Religious & Spiritual Life

“Be-Friend” Initiative

by

What is be-friend?
BE-FRIEND aims to pair Wes students with each other to connect and share thoughts, ideas, and themselves. It is open to all Wed students regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or ability. We hope to foster connections in the midst of a time characterized by social distancing and disconnect.

How it works:
Interested participants will complete an initial survey designed to help the chaplain’s office pair you with someone based on your preferences, including faith or no-faith tradition, gender identity, race/ethnicity/ethnic identity, and any specific preference you might have.

The program will begin on March 22 and go through the end of April. If the pair of “friends” want to continue to meet, in-person or online, that’s up to them. We will gather safely outside in early May to enjoy a celebratory meal (provided by a local restaurant). For those participating from elsewhere, we will mail a care package to their preferred address. Each participant will receive a free t-shirt.

Here is the link to the survey: https://forms.gle/qE1HTwXpPQJMm9GZ8

Understanding, Validating & Healing From Trauma

by

You are invited to participate in a two-part series we will be offering to students in the Wes community regarding personal trauma and substance use on campus.

In the first part, Understanding, Validating & Healing From Trauma, Demetrius Colvin (SRC), Jami Carlacio (ORSL), and September Johnson (WesWell) will speak about various forms of trauma they have encountered and the coping mechanisms- both healthy and unhealthy- that they have used to deal with it. In the second part, Coping and Connecting in Crisis: Substance Use and Self-Care During College, the speakers will share their experience as it relates to substance use (in the family and personally) and again, how they found hope by using effective coping skills and seeking help.

The presentation blends storytelling with professional knowledge and aims to reach students through presenters personal accounts of trauma and substance use. The focus ultimately centers on coping, recovery, and resilience, with the message being that life is messy but/and that we can emerge from it whole when we have the right support and resources.  We ask that you promote these two events with students, staff, and/or faculty you know who may benefit from it, whether as a trauma sufferer/survivor or as a resource for anyone who might need help. To be clear, we hope to start a campus-wide conversation about the increased intensity of challenges facing college students today as they navigate illness, death, isolation, fear, and insecurity due to the pandemic and to the effects of structural racism.

The presentations will be held on:

Wednesday March 3 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/validatingtrauma
Facebook Link

Wednesday March 10 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/copingincrisis
Facebook Link

Please reach out to us if you have questions or comments, and thank you in advance for spreading the message.

Sincerely,

Demetrius Colvin, Jami Carlacio, and September Johnson

Invitation from the Muslim Students Association

by

Welcome to Wes! We hope that everyone is safe and healthy at this time as well as taking the new semester in stride. The Muslim Students Association on campus strives to create a family and a safe place for students from various backgrounds, culturally and religiously. During a normal semester, we host Jummah every Friday as well as study sessions and social events throughout the semester. As you can guess, this semester will look very different. Although we’re not exactly sure how we will operate, we will do our best to keep the community together!

Our first event this fall will be a Zoom dinner held in the second week of quarantine. We are working on the financials and once everything is set, we will confirm on a date. Until then, please join your community and help us grow our family! If you have any questions or concerns about MSA or Wesleyan life, please reach out to us on any social platform!

We’d also like to highlight that all animal meat served as hot food during quarantine is halal! If you have any questions about this, please reach out to the Bon Appetite District Manager Micheal Strumpf at mstrumpf@wesleyan.edu.

If you’d like to join our MSA WhatsApp group, please email us your number at msawesleyan@gmail.com and we will add you! Use this link to be added to the listserv and receive updates on Jummah prayers and what we are up to as a community. Also, follow us on Instagram and Facebook @wesleyanmsa. The current board members and MSA members are all looking forward to meeting you and hope you will reach out if you have any questions!

Academic and Personal Support Resources

by

Wesleyan offers a variety of academic and personal support services for students. With the semester about to begin, you should familiarize yourself with these resources so that you will know where to go when you or someone you know needs to ask for help.

