MSHE Alumni Newsletter Winter 2024 | Interview with Kate Schultz
Disclaimer: The views expressed in Kate’s interview are her own and do not necessarily reflect the position of her current or former employers.
MSHE Graduate Assistant Ivana Zelaya Avila (MS’24): To start, can you share an introduction including your career background and your MSHE journey?
Kate Schultz: Sure. I graduated from the MSHE program in 2013. Between my first and second year of the MSHE program, I was lucky to get my “dream first job” in higher ed as a pre-med and pre-health academic advisor in the School of Professional Studies (SPS) at Northwestern. I worked as the advisor for two years and then moved into a program manager role for that program, which involved curriculum development, reading admissions applications, some program assessment, faculty hiring, and faculty development type work. I also started teaching in the pre-med program in 2016.
After two years as program manager, I started my PhD program. Around the same time I was offered a position in the School of Communication as the assistant director for the speech-language pathology professional graduate programs. They were about to launch an online clinical doctorate in speech-language pathology (SLPD), which was a brand new degree in the field, so I was hired to help launch that program and to work with the existing master’s SLP program, too. I was in that role for almost six years. I did a little bit of everything -- admissions, recruitment and marketing, curriculum development, working with faculty, budget work, some student advising, event planning, and program communication. I also taught a few courses in the SLPD program.
In 2022 I wanted a change and started exploring job opportunities in higher ed-adjacent roles in healthcare. In August 2022 I started my current job as Senior Program Manager for AI and Analytics Education at Mayo Clinic in the Center for Digital Health. Our group is building out different education and training programs and educational resources for folks at Mayo Clinic to learn how to use and implement AI within the clinical, research, and education spaces.
I also still teach in the School of Professional Studies in the pre-med/pre-health program, and I am the founding faculty director for a new online B.S in Health Sciences program that is launching at SPS this upcoming fall. I also started adjuncting in an EdD in health professions program at A.T. Still University in 2018 and still teach there as well. And I finally finished my PhD in May 2023.
Ivana: I was going to ask – it sounded like you're kind of pivoting away from higher Ed, but like you said, it's higher ed adjacent because of the roles that you're doing.
Kate: Right. While Mayo Clinic has a medical school and different graduate programs, I'm not based in the “education shield”. I'm working in education within another organization, which is focused more on workforce learning and training opportunities for staff members, rather than building formal academic programs. But, I partner with a lot of the people who do build academic programs to bring AI education to their students and faculty – as an example, I’m part of course development teams for a graduate program at Mayo Clinic, so there's a lot of higher education components to my work, but it’s not traditional academia.
Ivana: Can you tell me a little bit more about your connection related to mental health and wellness? You mentioned that you've worked with students and advising. How have issues regarding mental health shown up in those spaces?
Kate: My dissertation research was on well-being and stress/burnout in graduate health professions students, but I didn't know when I started my PhD program what the focus of my dissertation was going to be. I didn't go in thinking I’d focus on stress management or burnout. I definitely saw stress and well-being as an issue among students that I worked with in various programs, because they are in challenging, stressful programs. But historically there has been a “that’s the way it’s supposed to be” perception in these fields. The programs are supposed to be hard, so it can be viewed as a rite of passage. Initially that was my view, too.
But as I was doing research in my different PhD classes to see what I wanted to dive into, the topic of medical student stress, burnout, and mental health was coming up a lot in the literature as a newer area of research that was starting to get traction. Some of the research looked at how the stress and burnout they dealt with as students impacts them when they are practicing clinicians out in the field. It turns out that if they were stressed and burned out as med students, that carries with them into their careers, which then impacts their patient care and causes a whole host of issues. And, some clinicians are leaving the field because they’re burned out, which makes access to care issues and provider shortages worse. It was just something that was really intriguing to me that I wanted to learn more about.
As I started diving more into the research, I realized there are major gaps in the literature, which is how I landed on that as a dissertation topic. I did a multi-institutional and multidisciplinary study of students from various health professions programs. In the qualitative survey data I collected, students were writing paragraphs in response to the questions I asked. I thought I was going to get a one-sentence response, but I was getting essays. As I was reviewing the data, I thought, “I don’t think students have ever been asked these questions before. I don’t think their programs are talking to them.” I think for a lot of students, this might have been the first time that they were getting any sort of opportunity to formally share their experiences and thoughts about their well-being in their program.
