Transcending Adversity: Trauma-Informed Educational Development

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http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/tia.17063888.0039.301 1
Transcending Adversity: Trauma- Informed
Educational Development
Mays Imad
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to reect on the pertinence and utility of
using a trauma- informed lens in educational development. A trauma-
informed approach is a framework grounded in an understanding of and
responsiveness to the impact of trauma. After I describe the primary
source of traumatic stress many faculty members are experiencing, I offer
trauma- informed suggestions for how educational developers can help
mitigate the effects of that stress. Importantly, in order to do this work of
supporting faculty effectively and sustainably, it is critical that educational
developers continue to attend to their own well- being. The overarching
theme of this article is the importance of cultivating empowering relation-
ships to help engage faculty members in supporting and improving the
design and development of inclusive and equitable student learning
experiences.
Keywords: COVID- 19, anxiety, traumatic stress, trauma- informed educa-
tional development
This being human is a guest house.
— Jalāl ad- Dīn Rūmī
When the pandemic struck and it became apparent that schools
needed to go remote, I, like many of you, was playing two roles.
First, as the coordinator of the Teaching and Learning Center at my

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institution, I was supporting faculty with their teaching. While I gen-
erally focus on equitable critical pedagogy and evidence- informed
teaching and learning, I immediately changed course to accommo-
date my faculty’s urgent needs to learn the technologies necessary
to move their courses online amid increasing worry, anxiety, and the
unsettling reality. Second, as a teacher, I tried to support my students
whose lives suddenly turned upside down, not just at school but also
at home and work.
The purpose of this article is to reect on how a trauma- informed
lens can help inform our current and future work as educational devel-
opers. Below, I describe the primary source of traumatic stress many
faculty members are experiencing and offer suggestions for how we,
as educational developers, can help mitigate the effects of that stress.
I use trauma- informed principles to guide my recommendations.
Importantly, I also invite you to consider how you can help support
yourself while doing this work. The overarching theme of this article is
that a calm nervous system can help calm other people’s nervous sys-
tems. And when our nervous system is calm, we are able to engage
socially, be productive, and process new information in order to con-
tinue to learn and grow— and to feel we are living meaningful and
fullled lives.1
Emotional Contagion and Secondary Traumatic Stress
A few years ago, I walked into my physiology class ready to teach. I
greeted the students, and a student in the front row asked me, “How
are you?” I answered that I was ne. The student replied, “No, you’re
not.” And he was right. I was having a tough day. I was surprised that
my student recognized my distress because I had reminded myself to
smile right before I entered the classroom, but clearly, I could not en-
1. This theme— calming the nervous system to connect and learn— is often reinforced
by scholars of trauma- informed education. See, for example, Dr. Lori Desautels’s (2020)
work with K– 12 teachers.

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tirely mask my stress. That encounter with my student is an example
ofemotional contagion— a subconscious automatic neural process in
which affective states are transferred among individuals (Hateld et
al., 1993). Over the years, I have become acutely aware that I can carry
my anxiety or equanimity into the classroom. It is picked up immedi-
ately by many of my students, inuencing their subsequent thoughts
and behaviors. The opposite is also true; we as faculty can be affected
by our students’ emotions.
In the early weeks of the pandemic, I was keenly aware of my stu-
dents’ struggles. Reecting on my own traumatic experiences as an
immigrant from war- torn Iraq, I decided to write a piece for educators,
“Hope Matters,” inviting them to impart optimism to their students
(Imad, 2020a). Shortly after that, I offered a series of webinars on
“Trauma- Informed Teaching & Learning” (Imad, 2020b). Based on the
attendance, it was immediately clear how much faculty across disci-
plines and institutional types were eager to learn about trauma-
informed pedagogy. My decision to write about and present webinars
on trauma- informed teaching and learning was not serendipitous
(Imad, 2020c). In fact, for years, I have struggled to understand why
higher education has not embraced the urgent need to incorporate a
trauma- informed approach to teaching and learning.2If we are honest
with ourselves, we should pause here to recognize that students were
dealing with a host of adversitiesbeforethe pandemic— from a mental
health epidemic to poverty, from drug and alcohol abuse to inequality
and racialized violence (ACHA, 2018; Auerbach et al., 2018; Broton,
2019; Broton et al., 2018; Freudenberg et al., 2019). In the wake of a
pandemic that has served to amplify these inequities and exacerbate
already existing problems, we have become substantially more aware
of students’ trauma and struggles.
During my webinars, it was evident that many faculty members
2. Due to its efcacy, “trauma- informed” approaches have been implemented in many
elds, including K– 12. For example, see Taylor et al.’s 2017 meta- study of over 97,000
K– 12 students, which found that social and emotional practices boost academic success
and reduce emotional distress in the long term. See https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.12864.

