Studies of Gen Z — the age group roughly from 12 to 27 years old — show that they are experiencing higher levels of loneliness, anxiety, and fears for their personal safety, 更不用说对住房负担能力和就业机会的担忧了. 三年的社会混乱和正常活动的暂停, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 迫使孩子们在学校使用屏幕，扰乱了正常的社交渠道, 导致许多人的互动和应对技能较差.
但面对这些趋势，康考迪亚大学欧文分校和 Christian residential institutions like it, 为美国社会提供了一种独特而有效的东西:关怀, intimate community where students feel safe, are known personally, and become empowered to thrive in key areas of life — including overcoming negative societal forces.
“Most adults don’t understand how isolated our students feel and how worried many are about the future,” says Concordia president, Dr. Michael Thomas. “Many students coming in haven’t had the normal interactions that one would expect from just a few years ago. And these disruptive aspects of their formation into adults present challenges that Concordia University Irvine, an intentional Christian community, can alleviate.”
A recent article in the online publication Axios titled, 《最孤独的一代:Z世代心理健康危机内幕,” cited a Gallup Walton Family Foundation survey which found that Gen Z “reports the poorest mental health of any generation” and are “grappling with alarming rates of loneliness, depression and suicidal thoughts.”
“A collision of political, economic and social trends has minted a generation in which huge numbers of people struggle to cope with the present and feel even worse about the future,” the article said. 只有44%的z世代表示他们为未来做好了准备.”
Those challenges are confirmed by Concordia’s on-campus mental health 在今天的学生中生活和工作的专家、教师和精神导师.
“We’ve always seen students who are really struggling with anxiety and feelings of isolation and separation, 但现在感觉这是一种更广泛的体验, 很多学生都在努力解决这些问题,” says campus pastor Quinton Anderson, 一个长期的校园居民，和他的家人住在一个 Living Learning Community residence halls. “我看到越来越多的学生感到疲惫不堪, overwhelmed by all the ways they are pulled and tugged, and by busy schedules. It’s like they’re already in a zone — already so worn down that they’re trying to operate at a depleted level, emotionally and mentally.”
Donna Washburn agrees. She is assistant dean of the Townsend Institute 并在心理健康领域有超过20年的经验, 特别是在高等教育和作为一个有执照的临床医生.
“As a faculty member, a community member, a neighbor and a friend, 我亲眼目睹了越来越多的人感到压力和焦虑, whether it’s students in classrooms, community members, or people I go to church with,” Washburn says.
For instance, it’s more common now for students to request personal accommodations for relatively minor events at home or their places of employment, and to become upset over an assignment which “wouldn’t have stressed students out in previous years,” she says. 而不是从正常的压力诱发事件中恢复过来, or from concerning developments in society and the world, “individuals are at such a high level of anxiety and stress that they can no longer cope like they used to,” Washburn says.
“有些孩子是在人们不敢出门的年代长大的, afraid to shake people’s hands,” says Dr. Margaret Christmas, dean of the Townsend Institute. “When kids are learning language and facial expressions, 当他们不能与其他孩子进行社交互动时，问题就会加剧. They haven’t had the same amount of opportunity to develop social skills or recognize social cues as previous generations may have had.”
While this can contribute to delay, normative and restorative experiences can help them heal, Christmas says.
Kaitlyn Stafford, interim program director for the counseling programs in Concordia’s Townsend Institute, is a practicing mental health clinician and trauma specialist who works with adults and teens. 她教授戒瘾咨询，危机和创伤方面的硕士课程. Family systems, she says, have been harmed in recent years, 缺乏人际关系导致了广泛的社交焦虑.
“Even some of my adult clients are having a harder time because they were exposed to social situations less,” Stafford says. “当我们回避某些情况时，它们在我们的大脑中会变得更加危险. 我们参与的社交场合越少，似乎就变得越危险.安德森牧师说，许多学生想要交流，但又害怕交流.
“越来越多的人似乎是故意一个人吃饭, bubbling themselves off from others,” he says. “我看到这类活动有所增加，这当然不是一个积极的变化.”
Paradoxically, he says, “我看到很多人都想挤在一起，花更多的时间在一起, but I also see a layer of fatigue from desiring that and then it almost causes a recoil that says, “我仍然需要这些其他的方式来保持分离和我自己的空间.“内向者试图充电的方式，现在我们在各个方面都看到了. People want interaction with lots of people, 然而，当他们踏入这个领域时，又会有一种挣扎，因为事情已经重新开放了.”
Among the stressors unleashed on young people by recent events is an unusual amount of loss of parents to death, says Michelle Laabs, associate dean of Student Wellness which offers counseling and health services on campus.
“In the last month, we have had three students who lost a parent, 两个死于癌症，一个突然死于医生办公室,” says Laabs, who has worked at Concordia for 16 years. “Before, it was a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, but in the last few years we are hearing ‘parents.’”
