Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Project, in July 2022, undergraduate student Sarah Craig (SFS‘23) interviewed two students, Mary Johnson (’25) and Natalie Justice (’24), at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. In this interview, Johnson and Justice discuss their experiences with Spring Hill campus resources and campus culture.
Can I get your names, your majors, and your class year?
Mary: Sure. Mary Johnson, bio pre-med. And I'm a sophomore.
Natalie: I'm Natalie Justice. I'm a double major in psychology and sociology and I'm going to be a junior.
Great. Can you just talk a little bit about your engagement on campus, whether that be through jobs or organizations?
Natalie: I had a very unique freshman year with COVID-19. My first year was spent mainly in my dorm doing my online classes, so I really had a hard time meeting people. But once the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, I was able to get more involved. I joined Greek life and then I joined a bunch of other clubs, and it was through the people that I met and the clubs that I inserted myself in who then introduced me to other people. And I was just kind of like a butterfly effect that started the chain of meeting people at Spring Hill.
Mary: Yeah, my experience, my freshman year experience wasn't nearly as restricted as the [class of 2024]. I'm kind of an introvert, so I tried to immerse myself in as many activities as possible, and that's how I met a lot of my closest friends. And then I became, I guess, involved in Greek life. And that's where I met like a bunch of other people that, you know, I've gotten close with.
Could you just talk about what you consider to be the defining aspects of your time at Spring Hill?
Natalie: I would say I try and balance all the different parts of my life, like I try to balance social life with academics, with work. So I just try and find how I can manage my time best to give each section the attention that it deserves. I would say I spend a lot of time with my friends, just for my personal benefit of it calming me down and, you know, regulating my emotions and all that. So I make sure to leave enough time to do those things that I enjoy. But I also know when to put those things aside to then go study or, you know, I have to get this done before I go to work and stuff like that.
Mary: Yeah, that was pretty similar to me. I spent a lot of time with friends as well—I should spend more time studying, but I dedicate a lot of my time to the stuff that I'm involved in, too, like, better connections. Yeah, I work at the student center, too. So those. Yeah, probably my defining moments are friends and involvement.
Yeah. Mmhmm. What do you think is the hardest thing about being a student here?
Natalie: I would say probably how quickly things get out. Like if something happens Friday night, everybody's going to know about it Monday morning. So it's just kind of like you have to be careful with what you put out there because everybody will know about it. And in the same vein, like, if one person doesn't particularly like you, they could influence other people. So I do my best to just get to know everybody and, you know, control what I can. But I would just say things spread very quickly here.
Mary: Yeah, that's very true. I guess for me, I'm worried a lot about the perception people have of me here just because of that. Like, what if you're the wrong thing? What if I make a mistake and yeah, it just spreads too quickly? I would say another thing is it kind of goes off this, but just how small this campus can be. Sometimes just seeing the same people every day kind of gets to be a lot. I don't know.
Something that's come up quite a bit in my interviews with other students is mental health. I was just wondering if you could talk about mental health culture on campus.
Natalie: I personally see a therapist on campus with the counseling services, which is attached to one of our dorms. And this has been the best therapist that I've had in my entire life. And it's free, included in my tuition. And I would say that the attitude about mental health here, I have only known the past two years, but I feel like it's more talked about now and we focus a lot on the sexual assault response team and stuff like that. So I feel like they really are putting in the time to make sure that we know that we have resources to use when we're feeling down or we're stressed out about classes or something like that, or we just feel like we can't handle it all.
Mary: Yeah, I would agree with that. Like coming to college here, there's often like a lot of meetings, flyers that go out. There's a lot of resources on campus that they will provide if anything were to happen or if anything is happening in your life, you know that there's people you could go to on this campus for help.
What do you think are some of the strongest, or at least first, resources or support systems on campus?
Natalie: I would say Counseling Services and Residence Life are big ones, but also the Center for Student Involvement, because the best way that, like, if I'm feeling depressed and I don't want to go to class or something, I have found that, like, staying involved in the clubs that I'm interested in, that's what gets me out of that rut.
Mary: So yeah, going off earlier. I'm a pretty introverted person, so I found it really important for my mental health to go out and meet people and get involved. So I would say [the Center for] Student Involvement, but also Residence Life was really important for me. My situation was kind of unique: My RA literally lived in the room right across from me. And I knew that she often sent out stuff like, if you ever need anything, here's where to go, stuff like that. But just her being there all the time made me feel like I could talk to someone. So yeah. Residence Life for me was a big one freshman year.
Yeah. No, that's great. Unfortunately, I'm not having these experiences. That's cool. But I've heard good things about it. What does cura personalis mean to you?