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were themselves experiencing trauma and getting stuck in an orbit of
anxiety that was causing them to feel heavy hearted, drained, and
hopeless. After all, faculty members care deeply about students, work
with them closely, hear and witness their stories, and are therefore
often aware of the adversities they are facing. It was only a matter of
time before faculty would become impacted by the traumas their stu-
dents were experiencing. Secondary traumatic stress (STS)3 is a condi-
tion in which a person experiences emotional distress, exhaustion, and
burnout and displays symptoms comparable to post- traumatic stress
disorder without having had a direct traumatic experience (Ludick &
Figley, 2017; Stamm, 1999; Walker, 2019). The pandemic likely caused
many faculty members to experience traumatic stress directly, in addi-
tion to the STS they picked up from their students.
During the summer months, while supporting faculty, one question
I repeatedly asked myself was this: “How can I make the transition for
faculty easier?” I soon recognized that it was importantnot onlyto
address the technical components of teaching online and remotely
but also to be intentional and work just as hard to attempt to acknowl-
edge and address the toxic stress instructors were undergoing. Thus, I
began to employ trauma- informed strategies as part of my work with
faculty. This article will share those trauma- informed educational
development strategies after rst presenting an overview of the basics
of stress and trauma.
Why We Experience Trauma
Every aspect of our physiological state, at its basic level, is concerned
with keeping us alive. Our brain is continually scanning and sampling
its immediate environment, gaining access to fragments of the world
to make predictions related to safety or danger, reward, or punish-
3. Sometimes STS is used interchangeably with vicarious trauma— emotional impact of
exposure that therapists and counselors have from working with trauma that survivors
have endured. For more, see work by Pearlman and Mac Ian (1995).

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ment. In a sense, our brain acts like a sophisticated statistical program
to process data and extrapolate what the greater world outside is like
(Friston, 2010). When the brain encounters any changes in the external
environment, it will ask the question, “What strategy should I select to
protect my overall well- being?” Stress arises when the brain is uncer-
tain about the answer to that question(Peters et al., 2017).
Encountering stress triggers our brain to activate its alarm system,
its ght- or- ight or freeze response, which is an automatic physiologi-
cal reaction to any perceived harmful or threatening situation. We
need this alarm system to register danger and safeguard our future
physical, mental, and social well- being. If what is causing the stress is
not resolved, our alarm system continues to be active, which costs us
energy and taxes us physiologically. Stress that leads the alarm system
to be perpetually active is not typical but “toxic,” or traumatic, stress.
With typical stress, we can replenish our energy with, for instance, a
good night’s sleep. With traumatic stress, we do not easily go back to
our resting state. Leading psychiatrist and researcher Bessel van der
Kolk states that “at the core of traumatic stress is the breakdown in the
capacity to regulate internal states,” such as fear, anger, and anxiety
(2005, p. 403). This means that we continue to spend energy trying to
reach equilibrium or homeostasis— our body’s ability to maintain phys-
iological stability.4
It is crucial to keep in mind that trauma is very much situated in the
individual experience. Trauma could be caused by a single event (e.g.,
a car accident), recurring events accumulated over a generation (e.g.,
poverty), and recurring events accumulated over generations—
intergenerational (e.g., racism) (Blair & Raver, 2016; Lehrner & Yehuda,
2018; Luby et al., 2013; Sangalang & Vang, 2016; Yehuda & Lehrner,
2018). Trauma does not have to be physically violent or overtly abu-
sive; it can be insidious. Being in combat or getting into a car accident
4. To learn more about the neurobiology of trauma, see the chapter titled “Our Brains,
Emotions, and Learning: Eight Principles of Trauma- Informed Teaching for Restorative
Justice” by Mays Imad in the forthcoming book Lessons from the Pandemic: Trauma-
Informed Approaches to College, Crisis, Change, edited by Phyllis Thompson and Jan-
ice Carello.

