison - 00:30:08
Many of them have, you know, work and family responsibilities outside of school. They also have little extra time outside of school and work.So the classroom I think becomes a primary place for them where community can happen or at least community with peers in college can happen.But relationships don't just, you know, emerge spontaneously all the time, especially for the more introverted students.So I draw from social psych research, which shows that relationships happen when people repeatedly interact in low stakes interactions.
Amanda Morrison - 00:30:46
People tend to become friends with the girl next door, the boy next door because they have, you know, repeated interactions. They develop trust through something called reciprocal self disclosure.So it can be something as little as like, what did you do last weekend? I did this. So what did you do last weekend?So you're just sort of sharing a little bit more and a little bit more about yourself with someone else.And each time you share, you're giving a little bit of a green light to friendship development. And then also cooperating with others helps develop friendships.
Amanda Morrison - 00:31:17
So when we ask students to do group projects or group activities that can help them cohere.So I think instructors can, you know, they're not matchmakers, well, maybe sometimes, but they're not going to necessarily create friendships, but they can create the context where friendships could develop.So I'll get students to do a lot of the things that as an introverted undergrad I used to hate, but I'll do icebreakers very early on in the semesters, lots of little small class activities that involve interactions like think pair shares.And if possible, I try to have them be with like a stable partner or group for at least a while so they can work through that initial awkwardness to a little bit more comfort, you know, moving past the uncertainty of what's this person going to be like to, oh, we've already had four conversations.
Amanda Morrison - 00:32:08
What's the fifth one going to be like?And then you can try prompts that get students to, you know, speak a little bit more meaningfully or personally about the material, like have them talk with each other about one thing from the lecture that surprised them or, you know, what's one question that you're still having so they don't have to share it directly with the professor, but with each other, it normalizes the, you know, the uncertainty and the struggle in learning.
Amanda Morrison - 00:32:35
And then, you know, I try, I sometimes I have very large classes, but I try to learn their names and to have casual conversations with them as much as I can, you know, recognizing that students feel like they belong more when they have personal connections with each other and with the professor.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:32:55
You know, when you're talking about these small conversations, I read an article over the weekend about let's get rid of small talk when we get into elevators because do people really care about when you say, hi, how are you?Or what did you do over the weekend? And the person who wrote this article says, we need to get into more relevant conversations when we get into elevators.Because chances are, like I, he said, I really don't care really what that person did over the weekend. And if they're fine, that's good.If they're not fine, I don't care either. You know, something of substance.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:33:34
So I'm sure you're not advocating for something like an elevator talk, but that might be, you know, one of those little icebreakers that you need to break the ice somehow.Right?
Amanda Morrison - 00:33:43
Can I say something to that actually? Actually? I Sure. Have a lot of feelings about small talk as a social anxiety therapist.We have like whole sessions we devote to small talk. So I think small talk gets a little bit of a bad rap recently.Yeah, nobody wants to talk about the weather all day long or talk to lots of random strangers all day long.But I think small talk provides a really important function in relationship development, which is it's kind of the grease to beginning a conversation.
Amanda Morrison - 00:34:14
You can't jump in and say, tell me your deepest, darkest secrets. You'd be perceived as super unsafe to have a conversation with the view started there.So the like the weather conversation, it sets a tone and lets the other person start to develop a sense of like familiarity and trust with you.So yeah, we don't want small talk to go on forever but I think it's a necessary evil if you will, but I think it's necessary.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:34:41
So tell me a little bit about what you're currently working on right now.
Amanda Morrison - 00:34:46
Well, I was trying to think about this in kind of broad strokes.So I think a lot of my research is, you know, anxiety focused and I ask questions about how people, how to get people to engage rather than withdraw.So this is clearly related to research on anxiety where we know something called exposure as opposed to avoidance is what really helps people.So I'm interested in understanding what helps people to speak up, ask questions, seek mentorship, join research. How does this show up in college classrooms and in STEM?
Amanda Morrison - 00:35:23
How do we create environments that naturally support well-being?So you know, I've got a project that seeks to translate some research on kindness into an introductory STEM class where students are often feeling nervous about the material itself.So how do we, or if we intentionally cultivate kindness, can this sort of lower the anxiety in the classroom as well as cultivate a stronger connection and sense of belonging among the students, which might then have benefits for their learning.And, you know, as AI becomes, you know, everywhere, I'm also and have been interested in how we can use technology to expand human potential, but not replace it.
Amanda Morrison - 00:36:12
So some of my early research was on how computerized interventions for anxiety, which modify how we pay attention, how that can help anxiety.I never felt like that was going to replace a well trained therapist.I think that the human connection and the shared humanity is so important in learning and I don't think that will be replaced, but how do we use technology like AI to remove the unnecessary barriers for students that get in the way, like when they just feel stuck?
Amanda Morrison - 00:36:46
How can we use AI to help them get unstuck but not replace their learning? So yeah, those are some areas that I'm thinking about right now.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:36:56
Great. Well, you know, let's leave us off with the the proverbial AI and how it's going to potentially displace, replace, op space us all.And, hopefully, with it, there may be some positives that come out in terms of the student experience and students' mental health going forward. So thank you, Amanda.It's nice to have had you today.
Amanda Morrison - 00:37:21
Thank you so much, Frank. It was a pleasure.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:37:23
And that concludes this episode of All Things STEM. A heartfelt thank you to Doctor.Amanda Morrison, Professor of Psychology at California State University, East Bay, for bringing such clarity, compassion, and insight into a topic shaping the student experience in higher education.Amanda reminds us that student mental health is not always loud or visible.Sometimes it shows up quietly through isolation, avoidance, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and or a student's hesitation to ask for help.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:37:51
Her perspective challenges us to look beyond the squeaky wheels to pay closer attention to students who may be silently struggling.As students navigate academic pressure, financial stress, career uncertainty, technology, AI, and the lasting effects of the pandemic, this conversation reminds us that belonging, resilience, and human connection are essential to helping students thrive.
Frank A. Gomez - 00:38:14
Be sure to join us next time for another conversation to explore the intersections of STEM, education, research, and the lived experiences of the communities we serve.Stay connected by catching up on past episodes at calstate.edu/allthingsstempodcast, And don't forget to subscribe on Simplecast, Spotify, Apple products, or your preferred podcast platform.Until next time, stay curious, stay connected, and keep pushing for meaningful change.