The Whole Student: Can We Talk To Each Other?

While 120 hostages remained captive and the death toll in Israel and Gaza continued to rise, President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 described the last year as the “most turbulent and difficult on college campuses in the U.S. since the late 1960s.” With world news weighing heavily this spring and campus protests broadcasted widely, I wondered about the impact of the war and protests on the mental health impact Princeton students and alumni. At Princeton’s encampment, students seemed to talk within their own bubbles or make statements using a megaphone. Students, faculty, and staff often walked by, heads down. As the semester was ending, more than one student who had no involvement told me they couldn’t wait to leave campus, scared to say the wrong thing.

I worried about the conversations that didn’t happen. 

As summer began, one current undergraduate who had been deeply involved in the encampment agreed to share her thoughts, but anonymously due to concern that her pro-Palestinian views could be misconstrued. (Here I’ll call her by her first initial, C.) Seth Walensky ’22, a young alum/former Hillel leader, now at Penn School of Medicine, also agreed to an interview. Their perspectives differ in substance, but were quite alike, I found, in thoughtfulness and depth of feeling. As I have gathered these comments individually, I wish/hope that students who can learn so much from each other could be in more conversation, and more deeply supported by staff and faculty who can add knowledge and care. That’s really the point I want to make here.

As a student of color in the encampment, participating in marches and teach-ins and celebrating Palestinian art and culture, C said she found solidarity, community, and a sense of belonging she had not otherwise experienced at Princeton. 

A member of the Class of 2027, she had felt particularly let down by the University’s response to the deaths by suicide of two classmates in the fall, tragedies that significantly disrupted any sense of “normal” in her first year. Then the war started, and it became difficult to focus on her classes and engage in campus life. It was hard to attend lighthearted events or spend a Friday night at an eating club, she wrote, knowing that in Gaza, people were dying by the thousands.

When she joined the protest, she felt “for once I have some power in how this disruption affects me, and I found a community that cared authentically for each other’s health and well-being.” She noted that University administrators criticized the encampment — which she said “brought about so much good and community” — as a “disruption,” after responding to the “disruption” of student deaths with “abysmal support.”

She wrote that people in the encampment agreed that Jewish students deserve to feel safe on campus, but she noted the same concern was rarely extended to Muslim students. In C’s view, it was frustrating to see classmates who won’t educate themselves on Gaza criticize the encampment. 

“What would help the collective mental health of our community,” she said in an email to PAW, “is for both the administration and those who oppose the protests to take to heart these values of genuine listening by actually engaging in dialogue with us, not just standing near our protests or sending one-sided broadcasted messages.”

I cannot help thinking about the scholarly resources (human, paper, electronic) across campus that could elevate such dialogues around history, ethics, geopolitics, religion, and more if there could be more exchange.

As an undergraduate, Seth Walensky ’22 was vice president of Hillel. After he graduated, he worked in Tel Aviv, and spent time at Kibbutz Urim, which was attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7. As president of the Maimonides Jewish Medical Student Society at Penn, Seth has continued to act upon his deeply felt connection to Israel and desire to build bridges. He hosted a survivor of the Nova Music Festival attack this fall, and is organizing a Medical Arabic elective that will be offered next semester at Penn. He is trying to use his voice to reach beyond his own Jewish community.

Walensky’s perspective is that the blurry lines between critique of government and antisemitism are not new. He said that during the BDS referendum in 2022, the Princeton campus community failed to use a moment of protest to deepen understanding. He believes “a selective focus on Gaza is a missed opportunity. If you want to increase humanitarian interest about all the crises in the world — Venezuela, Congo, Sudan, Gaza, natural disasters — that would be meaningful,” but Walensky says he has not seen calls for dialogue met at either Penn or Princeton so far. He is pleased by Penn’s faculty partnerships with Israel, “because these are the kinds of exchanges higher education is meant to foster.”

As a Jewish student, Walensky said he has minimized the mental health impact of the war for himself by limiting the time he spends down Instagram rabbit holes. The medical Arabic class he is putting together is one tangible example, he said, of his commitment to meaningful ways forward. He doesn’t unfriend everyone he disagrees with, but he places his phone far enough away that social media isn’t the first or last thing he looks at each day. “This has been going on for thousands of years,” he said. “Campuses could divest and this would still be going on.” He said that a campus encampment has limited tangible benefit to Palestinian people, and he hoped students might instead ask, “What can we actually learn and what can I do?” 

C and Walensky reflect different perspectives. Calvin Chin, director of Counseling and Psychological Services, said counselors also heard from students who felt caught in the middle. “They respected their friends who were protesting,” he said, “but felt uncertain about expressing even minor disagreements. They worried about sharing their less extreme or absolute feelings and opinions; i.e. if they didn’t fully align with the protest’s stance or [had] nuanced perspectives, they feared being ostracized.” 

By the time students return to Princeton this fall, I hope the hostages will be home and there will be concrete progress toward sustained peace between Israel and Palestine, and for the safety and well-being of all who are in danger. Maybe in the days and years ahead, students, faculty and staff will find new ways to ask hard questions, and speak and listen to one another, in all the ways universities are meant to welcome.

Jess Deutsch ’91, EdM, LSW is an education adviser in Princeton, N.J. Her career and current practice focus on promoting well-being in the pursuit of higher education.