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is traumatic, as is experiencing daily microaggressions (Nadal, 2018);
in both cases, there is a physiological impact. Sue (2010) reminds us,
“It is clear that racial, gender, and sexual- orientation microaggres-
sions, far from being benign forms of small, trivial, and innocent slights
and insults, represent major stressors for marginalized groups. . ..
Microaggressions have been found to affect the biological, emotional,
cognitive, and behavioral well- being of marginalized groups” (p. 105).
Experiencing traumatic stress impacts our biological resilience—
dened as the ability to recover from the ght- or- ight state and
replenish our energy (Masten, 2001). Trauma results in an exaggerated
and prolonged stress response, which not only is energetically costly
for the body but also removes our agency and generates a sense of
helplessness that prevents us from returning to a healthy baseline
(Hanson, 2018; Levine, 1997, p. 123).5Hence, it is important to not fall
into the fallacy of “just be resilient,” because when we experience
traumatic stress, our neural networks shift and we need an interven-
tion to re- establish equilibrium.6 By intervention, I mean intentionally
using a trauma- informed approach to help individuals feel safe, con-
nected, empowered, inspired, and ready to engage, learn, and thrive.
What Triggers Our Traumatic Stress?
Much of the early research and analysis related to COVID- 19 focused
on the mode of infection and transmission, signs and symptoms, and
effects of the virus on the body. As the deaths and lockdown contin-
ued, public health experts quickly realized that the pandemic’s effect
on mental health may be even more profound (Manjoo, 2020; Sheri-
dan Rains et al., 2021; Vindegaard & Eriksen Benros, 2020). Top stress-
ors from the pandemic typically fall into one of the following three
5. To learn more about this, see work from Luthar et al. (2000), Bonanno et al. (2015),
and Cai et al. (2017).
6. See Dr. Mona Hanna- Attisha’s (2020) article on this topic, “I’m Sick of Asking Children
to Be Resilient.”

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main categories: uncertainty, isolation, and loss of meaning (Banerjee
& Rai, 2020; Rettie & Daniels, 2020; Schnell & Krampe, 2020; Smith &
Lim, 2020; Smith et al., 2020; Tomaszek & Muchacka- Cymerman,
2020). The following is a quick summary of each:
1. Uncertainty: In 2020, we faced a host of massive COVID- 19–
related nancial, physical, and political uncertainties. In my webi-
nars during the summer and fall of 2020, I interacted with hun-
dreds of faculty from across the nation. I often asked them, “What’s
bothering you most about the current situation?” The most consis-
tent and resounding answer I got was “uncertainty.” I was not sur-
prised. Remember, whenever the brain encounters uncertainty, it
initiates a stress response, and when one has a prolonged period
of uncertainty, the continued stress response costs a great amount
of energy. From the mode of teaching to the health and vulnerabil-
ity of their family, loved ones, and themselves, the nancial stabil-
ity of their institutions, and even their own nancial and job secu-
rity, faculty members are experiencing profound and ongoing
uncertainty. And, being a contingent or adjunct instructor, the
largest and most precarious part of the professoriate on most
campuses, amplies this uncertainty.
2. Isolation: We are social creatures— we want to be with others and
be connected— yet we have been profoundly powerless to meet
those needs. Being social is a key part of our evolution, and the
trauma of social isolation is deeply rooted in our brains. Social dis-
tancing also compounds stress for those already at the margins of
isolation, such as people who live alone or people who have lost a
loved one. Isolation contributes to a person’s not being able to
afrm their view of the world— where we derive our meaning— and
that lack of conrmation leads to even more uncertainty. Many
faculty members have been working nonstop for almost a year
now and are exhausted; this combination of being both over-
worked and isolated compounds their traumatic stress.
3. Loss of meaning: The brain tries to make sense of the world

