For those who have extended empathy to students, thank you. They have held conversations at the beginning of class, letting students unload the pain of that morning, of that week and of the past year.īut professors are not equipped to be this sole support, nor are they equipped to give students the kind of breaks they need. Many faculty have taken this to heart, canceling assignments, rearranging syllabi and opening spaces for students to vent. In an April 12 email to faculty, administrators wrote: “We urge you to respond with as much compassion and flexibility as is humanly possible.”

Instead, some students are leaving campus to get help from home in an attempt to make up for insufficient professional help in Ithaca.īeyond these strained resources, the University shifted the responsibility to professors to fill the gaps. Students who previously leaned on peer counseling lost that option, too, when the University found that its current insurance policy does not cover it. Counseling and Psychological Services appointments dry up quickly and can take over two weeks to get the 25-minute time with a therapist. Many students have circulated and lamented the same list of University resources in our inboxes. Even at our breaking point, these Wellness Days are functionally just a break from logging onto Zoom classes - but little else.

We’ve endured, as the University put it, “converging stressors” of “xenophobia, health disparities, racial injustice, political upheaval and economic downturn,” but we are supposed to keep trudging. Now, as students manage stress from all facets of their lives, the University has reduced those seven days down to just four.

In a normal semester, Cornell would carve out seven full days off. But as a community, we have carved out no substantial space for the tremendous amount of pain students, faculty and staff are feeling. We are 13 months into a pandemic - sitting behind a screen and calling it school, convincing ourselves that we’re fine. With just two days off to make a four-day weekend, this break comes as a slap in the face. On the eve of the second batch of Wellness Days, Cornell students are begging for more.

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