Once I started my dissertation research, I became a lot more passionate about the topic because I was starting to see the widespread effects that it had, including on myself. I had been extremely burned out and basically took a year off from my dissertation work because of it – it was very meta. I was also realizing that there are a lot of systemic issues in both higher education and health professions education -- and in the workforce more broadly -- that need to be changed because of the impacts on mental health for students, staff, clinicians, and faculty.
You can’t log onto social media and not see things about how students – and people in general -- are stressed and burned out and the problems it causes. And I think now we’re at a point where people are talking about it more openly. I regularly have colleagues, students, faculty, and friends talking about what their therapist said to them the other day. Ten years ago, no one would admit to being in therapy, and now everyone is in therapy. The stigma around [therapy] has changed, which is great. And the research is starting to pick up in this space as well, and people are looking to see what impacts stress and burnout have on folks in the long-term.
Ivana: Yeah. It’s so interesting to hear that because I feel like anyone that's trying to pursue a higher degree – it is kind of normalized that like: yeah, college is hard. Yeah, Med school is hard. And so you get pulled into this culture that you're supposed to suffer, like that's part of the process. And so, I think that's why it's not really talked about. But now, like you said, it's true – I feel like being in therapy is kind of cool. I'm also curious how social media has impacted that and using that as a platform to talk about [therapy] and if that came up in your research at all.
Kate: Absolutely. I didn't specifically ask about social media because I was focused on how the programs could support well-being, so I was looking at it from the program’s perspective. But yeah, absolutely. Social media can be great because it allows people to connect with others, feel supported, and express what they're feeling. But at the same time, it also allows things to fester, and stress is definitely contagious.
That's one of the issues that I have seen with students: when you start having competitive stress to prove who’s the most stressed out, it makes things so much worse. A couple years ago on social media there were a lot of viral posts along the lines of “we need to stop the glorification of being busy”, and recognizing that being busy is not a badge of honor or a sign of how important you are. And it’s the same thing with stress – I’ve overheard students in groups trying to constantly “one up” each other to try to seem like they’re the most stressed, as though they have a point to prove – it's not a healthy mindset to have. When I hear that, I suggest that they may need to physically remove themselves from the situation, if they find it makes them more stressed.
I think that that's kind of the issue with social media, too – people can get really amped up on social media and it can be used for good, but it can also be detrimental. Because my pre-med students are inherently very stressed out and have a lot of anxiety about the things that they need to do, I always tell my students, “figure out if social media is helpful or harmful. If you find value in it and it's helping you, if you use it to relieve stress and it doesn't add more stress for you, then great. But if you go on social media and it's stressing you out because you start comparing yourself to all the other pre-med accounts that you follow, and you're worried that you don't have as many volunteer hours as they have, or that they have more publications than you, then don't put yourself in that situation.” They need to figure out what is healthy for them.
Ivana: Yeah I feel like in social media, they create these algorithms. So sometimes you end up being in a space where you don't want to be in, but you're pulled into it that you just you don't even realize that you're consuming this toxic media that's affecting you in your real life.
I wanted to ask you more about in what ways can colleges and universities support mental health awareness and more so create not only just awareness, but actually implement institutional ways that can support students in regards to their mental health?
Kate :The suggestions from my research were specifically for graduate health professions educators, but I think it’s very much transferable because it can apply to higher ed staff, students, faculty, and really anyone more broadly.
The main suggestion from my research study is to genuinely engage with the students to find out what they need, and then build in authentic support rather than performative support. I see a lot of emails and social media posts from various universities and programs with a flyer for a “well-being workshop” that they offer once or twice a semester. The students in my study basically felt their programs were doing that to check a box to be able to say “we care about well-being because we offered a workshop” without making an effort to truly make the experience better. The perception from students is that it’s just a Band-Aid – it’s treating the symptoms, not the problem. No one has ever meditated their way out of burnout. Students often said that the program’s structure and culture were the real issues and not something a yoga workshop will fix. Even more concerning was that barely half of the students in my study reported that they felt like their programs care about their well-being, despite offering well-being workshops or other well-being programming. And so when you take the student out of that workshop and then put them right back into, for lack of a better word, a toxic environment, nothing’s going to change. All the workshops in the world aren’t going to fix a structure that is actively harming students.