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around it by searching for meaning. Meaning- making gives us a
sense of control and increases our sense of belonging, self- worth,
and personal fulllment. At the same time, it also helps us feel as
if we are a part of something bigger than ourselves. In 2020, most
people’s immediate plans were suddenly upended, and the paths
to their long- term goals were disrupted. This disruption created a
challenge to their sense of meaning— many of us lost the sense of
“why” we do what we do, and the additional absence of social
support exacerbated this loss. The sudden pivot to online instruc-
tion combined with already existing pressures and scrutiny (Mar-
cus, 2016) forced us to question the impact and relevancy of a
post- COVID- 19 higher education.
The combination and interdependence of uncertainty, isolation, and
loss of meaning created by the pandemic impacts every aspect of our
lives— the physical, the emotional, the social, and the existential. In
addition, the sudden lack of routine and physical activities, as well as a
general loss of agency, can cause us to become overwhelmed and even
paralyzed— powerful ingredients for traumatic stress. Many of our col-
leagues faced a prolonged state of stress- inducing alarm activation.
Think about what it is like to live with an alarm in your head that is always
going off warning of danger. For many people, that was their 2020
experience, which profoundly interfered with being present and making
use of the resources they have. Importantly, for many colleagues who
identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, that was their experi-
ence before 2020, and the pandemic has only compounded the racism,
intergenerational traumas, and ongoing oppression they experience
(DeGruy, 2018; Yehuda & Lehrner, 2018; Zambrana, 2018).
Trauma- Sensitive Educational Development
To carry out educational development work through a trauma- sensitive
lens is to recognize that our colleagues, like us, are likely to have ex-

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perienced traumatic stress over the past months, over and above what
they may have been carrying prior to that point. A trauma- informed
approach is a framework that is grounded in an understanding of and
responsiveness to the impact of trauma. The framework is centered on
the reality that there are two preconditions for every human being to
thrive in life: feeling safe and feeling connected (Porges, 2011). As
educational developers, how can we help our colleagues feel safe and
connected? We can foster a sense of safety by reducing uncertainty
and leveraging communication. We can help our colleagues nd
meaning and community by helping them reafrm their purpose and
make intentional connections. Finally, beyond safety and connections,
we must center care and well- being at the core of our practice. The
following are ve principles of trauma- informed educational develop-
ment and strategies to accompany each.
1. Reduce uncertainty to help foster a sense of safety.
a. Help faculty identify what they can control. As stated earlier, when
we are faced with ongoing uncertainty, we feel less autonomous.
We can reduce this stress by nurturing in our faculty a sense of
control. Of course, we cannot cure all their uncertainty, but we can
help faculty focus on what they have control over. Throughout your
interactions with faculty, remind them that although they may not
be able to have control over the conditions in which they must cur-
rently teach, they typically have a great deal of control over their
course design and how they teach. They can still choose their
assignments, day- to- day activities, and how they assess their stu-
dents. For those faculty teaching at institutions where courses are
highly designed, giving faculty a little leeway to inject their own
decisions can help them identify within those structured courses
where they can have autonomy and creativity and reveal their per-
sonality. In addition, give your faculty voice and choice in their own
learning by helping them feel that they are involved in decision-
making on the CTL’s events. For example, consider offering a

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weekly “open” session in which faculty decide what they want to
discuss. A key part of resolving uncertainty is to let the people we
are working with know that we support them and that we have
their backs. One way to support staff and instructors who identify
as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color is to go beyond state-
ments of solidarity and learn about the historical and current strug-
gles they face in academia and what concrete steps you can take
to advocate for their success.7
b. Carefully balance information. The brain needs information to
make sensible predictions about the world. When we are under
the inuence of traumatic stress, we can quickly feel overwhelmed
by (too much) information. It becomes increasingly difcult to
decide where we look for information and what to focus on. As
educational developers, we can lter and share a curated reposi-
tory of information related to teaching, learning, educational
scholarship, and the effective use of educational technology. Make
sure this repository is representative, focused, well indexed, acces-
sible, and easy to navigate.8
c. Balance the uncertainty of the world with predictability. Make sure
you have a clear road map for your semester’s work. Ensure that
your CTL programmatic offerings have a routine to inform faculty
about what’s going to happen each week and month and during the
course of the semester. When you plan out your events, include a
schedule showing when each event will occur and how it relates to
the rhythm of the semester. For example, 2 weeks before the semes-
ter starts, you might offer a workshop about refocusing course goals
and redesigning syllabi; at the beginning of the semester, you might
offer a session on how to create classroom community; mid-
semester, you might run a session on soliciting feedback from stu-
dents, and so on. In addition to publishing your center’s scheduled
events for the semester, create and publish your semester’s “faculty-
7. For example, see Bonner et al. (2015), Joseph et al. (2016), Santamaría and Santama-
ría (2016), and Sue (2015).
8. For more on this, see Sweller (1999).