Student Academic Resources
Student Academic Resources (SAR) coordinates programs for intellectual enrichment and academic support.  SAR staff members are available to meet with any student individually throughout the year. Staff members can assist students in developing academic skills or connecting with other resources on campus.

Academic Peer Advisors
The APA Program provides students with a well-informed resource about the course registration process and academic resources beginning with New Student Orientation and continuing throughout the year. Peer advisors are juniors and seniors who work during New Student Orientation (NSO) and throughout the academic year to enhance student access to academic resources.

Deans Peer Tutoring Program
Peer tutors provide supplementary course-content instruction for students who request them. Peer tutoring is provided free of charge; students can receive up to two hours of tutoring each week per course for which they are matched with a tutor. Peer tutors are employed by the University, and paid by the Deans’ Office.  Tutor-tutee matches are made as quickly as possible. While students may be referred to use the Deans’ Peer Tutoring Program, tutees are self-identified, and must complete a request for tutoring in order to be matched with a tutor.

Math Workshop
The Math Workshop is open Sunday through Thursday from 7-10pm. The staff members on duty are either experienced undergraduates or math graduate students. The staff offers a drop-in tutoring service, available to all members of the Wesleyan community. Staff members provide a friendly, relaxed atmosphere while answering questions about mathematics.

Writing Workshop
The Writing Workshop supports Wesleyan students in all aspects of their academic writing. Writing tutors strive to meet writers where they are in the writing process.  That may mean brainstorming a new assignment, reviewing the structure of a draft, tinkering with the details of an essay before it is submitted to an instructor, or mastering important skills. The Writing Workshop supports students with particular writing tasks while also cultivating spaces on campus for students to develop their voice, perspective, and values as writers.

The Resource Center
The Resource Center (RC) seeks to support, empower, and engage students with underrepresented and marginalized identities at Wesleyan University. The center’s areas of focus include promoting dialogue and coalition building around the intersections of race, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, disability, gender, sexuality, sustainability, spirituality, and social and political activism.  Whether you want to reserve one of our homey meeting spaces, need help with a personal or organizational issue related to social differences, looking for employment opportunities, have a great program idea, want to promote some of the great work that you are already doing in the community, or just want to know what is happening in the center, please reach out to the Resource Center.

Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS)
CAPS provides comprehensive short-term mental health services through multidisciplinary integration with Davison Health Center and WesWell. Students who utilize CAPS psychotherapy services may discuss in confidence any worries, distressing feelings, or difficult situations they are currently experiencing. The goal of CAPS is to assist students as they navigate through life’s challenges within the context of a highly rigorous and demanding academic environment.

Office of Religious and Spiritual Life
The Chaplains from Wesleyan’s Office of Religious and Spiritual Life have been appointed by the University to ensure and promote the spiritual and religious well-being of the campus community. We do this by providing leadership, counseling, and programming that promotes holistic student development and by nurturing many diverse and vibrant religious communities at Wesleyan. The Chaplains are committed to welcoming students of all genders and sexual identities, of all secular and religious traditions, and from all cultural backgrounds. Please feel free to e-mail/call us to schedule a visit or attend one of our programs.

WesWell
WesWell, the Office of Health Education, is an integral part of Wesleyan University’s Health Services. WesWell understands the impact of student health on academic performance and is committed to providing services that are designed to develop healthy behaviors and prevent health concerns that may interfere with academic and personal success.  Health initiatives are evidence-informed, based on Standards of Practice for Health Promotion in Higher Education and data collected from Wesleyan University students.

SHAPE
The Office of Support, Healing, Activism, and Prevention Education (SHAPE) is dedicated to reimagining a world without interpersonal violence, through supportive resources for those who have experienced harm, trauma-informed, healing-centered prevention education programming and trainings, self-care and wellness workshops, and supporting student activism within the Wesleyan University community.  This mission is in service of a larger vision to dismantle intersecting systems of oppression which create conditions for interpersonal violence to occur, and to educate the greater Wesleyan University community about these acts of violence and responding to them in a healing-centered way.  This vision is realized through courageous actions of self-reflection, intervention, and empathetic action.