So then it's this question of how do you build a structure that supports well-being? There needs to be some kind of broad systemic change, or change at the individual program level, to be able to support it. I reviewed at a ton of studies about the effectiveness of yoga interventions, meditation, time management workshops, and other interventions, and there's not really much evidence to support any additive intervention as particularly effective when it stands on its own. The students do enjoy having those opportunities, but it’s not enough.
One structural element that the research has shown is effective, particularly in health professions education but perhaps could be valuable in other programs, too, is deemphasizing grades. Changing from letter grades to pass/fail grading, particularly in clinical programs, can be very helpful. As long as the student is competent in their skills and can pass the board exam, that’s what matters. But students will obsess and stress about grades, so changing to pass/fail can mitigate the stress a student feels over worrying about getting an A instead of an A-.
But what is even more effective, according to the research, is increasing the flexibility in the program by streamlining the curriculum to reduce busy work and to free up more time in the day for students, which then lets students have the autonomy and the flexibility to take care of themselves in whatever ways are most effective for the student. That's something that students mentioned repeatedly in my study, too. Students frequently said things like: “yeah, a yoga workshop is great, but what I really need is to be able to have time in my day to go grocery shopping so I can buy healthy food, because I haven’t had time to cook for myself in a month and I’m broke because I’ve ordered takeout every day. And I would like more time in my day so I have time to go to therapy.” Having an extra hour of free time in their school day, or even just in their week, so that they can make a therapy appointment, or go to the gym, or whatever else they need in that moment, can be really valuable for students.
There is this perception that these programs need to be so rigorous, and I think in some cases faculty are assigning work just for the sake of assigning work to make it appear like their classes are hard. But does that actually support the course learning objectives? Program leaders can look at the learning outcomes for the program and look at the courses that are within that program and do some curriculum mapping -- is the course necessary? Are the assignments and learning activities in the course really necessary to support the ultimate learning objectives of the course? And then get rid of the courses or assignments that aren't going to truly impact the student's ability to do whatever it is that they're wanting to do as a result of enrolling in the program or class.
There were also a lot of students in my dissertation study who commented on their programs’ lack of clarity and lack of communication, which caused stress and confusion, particularly in cohort programs where everyone's taking the same things at the same time. Students commented about the stress of faculty assigning major exams or projects all due on the same day or the same week, and/or major projects conflicting with clinical schedules because faculty weren’t talking to each other. Programs should find ways to increase clarity and cohesion -- the students can still take the same number of exams, but instead of multiple exams being confined to one day or one week, coordinate among the faculty to spread it out so that students are able to better learn and retain the information, because that’s the ultimate goal. No one's asking for the program to be easy. And the students - they're smart. They know that it's going to be challenging, but it seems like things are unnecessarily complicated in a lot of programs. I think improving communication among the program so that it's as well-organized as possible is an opportunity to make things better.
And lastly, just asking students about their experiences, listening to them, and then actually implementing their feedback, or acknowledging their feedback, goes a long way. And I would say the same thing for employees in a company, too, when thinking about burnout in the workforce. If you're doing a staff survey, read the responses and take them to heart rather than dismissing them. Every article in the news or on LinkedIn that says a large number of employees want to work 100% remotely, or mostly remotely, is filled with comments, often from leaders, who dismiss it as “no one wants to work anymore.” Don't assume that employees don't want to work because they say that they prefer remote work, and don’t assume that students don’t really want to do the work because they are asking for more time in their day or for an exam to be pushed back a few days. Listen to their feedback and figure out what can reasonably be implemented. A lot of the students in my study said that they felt like they weren't heard by their programs, or their suggestions weren't taken seriously and they were just brushed off because they're students. When you genuinely talk to your students to find out what's going well and what isn't and what their needs are, you can learn a lot. Getting that feedback and then using it effectively to improve the learning experience for the students can positively impact their well-being.