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to- faculty” informal check- in sessions. Be an anchor. Faculty will be
able to predict that you will be “there” every Tuesday morning, for
instance. When our brains are able to make small predictions suc-
cessfully, it creates a positive reinforcement cycle that helps faculty
feel a sense of control. You can also send weekly reminders or tips
on the same days and time, or send a monthly newsletter that fol-
lows the same format.Although this planning requires more work
for you on the front end, this early effort and structure will also
enhance your level of calm and well- being.
2. Leverage communicationto help forge trust.
a. Communicate regularly. Part of the purpose of our communications
is to (1) validate that these times are tough, (2) reassure our col-
leagues that their work matters, and (3) invite them to join us and
other colleagues in a learning community. When communicating,
keep your message targeted and concise in order to not overwhelm.
b. Remind them that their small actions can make a big difference.
For example, remind your faculty that building relationships with
their students does not have to take years, months, days, or even
hours; we can intimately connect with our students by the way we
smile during a Zoom session, the way we look at a student, or how
we simply reply to an email.
c. Communicate not just the “how” but also the “why.” Be forthright
and transparent in your communication; for example, rather than
just inviting faculty to attend an event, share with them why this
workshop matters to you and why it might matter to instructors
and their students.
3. Reaffirm or re- establish goals to create meaning.
a. Reframe obstacles to reafrm meaning and purpose. The pan-
demic challenged our sense of meaning and purpose in life, creat-
ing existential anxiety— Why does anything matter? One antidote

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to this crisis in personal meaning is to view these challenges as an
opportunity to belong, to connect, and to shift our perspectives to
reframe what’s happening.For example, remind instructors that
their students need them more than ever and this is a time when
one professor can make a huge difference in a student’s life.
b. Help your faculty identify short- term goals that connect to their
long- term “why.” The brain needs a purpose to carry out a planned
action. If our long- term goals have been interrupted, we can sub-
stitute shorter- term goals. For example, at the end of each event
you host, ask your faculty to create a 1- day or 1- week concrete
goal that is achievable. Doing so tells the brain “I can accomplish
things” despite the chaos. Setting and achieving smaller goals
enhances motivation, imparts purpose, and supports self-
condence and, ultimately, long- term goals.
c. Celebrate your faculty’s work by showcasing their achievements.
For example, ask them to share what novel things they are trying
in order to better connect and engage with their students.Invite
faculty to create low- stakes 15- second “infomercials” about their
teaching that they want others to know. These could take the form
of a video, audio recording, or slideshow. Showcase their work
throughout your programming. Doing so allows for humor, playful-
ness, and direct faculty engagement.
4. Make intentional connectionsto cultivate community.
a. Connect faculty to one another. Help faculty cultivate social mind-
fulness by recognizing our interdependence. For example, desig-
nate a portion of your program to help faculty learn about one
another beyond their disciplinary work.
b. Schedule time for group freewriting. Use writing as a bridge to
connect and heal. For example, you can schedule a monthly “mus-
ings” freewriting session in which faculty ponder and share the big
questions that are important to them and record and share their
internal dialogues.

