April 7, 2008
City Tech’s Schwartz Addresses Crises Among Today’s College Students “Real or imagined dangers stemming from events like the ‘War on Terror’ and recent school and shopping mall shootings have complicated and disrupted the potential of many students at all levels of education.” So says Paul Schwartz, a crisis counselor at New York City College of Technology, where he also is the advisor to the college’s Veterans Program and Student Veterans Club. Schwartz served as a trauma and bereavement counselor in Lower Manhattan and Rockville Center for years following 9/11, as well as in the lower-ninth ward in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Crisis cases have increased 66 percent among colleges, according to statistics compiled by the American College Counselors Association,” notes Schwartz, a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) who also holds a master’s degree in education from Teachers College Columbia University. “These times demand that colleges provide increased services in the area of post-trauma counseling, including interventions that effectively help students with past, unresolved trauma.” The impact of 9/11 at home, ongoing strife and warfare in many parts of the world, and the long-term disruptions and displacements stemming from natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina are examples of the crises taking a discernable toll on today’s youth, he explains. Better interactive techniques and transformed attitudes are needed, Schwartz insists, to assist counselors everywhere in helping students cope with unresolved trauma and the pressures of everyday life. For several years following 9/11, Schwartz used this technique to help evacuees from the World Trade Center recover and heal. He then adapted this technique to successfully help college students move beyond being “frozen” in the past or imprisoned by feelings of guilt and shame from past trauma, and move toward a new sense of personal freedom, purpose and the achievement of academic success. Schwartz will be speaking on Helping Students in the Now Who Have Been Traumatized in the Past, at the City University of New York (CUNY) Regional Student Affairs Conference, to be held on May 2 at the Performing Arts Center at York College in Queens. |
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