CIAC Quite Literally Saved My Life
Harley Woods | April 20, 2023
From the moment that I first visited Warren Wilson College (WWC), I knew that I belonged here. I received my acceptance phone call from admissions counselor Skye Telka in Dec. 2018. I enrolled in the college and began my first semester in fall of 2019.
Some of the first interactions with staff and life at WWC that I received are still embedded in my memory. One of those interactions was waking up at 8 a.m. to have a phone call with the former Center for Integrated Advising Coaches (CIAC) employee Nicole Barnes. Each time that I met with Barnes afterward, she always remarked that I was one of the few students who came fully prepared. She always said that she barely had to do her job with me. My preparedness allowed for more conversation and connection than what was possible with other students.
The first semester and first year of college can be a difficult time for anyone. We are plagued with responsibilities that were never off-loaded to us before; we are the masters of our own lives (in as many ways as we can be at 18); we are responsible for our own happiness for once.
Throughout fall 2019, I began to feel increasingly isolated. Though the community-oriented relationship of my freshman dorm provided opportunity for distraction and moments of joy, there and gone like the tail of a kite, I felt alone.
Winter weather and cloudy skies at 5 p.m. cast long shadows over my psyche. I was still making A’s in my classes and showing up for activities and engagement. I stopped showing up to the cafeteria and let the hours between dusk and twilight drain my soul and bind me to my bed.
The spring semester began and I felt even more alone than I previously had — time spent with my family always provides a particular shell-casing of sadness. I was, again, still turning in assignments on time and making A’s in my classes, so professors and peers didn’t say anything about my demeanor. Depression had long plagued me in my teenage years leading up to my time at WWC, but it hadn’t quite enveloped me so snugly as it had until spring 2020. I had taken advantage of the counseling center, but the visits were not frequent enough to establish support.
When I saw Barnes for a check-in before spring break, she noticed. Barnes noticed and paid keen attention to the stereotype of an overlooked successful student who ends up being the first to commit suicide. She took in my appearance and the steady transformation that had washed my body clean of any joy that originally flowed through my skin in Aug. 2019. She said out loud that she didn’t want me to be left behind simply because of my grades and my apparent control of the logistical components of my life.
The same day, Barnes emailed the counseling center with something that effectively communicated: Harley is not okay.
Because of this attention that was paid to me — for the first time in my life — I was able to start taking antidepressants through WWC resources. By the time that the COVID-19 lockdown was in full swing, I had felt the effects of longer-lasting norepinephrine and serotonin in between my neurons. While everyone in the world was grieving and isolated, I had the experience of relishing in a new and natural source of pure delight.
When I heard that the integrated advising program was being dissolved, I had to grieve some. I had already experienced multiple of my own integrated advisors leaving as the years passed, but this is an additional step.
My beloved supervisor Jay Lively will no longer be working at WWC. He is the entire reason that I have the job that I have. He made it all possible while the pandemic tortured us virtually. Barnes, my first advisor, was the only one who noticed that I could not continue living at the state that I was in.
CIAC quite literally saved my life.
I worry with the dissolution of the department, that other students — who may be like me — will be missing out on a vital opportunity for connection. While the advisory role will not be entirely obsolete, there will be less connection made with incoming students. I see it now.
What I want to communicate to all those who are filling in an advisory role in the future is what Barnes said exactly. Just because a student has good grades, shows up, appears to be showering et cetera, does not mean that all is well. Sometimes it takes another person to meet the depressed individual. If Barnes had not explicitly said to me, “you don’t look okay,” I would have continued to deny that my affliction had had any impact on me whatsoever.
Please pay attention. WWC students already frequently express that they do not feel cared for or valued by much of the administrative and logistical structures at the college. With each meeting and each conversation, take note of the look in a student’s eyes. Do not let this collective feeling be taken individually. Communicate the love to each of us so that it does not become grief.