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c. Help faculty recognize and leverage the power of relationships.
Part of your CTL’s program might be establishing a buddy system
in which colleagues can check up on and help each other feel con-
nected to something bigger than themselves. At the end of the
semester, you can invite faculty who participated in that program
to reect on how learning about others’ stories and narratives reaf-
rmed their own stories.
This trauma- informed approach to educational development does
not require us to have any training in social work or clinical psychology;
we are not diagnosing or treating our colleagues. We are revealing our
humanity to our colleagues to show them that we are on their side,
that we have their backs, that we see them, and that they matter. In
doing so, we can help our colleagues move from a disruptive present
to a future in which they are more condent and more hopeful.
Our work during this time of burnout and existential anxiety is nec-
essarily emotional. In our society in general, and in higher education in
particular, we often view emotions as the antithesis of reason. Yet the
role of emotions in the human experience, including learning and heal-
ing, is indispensable (Damasio, 2000). Through our work, we want to
recognize that while we are experiencing a host of negative emotions,
we can still leverage our positive ones. I believe that care and well-
being should be the framing principles of our work as educational
developers. The following are suggestions for how we can achieve this.
5. Center well- being and care.
a. Make “How are you?” central to your gatherings. Begin your work-
shops by asking your faculty, “How are you doing?”or “How are
things going?” For anonymity, consider using a word cloud. Invite
everyone to examine the word cloud and how it relates to their
experience. This icebreaker activity will send four important mes-
sages. The rst is that you care about the faculty’s well- being. Sec-
ond, they are not the only ones experiencing stress or negative

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emotions. Third, while many people are feeling anxious and over-
whelmed, they might also be experiencing positive emotions such
as hope. Fourth, they are part of a larger community undergoing
similar experiences.
b. Provide and normalize mental breaks. Whether you are running a
workshop in person or via Zoom, encourage and give faculty the
option to take breaks. For example, during a Zoom session, when
you open the breakout rooms, designate one room as a “decom-
press room” and invite faculty who do not feel like socializing that
day to join the decompress room and turn their cameras off.9 They
will come back after the breakout portion of your event.If you are
running a longer session, build in short breaks when faculty can
turn off their cameras, stretch, or get fresh air.
c. Intentionally and explicitly engage in positive emotions such as grati-
tude. Unlike “toxic positivity,” which dismisses real concerns, grati-
tude works by acknowledging our concerns and working together to
combat our fears related to change, conict, and failure. For example,
cultivate a culture of gratitude by starting your meeting with inten-
tionally expressing your appreciation for the faculty who are present
with you and other colleagues or by inviting faculty to share three
things they feel grateful for that day in a word cloud or over chat.
I want to underscore that these ve principles are not just about
the current moment. Even before the pandemic, the changing land-
scape of higher education was a source of growing stress for many of
our colleagues, which 2020 only aggravated (Butrymowicz & D’Amato,
2020). To be able to continue to make an impact in a meaningful and
sustainable way, our work as educational developers needs to center
the overall well- being of the people we serve— both faculty and
students.
In order to be effective educational developers, we also need to
center our own well- being and care. Our own work as educational
9. Educational developer Karen Costa (2020) wrote about the trauma of watching one-
self on the screen and why it’s important to offer people choices regarding camera use.

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developers is also rapidly changing and growing and experiencing dif-
ferent kinds of pressures. Using a trauma- informed approach to edu-
cational development, while it may be a current buzzword, is not
merely a passing fad but a necessary enduring change.
Coping Strategies for Educational Developers
Effective educational development, like teaching, recognizes and le-
verages the power of relationships to help faculty and students learn
and thrive. I began this article by discussing the two roles I was playing
when the pandemic hit the United States. There was also a third role
that for too long I had neglected— my relationship to myself and my
own well- being. Just as faculty are giving emotionally to their students,
and it takes a toll on them, educational developers are feeling the
weight of our faculty’s stress in the midst of the chaos. It is critical that
we attend to our relationships with ourselves and develop coping
strategies we can use to ensure our well- being and healing. The fol-
lowing are ten suggestions I offer for you to consider:
1. Center care and well- being. Begin with yourself. For example,
block 15 minutes each day on your calendar to read about healing
trauma or how to cope with stress.10
2. Connect with other educational developers. Join or start a learn-
ing community of educational developers. Ask for help, even if it’s
just “I need to vent” and “looking for a sounding board.”11
3. Reafrm or establish your goals.Our brains are wired for growth.
One way to promote such growth is through self- reection. Remind
yourself that the work you do will impact today and tomorrow and
have a ripple effect on the future of humanity.
10. “Stress- Proof: The Scientic Solution to Protect Your Brain and Body” by Mithu
Storoni (2017, 2019) is an excellent start if you wish to learn about coping with stress.
11. For example, since spring 2020 the POD Small Colleges & Centers Special Interest
Group (SIG) has been hosting weekly drop- in meetings in which educational developers
at smaller institutions are supporting one another.