So I think ultimately it really comes down to recognizing that burnout prevention and mental health is not a one-size-fits-all approach. As much as I was so hopeful that my research was going to find that the secret to not being burned out is 2 hours of yoga twice a week for six weeks, it’s not that easy. It takes some trial and error for each person to figure out what works best for them.
But because it differs for each person, it does make it more challenging for programs and institutions to address – there is no quick fix workshop. Being supportive and offering suggestions of things to try (like meditation or yoga) is great, but what is more beneficial is allowing for a little more flexibility in courses or the workday and truly prioritizing well-being through the culture and actions of the program/institution. Asking students (or staff) what they prioritize and what's valuable to them to get their feedback, and then using that feedback to guide any policies or initiatives, is really important.
Ivana: I really do think, with everything that you're saying, if it was actually implemented, could really cause a lot of change and just make mental health issues more normalized, more talked about too, especially in higher ed. Thank you for everything that you're saying.
Another thing that I want to ask you is, so how do you personally aim to reduce your burnout? I know that you've worn a lot of hats. You've done a lot of things. I know that this looks differently for people, but I'm just curious, how does this realistically look for someone?
Kate: I think being in a fully remote environment has personally helped me because of the way that I like to work. We can also flex our time, so I start work an hour earlier each day at 7am instead of 8am, and then I take Thursday afternoons off. I’m a morning person, so I don’t mind starting early, and I like that I can do some “deep work” before other people log on and my daily meetings start. And I love my free afternoon each week. It’s nice to be able to go run errands when it’s not as crowded, or to have an afternoon to do whatever I want to do or need to do in that moment. I know not every office can do that, but I’ve really appreciated that flexibility and support from our leaders.
But to go back to your original question, I think setting and enforcing boundaries is key, regardless of whether you are remote, in-person, or hybrid. In my first job, I had a student who emailed me over the weekend and I wrote back right away. I was an MSHE student at the time and I was working on my lit review when I saw an e-mail from a student come in because my student and staff email accounts were the same address. So, I responded because I wanted to be helpful. But then that same student emailed me the next weekend at like 3pm on Sunday, but I didn't respond. On Monday morning, the student had called the dean at 8am complaining that I didn’t respond to the email that they sent at 3pm on Sunday. My boss pulled me aside and said, “don't ever respond to a student on the weekend, because that’s telling students you're always going to be available. Don't do that to yourself. Be very clear with students that you will only respond to emails when you are working.” That was really good advice, which I listened to for a year or two…but then over time I started responding to all of my students and coworkers all the time. And then I had set that precedent and it just kind of snowballed from there until I was checking and responding to email 24/7.
I’ve gotten much better about it now, but it was a hard habit to break. I work with amazing people who are literally saving lives, but I am not one of those people. That put some things into perspective for me, just in the sense of, “no one is going to die if I respond to your email at 9:30 tomorrow morning instead of 10pm tonight.” I’ve always put pressure on myself to respond right away, because I wanted to be helpful. I felt great every time someone replied to my email with “thanks for your quick response!” But rarely was anything so urgent that waiting an hour, or even a day, to respond would have had a negative impact on the outcome. But, it negatively impacted my own well-being as time went on. And in hindsight, by responding at all hours of the day and night and responding super quickly to every email I received, I probably created stress and anxiety for other people I worked with by creating a heightened, false sense of urgency by sending them an email at 11pm that easily could have waited until 9am the next day.
Ivana: Yeah, like you said, because we have this busy culture, it's like yeah, I have to respond to this e-mail that was sent at 11:00 PM. And it's like, no, nothing drastic will happen. No one will die.
Kate: Yeah. I still leave my email open all day when I'm working to keep an eye on things as they come in, but if I'm working on something, I'm not going to respond to an email right away unless it's flagged as being super urgent. Usually it can wait until my next designated time block for email. And I no longer routinely check email after hours or on weekends. This approach has made a huge difference for my own focus and energy levels because I’m not constantly interrupting myself to respond to an email and I’m not plugged in 24/7 anymore. My brain can really rest.
Breaks are so important, because burnout is easier to prevent than it is to cure. I make sure that I actually get up from my desk throughout the day. I’ll take a morning or afternoon walk around my block as a way to get outside and take a screen break, or I’ll go stretch on my balcony for a few minutes in between meetings. I also don’t let myself eat lunch with my work laptop in front of me – I make myself step away. These are small changes but have a big impact, both on the quality and efficiency of my work, as well as how I feel about my work.