Natalie: I would say cura personalis just means taking care of yourself in mind, body, and spirit. And I think Spring Hill does a good job of that, especially freshman year. We used to have LEAP and now it's Pathways, but they really do their best to help the freshmen figure out how to manage their time and, you know, how to handle stress and study tips and stuff like that. So they not only are just, like, “Here's how to succeed in your academics; here's how to succeed in life.” And then we also have plenty of opportunities to get involved in intramurals and stuff like that. And our campus is beautiful. You could just go walk around after class, you know, just take a little hot girl walk around campus. Yeah, but they just give us every opportunity to develop each part of ourselves.
Mary: I see that a lot with what she was saying, like the things that Spring Hill puts out there. But I've seen it with my professors, too, just because I guess there's not a lot of pressure to put out what's going on in your life. Like they consider not just the importance of your academics, but also I often find myself getting really close with my professors because I feel comfortable sharing, you know, the mind and spirit part of that as well. So yeah.
That's great. I've heard great things so far about the faculty specifically in terms of cura personalis. Would you say that's pretty true across the board, that faculty and staff do a good job of supporting students in their mental health and who they are outside of being a student?
Natalie: I would say for sure. You know, this is the pro of having a small campus—there are pros and cons to it. And the pros are you're able to personally get to know your professors and they get to know you in return. So I have professors that have come up to me and been like, “I know you're interested in this topic; I'm about to do research on it. Do you want to be my research assistant?” You know, they seek me out. And then I also have professors that, you know, if I'm just having a bad day or just dealing with a lot of stuff, or even if I'm just bored and want to hang out and finish all my homework, I'll just go sit in their office hours and we'll catch up about what we did on the weekend. You know, I have professors that feel more like friends than actual professors.
Mary: Yeah, I would say that, too. I've had a lot of professors. I'm usually more quiet in class and they often encourage you to speak your mind, put your ideas forward, because that's the best way to get to know you, too. And if you're ever particularly quiet one day or just something's off, they will check on you, they will email you, they will check in to make sure that everything in your life is going okay.
Natalie: So, we also have the Purple Alerts. So yeah, and a lot of professors really utilize that. Like if they err on the side of caution, if they feel like something's off they “Purple Alert” you so that somebody comes and checks on you.
Yeah. No, I've heard a lot about that in that faculty use it. It seems to be good. In terms of the provost and the higher-ups at Spring Hill, how do you think that they can do a better job of supporting students, sustaining them throughout their entire four years here?
Natalie: I would say, adding on to the faculty, we have a lot of majors that only have two or three professors within the department, and that makes it really hard to offer a lot of classes. So I'm a psychology major: so there's been times that I've taken all the psychology classes that are being offered that semester, and so I kind of have to just take other classes as upper core electives and stuff like that. So I think finding a way to add more administration here would really help because then we could have a broader range of classes and you know, take whatever classes you want because it'd be offered.
Mary: Going off of that, the credit system here is really difficult sometimes. So like for some transfer students, I was talking to one the other day, it's just very hard for her to apply the classes that she took and I guess test out of those classes because it's just the credits don't transfer easily. So offering more classes that apply to those credits could be easier, like with retention and I guess getting more students to come here.
So yeah, definitely. Those are all kind of like big concept questions. Is there anything else that you just kind of like to add or share about accessibility and support systems here?
Natalie: I would say I do have academic accommodations. I had a brain injury in high school. And that was my first experience with a processing disorder, and that is what stuck around after I recovered. So in high school, my senior year was really focused on basically relearning how to learn, and I didn't really conquer that before I came to college, so I was really nervous about how I would do because I was used to just being a student that could just sit there and listen and not take notes and I'd be fine. And then it was a completely different world after that. And I came here and I had my documented disability and my professors here have been amazing. You know, they give me distraction-free testing, extended time on tests, and, you know, if I'm having a bad day and I'm just mentally not there, they're like, you know, “Want to come into my office tomorrow and you can take it?” Or if I'm trying to get through a really dense reading and it's just not working out, they'll say, “You know, just have it read by Friday” or something like that. So they really are able to adapt their teaching style to your learning style. And I think that's something that not enough places do, but a lot of students really, really need.
No, that's good to hear. I'd say that's something I've asked a little bit about things like academic accommodations. What do you say? What was the process of obtaining those accommodations?
Natalie: I had a psycho-educational [evaluation] done by a psychiatrist. So you basically just have to have an official diagnosis and then you just send it to the CASA [Career & Academic Success & Advising office] email and they get you all set up. It's not hard once you have the actual diagnosis. It's not like a big, lengthy process that's very obscure. It's extremely easy.