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To Improve the Academy • Vol. 39, No. 3 • Spring 2021
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4. Keep a gratitude journal.Begin by reecting on how your pres-
ence and existence are signicant and valued by others and the
world.Each week, write three to ve things you are grateful for. At
the end of the semester, enter your entire list into a word cloud
and reect on your gratitude journey.
5. Negotiate with your brain.Part of centering well- being is recog-
nizing when you get triggered and pausing to consider how you
will engage with the situation at hand. One question I learned to
ask myself when I am in a situation that makes me feel constricted
is, “Is this worth my cortisol?”12 For me, I began to see how the
mere act of asking that question was empowering because it
helped me know that I have a choice— to answer yes or no.
6. Treat your brain with accomplishment and creativity. Instead of
making a “to- do” list, consider making a “done” list.13 This will help
ease your anxiety about all the tasks you have yet to get to. If you
have to make a “to- do” list, include values that are important to
you. For example, show kindness, be creative, create connections.
7. Anticipate, don’t expect.We can’t predict everything, but we can
anticipate our reaction. Have a backup plan to help your brain
have the perception of control.For example, if you are going to
facilitate a workshop that involves working groups, have a backup
plan in the event that not many participants show up and you have
to forgo group work.
8. Detach from the outcome. Focus on the process more than what
will happen. The work we do is indispensable, yet it’s not going to
solve all of higher education’s problems or eradicate inequality.
When you don’t get your desired outcomes, remember what the
Persian poet Rumi says: “Keep walking” and “Let the beauty we
love be what we do.”
12. A stressful situation can trigger the stress response, which includes release of the
stress hormone cortisol. Repeated surges of cortisol is associated with both physical and
mental illness.
13. This idea was suggested to me by educational developer Dr. Gloria Niles, Director
of Distance Education & Coordinator, Ofce of Professional Development and Aca-
demic Support at the University of Hawai‘i– West O‘ahu.

Transcending Adversity: Trauma- Informed Educational Development 17
To Improve the Academy • Vol. 39, No. 3 • Spring 2021
Master Pages
9. Don’t take things personally. When conict arises, instead of see-
ing offenses as deliberately aimed at us, it can be helpful to ask
ourselves, “Is this person responding out of stress or desperation,
a momentary lapse in control?” Take for granted that everyone is
struggling.
10. Check up on your friends. Nurture is our nature. We feel better
when we engage in random— or intentional— acts of kind-
ness.Don’t assume others are doing great just because they are
not showing stress. We all cope differently.
As I close, I bring this conversation full circle with a poem by the
13th- century Persian poet Jalāl ad- Dīn Rūmī, called “The Guest
House”:14
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
14. The poem translated by Coleman Barks (1995).

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Be grateful for whatever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
For most of 2020, few actual visitors graced our homes as we learned
to shelter and distance. That dreadful isolation meant that, for many of
us, we received “unexpected guests” to our inner houses. And Rumi
calmly urges us to welcome and entertain them! Why? Because nega-
tive emotions serve as beacons, enabling us to march through our pain
across the bridge of hope so we and others may begin to heal.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Dr. Michael Reder, Director of the Joy Shechtman Mankoff
Center for Teaching & Learning at Connecticut College, for closely
reading this manuscript and making critical suggestions.
Biography
Mays Imad is a neuroscientist and Professor of Pathophysiology and
Biomedical Ethics at Pima Community College, the founding coordina-
tor of the Teaching and Learning Center, and a Gardner Institute Fel-
low. Dr. Imad’s current research focuses on stress, self- awareness, ad-
vocacy, and classroom community and how these relate to cognition,
metacognition, and, ultimately, student learning and success. Through
her teaching and research, she seeks to provide her students with
transformative opportunities that are grounded in the aesthetics of
learning, truth- seeking, justice, and self- realization.

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