I have also truly started using my PTO days. When I left my previous role, I had three months of vacation that they had to pay out because I never took time off – I don’t like traveling so I never take vacations, and taking PTO to sit around at home or run errands felt silly to me. Even when I did take a day off, I would still check and respond to email throughout the day, so it wasn’t really a day off. I thought it would make it easier on myself when I got back to the office, because I would know what happened while I was out and wouldn’t have as many emails to sort through. And because I’ve always loved my work, I didn’t necessarily mind checking email or doing a little bit of work on a day off. But, that lack of real time away added up over time and then when burnout hit, it hit hard. Now I’m making sure that I am using my PTO and truly taking those days off to step away and spend my time on other things. And I really do come back to work feeling more rested and clear-headed, and the world has yet to end because I didn’t respond to an email on my day off.
Ivana: I loved everything you said.
Kate: I think it’s also important to find something you enjoy and determine how you best decompress, so my advice for anyone struggling with burnout would be to do some self-analysis to figure out what works well for you. There are so many “self-care” trends online that are allegedly “life-changing.” If they work for you, great. But, don't force yourself to do it if it’s not your thing. Personally, I've tried yoga and meditation so many times, but they do not work for me the way that research and the media says they should. What does work for me if I need to feel mindful and relaxed? Playing Animal Crossing. I'll play Animal Crossing and my Fitbit will think that I'm asleep because my heart rate drops so much, but meditation often makes me more anxious.
Once you find what works, embrace it. Some people love watching Netflix, so I'm not going to tell them not to watch Netflix in the evening if that's what they truly enjoy. Just be aware and mindful -- make sure that it's a conscious decision rather than a mindless habit, and that it is actually helping and not contributing to any stress or burnout you might have.
And whatever you do, don’t feel guilty about it afterward. Students in my study frequently said they felt guilty for taking any sort of break, especially to watch TV or play online, because it wasn’t “productive”. But if that’s really what your brain needs in that moment, then run with it. You need breaks from working or studying to be effective when you are working or studying.
Ivana: Thank you. From being like an MSHE student, to working through your various roles, to being a PhD student now helping students, have you seen any progress at all in mental health, institutionally?
Kate : Yes and no. I was so hopeful during the pandemic, because people were having conversations like: “oh, what we've been doing for decades is not working and it's not sustainable. We need to change.” People were talking about trying to find work/life balance, and they were having those conversations about evaluating what is important in our lives.
I think during the pandemic there were some really good conversations about mental health, too. I saw it with my students. I had very open conversations, like “how are you really doing?” I was teaching several classes in the spring and summer of 2020, and sometimes I was like, “you know what? I assigned this paper that’s due next week, and while it’s important, it's not the end-all be-all and you have a lot on your plate. If you want to submit the paper, I will look at it and I will give you feedback. But let's give you more time to do what you need to do to take care of yourself and the other things going on in your life. If you don’t want to do the assignment, it won’t count against you.” Ultimately, my approach was: how can make it a little bit better for students and give them more time to work on the most important assignments to meet the course objectives? I’ve taken that with me into the courses I’ve taught since then, and I’ve made some assignments and readings optional to help give students more time to focus on the projects that are most critical.
But I feel like overall, it’s kind of going back to the way that it was pre-pandemic, or at least I get that sense from the students, staff, and faculty I’ve spoken to at many institutions across the country. On a positive note, I have noticed recently that more people who do respond to emails off hours have a note in the email that says something like “my working hours may not be your working hours, so do not feel pressured to respond to this email right away.” I do think that helps to dial back some of the perceived urgency from emails outside typical work hours.
But I think there’s still a lot more that can be done that would positively impact the well-being of students, staff, and faculty. I’m glad that students still seem to be open about their mental health and stress challenges, even post-pandemic. I hope that because the students are now more vocal that more changes will be made. I hope that the days of “‘Oh well, we offer a stress management workshop during orientation, so that should last you the whole year” are behind us, but I’m not sure that’s the case just yet.
