SHA-Cordecho-Winter-21-22

1 0 C O R D E C H O S P I R I T . M I N D . B O D Y . REFLECTIONS ON COVID Community and Connectivity from CarletonCollege inNorthfield, MN R E F L E C T I O N S O N C O V I D : C R E A T I N G A N D S POST-PANDEMIC: EVERYONE READY FOR A PARTY? Wellness, Self-Care and the Dangers of Substance Misuse and Abuse During and Following the Pandemic hat do you think is going to happen when young people arrive on college campuses after being cooped up in their bedrooms for 18months? This is the question that kept this prevention scientist up at night. Nadine Mastroleo ‘89 is a professor of clinical psychology at Binghamton University where she teaches an introductory statistics class, trains future therapists, and conducts National Institutes of Health sponsored research around alcohol and cannabis use, misuse and abuse. As a former college athlete and a former basketball coach at Colgate University and University of San Diego, Nadine’s most recent research combines her knowledge of the athlete and her work as a prevention scientist. Her grant allows her to research and explore preventative work with high school athletes, who as a group have been found to consume controlled substances at double the rate of their non-athlete peers. By educating athletes about the primary and secondary risks of alcohol and marijuana use, Nadine is hoping to change the behavior of athletes but also tap into their status and popularity to change the behavior of others. Among Nadine’s concerns regarding the pandemic is her fear of binge drinking. She shared that for many adults this behavior took shape during the pandemic. It was not uncommon for a casual drinker who might enjoy a glass of wine to consume the better portion of a bottle of wine during the pandemic. Similarly, she is concerned about inexperienced drinkers coming to a college campus and “letting loose.” She fears many colleges have missed an opportunity if they did not try to get ahead of this problem on campuses this fall. When not thinking about preventative science Nadine Mastroleo PhD ‘89, Associate Professor at Binghamton University Amy Csizmar Dalal ‘90 knows what it is like to be a minority in an academic setting. As an undergraduate engineering student at University of Notre Dame and then a PhD candidate in electrical engineering at Northwestern University, Amy was often one of few women in the classroom and lab. She reflects that her rigorous coursework and strong guidance from her school counselor, Mary Morris, while at SHA provided her with the confidence to be a successful engineering student, a major she had not considered before it was recommended by her counselor. Amy has been a lifelong learner and has a particular interest in computer science and the intersectionality of the STEM fields, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion work. In addition to her research and classroom teaching of computer science, Amy also serves as the Director of Carleton College’s STEM Board where she advocates for under-represented communities in STEM and works to break down access barriers and provide supports for success. She is a firm believer that the diversity of thought brought about by robust inclusion will expand and improve the quality of the work and end-product and that STEM can and should help us analyze problems and spark meaningful conversations in any discipline from the humanities to social sciences. For the 2020-21 school year, Carleton College, a small liberal arts college, had most of its students on campus while classes were a mix of in- person, hybrid and fully online. Amy commented that the pandemic made her a better teacher as she explored the best methods to deliver content