Troublingly, suicidal thoughts have increased as well, 但学生们也乐于通过咨询和其他方式寻求帮助.
In spite of nationwide trends, all see huge upsides for Gen Z, 尤其是当它们处于适合生长的环境中时.
“As humans, we are remarkably resilient,” Stafford says. “When we experience adversity, 我们可以成长，拥有智慧，更有使命感和意义感. 因此，几乎可以产生一种精神上的超越. I’ve seen that a lot with our students.”
生活中的重要经历有力地支持了复原力 Christian residential community, they agree.
“A Christian residential school like Concordia does something almost no place in our society does anymore,” says President Thomas. 他说:“社会上有很多机构过去把人们聚集在一起，比如社交俱乐部, softball leagues, and even youth groups, 例如，在我们国家的许多地方都倒塌了. 其中一些年轻人曾经交往的地方已经不再是我们文化的一部分. 考虑到公共互动场所的缺乏, the real power of a Christian residential experience is its holistic formation of the student. 在其他地方，我们会把来自不同地理位置的年轻人混在一起, urban and rural, who hold different political views, and perhaps even religious ones?”
He adds that, “Concordia’s focus on our Christian identity and our insistence that full-time faculty and staff are practicing Christians who are experts in their professions, 使我们能够提供一个专注于形成的住宅体验, and even maturation, of each and every student. Firmly grounded in our Christian identity, we boldly open the doors of campus to the world, 我们做一些世俗学校永远做不到的事情:我们教育心灵和灵魂. We guide students to think deeply about who they are, then encourage them to turn themselves outward, beyond themselves, 爱上帝——这是他们灵魂的形成——并爱他们的邻居, which is the formation of their heart.”
A key element that enables this holistic formation at Concordia University Irvine is a care team made up of residential directors, the dean of students, the campus pastor, mental health counselors and clinicians, the provost, and others who meet weekly to discuss whether any students seem to need special attention due to trying circumstances. “If a member of that group suspects something is going wrong with a student’s life — say he or she is missing class or is not engaged — he can discuss it within the network of these relationships and someone might say, ‘That’s a student in my residence hall,’ or someone from mental health or campus ministry may say, ‘We’re already engaged with that student,’” says Thomas. “我们有一个内置的人际网络，通过它我们以一种支持的方式进行监控.”
事实上，每14名学生对应一名教师, plus a wealth of residential directors, coaches, and fellow students, means all students are known by name and seen daily. 沃什伯恩说，这种友谊是治愈的方式.
“It sounds so cliche, 但仅仅花时间和别人在一起就有治疗价值,” she says. “John Townsend calls them ‘relational nutrients.’Sitting with people, drinking coffee, not even having to have big conversations but just the physical experience of being present, responding with empathy, listening when someone wants to dump. 简单的关系原则帮助其他人认识到他们的价值. We believe it’s how God created us. God uses relationships to heal.”
安德森说，过去他倾向于花更多的时间倾听, 这些天，他发现学生们渴望听到长者的智慧.
“Some of the things that can help shift these [problems] are basic life and social skills that somehow don’t seem ingrained in all students,” he says. “我发现自己可以更自由地说，‘如果你试试这个会怎么样?’”
最重要的是，他邀请人们积极参与基督教社区.
“I say, “通过社交媒体交朋友并与人互动是件好事, but there’s something different when you are intentionally wrestling with day-to-day struggles of life in a community that’s wanting to do so in connection to Christ,’” Anderson says. “I encourage students to get plugged into these sorts of things and become part of a shared life in Christ, 因为这是神安排我们接受支持和鼓励的方式. In a world that’s moving more toward individualism, isolation, and self-dependence, we get to call people into an incarnational understanding of God who invites us into a shared life of grace with others. There are depth and riches to those sorts of relationships. It’s what we need.”
He observes that students who plug into a Christian community are “the ones who have an easier time in the midst of all these things,” he says.
Concordia is also blessed to be the home of the Townsend Institute, a national source of counseling wisdom and training, which is “all about embracing these challenges and using our clinical skills to teach students to provide healing and health at such a time as this,” says Washburn.
在这些辅导过程中嵌入的是活著的基督的积极力量.
“我们认为信仰是我们工作的关键组成部分，”克里斯莫斯说. “Our imperative at Concordia is to bring in our Lutheran identity. We talk about the power of faith in healing people whether we work in a secular or pastoral environment. The power of the Holy Spirit comes to those spaces and the counselor becomes the hands and feet of Jesus.”
在一个日益以孤立和分裂为特征的社会中, some of the healthiest environments in our society that can help young people to build deep relationships are Christian residential colleges where students learn to thrive as adults in a vibrant campus community, and beyond. Concordia University Irvine certainly carries out this special calling on a daily basis as the community lives out the Lord’s will in this special place.