Ivana: How, as faculty, can you draw that line of being flexible and accommodating, but also be stern in the fact that students do have to get this done. There's a standard that needs to be met, too. How can you draw that line as a faculty member?
Kate : That that's a really good question. I’ve taught over 1000 students, and I can't really think of any student that I've had in any of the programs where I’ve taught who I felt was taking advantage. I had a student who had an immediate family member hospitalized -- they emailed me from the ER 2 hours before a paper was due asking if they could have a 24-hour extension. They were super apologetic and sent me photos of them sitting in the ER exam room to prove that they were there. I wrote back and said, “take a 2-week extension if you want. This 2-page reflection paper is not important right now.” And then I said, “Please don't ever email me from the ER when you're with someone who needs you. I appreciate the proactivity, but also, why do you feel that you need to do that? Go be with your family member and email me afterward.”
In the nearly 10 years I've been teaching, I've had probably 7 or 8 emails legitimately come from ERs, as well as from airports on the way to funerals for parents who have passed away, and they’re always so apologetic about asking for extra time. It’s seems like students are afraid to ask for extensions or flexibility because they're worried that they’re going to be seen as a slacker, even if someone is literally dying. My philosophy has always been that occasionally things will happen and life will get in the way. Give me a heads up, if possible, or email me after things are settled. I do have a pretty strict late deadline policy in all the classes that I teach because everything's on the quarter system, which moves so quickly that I don't want them to fall behind. But I've never not given an extension when something happens. Even if someone emails me saying, “I'm just super overwhelmed, work is terrible. I just need a few extra days to catch up on life.” I'm like, “okay, take your time.”
Now, if that is happening every single week, then it becomes a different conversation to ask if the student is truly in that situation, or are they trying to take advantage? It may be a conversation to ask, is this really the right time for the student to be in the class and doing this program? I've had students who have dropped classes partway through because someone in their family was ill and they had to be a caretaker for them. Or they had some sort of medical issue of their own come up, or they changed jobs unexpectedly or had something at work come up and they weren't able to fully commit to the class. That's fine, too. I think giving students permission to do what's best for them in that moment and not always make them feel like they have to power through is critical. Sometimes you do have to power through just to get through it, but if you're finding yourself doing that every single quarter and it's not getting any better, maybe you need to press pause and wait for things to calm down a bit. There’s no shame in that, and it doesn’t mean you’re not a capable student.
Ivana: I've been that student before where I'm in a really intense situation and I'm emailing them in the moment. And then I remember the first time a faculty member said, you don't have to even tell me the details, it's fine. As a student, that makes you realize like, ‘why am I feeling like this?’ It makes you even reflect in that moment, too. So I really appreciate that you have that philosophy with your students. That really does make a difference.
Is there anything else you wanted to mention in this newsletter that you think could be helpful for our alumni?
Kate: There is this phenomenon, particularly in healthcare, of “compassion fatigue”. In healthcare, it’s common because providers are caring for patients all day every day and seeing a lot of really hard moments. After a while, that takes such a toll on them and they literally are exhausted from being compassionate. I think there is an element of that in higher ed, to a lesser extreme. Students are going through a lot. They talk to their advisors, they talk to their faculty and they talk to their program staff about the things that are going on. For staff and faculty, reflect on that and recognize that it can be really exhausting sometimes. You always want to help students -- many of us go into this field because we love working with students and we want to make their lives better. But, at the same time, ask yourself “how is that impacting me?” and give yourself time to figure out how you can cope, build resilience, and take time for yourself to recover when you are going through a particularly stressful time. And recognize that just because a student or someone else may be going through something even more challenging, it doesn’t mean that your own challenges aren’t valid or worthy of your time and attention. You may have had a lot of students who have been dealing with challenging things and they've confided in you, which is great because that shows that they feel comfortable talking to you. But at the same time, make sure that you're then taking care of yourself in whatever way is necessary so that you can prevent compassion fatigue. Stress and burnout are cumulative.
When you are in any sort of helping profession, whether that's healthcare or education or some sort of service field, you can only give so much before you're fully depleted. So, make sure that you're truly helping yourself so that you can then better help others. You need to build up your own reservoir before you can help your students or anyone else.