Acts of Wellness: Will Johnson

My name is Will Johnson. I serve as the Associate Dean of Students at Fairfield University, where I have the privilege of working with a wide range of students — including those who are under stress and those referred to our Student Conduct process. I identify as a Black, heterosexual male. I am a married husband, father, coach, and friend.

I came into this study initially simply wanting to help out a peer. As a doctoral student myself, I have struggled with finding individuals to participate in my own research. I thought I could do a good thing by helping someone else in a similar situation. Once I started, though, I found it was also an important opportunity to reflect on everything going on in my own world.

Over the course of the study, I found it challenging to complete the daily logs — sometimes because I was unmotivated, other times simply because I didn’t have the time. But when I did have the opportunity to complete them, I found them to be a great way of unpacking everything going on in my life. That unpacking allowed me to be a lot more intentional about how I balance my time and how I carve out space for the things that matter most to me.

Working with students in distress and those who have violated university policies isn’t always the most rewarding part of the job. So I made a point to carve out time to meet with students who simply needed guidance and mentoring. Doing that intentionally meant managing my own calendar rather than leaving it entirely to the folks at the front desk.

I also had to make sure I was protecting time for my family and life outside of work — which meant actually leaving at a reasonable hour.

Something else became clear to me during this process. I have a close colleague in Residence Life who was always on the clock, always showing up when there was a problem on campus. I started to feel troubled — not because she was doing that work alone, but because the rest of us weren’t held to the same standard. It felt like she may have been being taken advantage of. That stayed with me.

One lesson from this study that has stuck with me is this: as much as we have responsibility for our students, it is just as important that we take responsibility for each other.

I also believe it’s important to have something outside of work that anchors us — and beyond family, too. We need something that is fully our own.

Finally, the issue of social justice fatigue needs to be an increasingly central part of the conversation within our profession. There are a lot of people out there struggling with the demands of work and life. Maintaining that balance isn’t a luxury — it’s necessary.