The Multicultural Resource Commons collaborated with Counseling & Psychological Services and the Multifaith Chaplaincy & Sustained Dialogue offices to provide a creative processing space for students, faculty, and community members of Oberlin. This past Wednesday at Lewis House, collaborators presented students with a variety of arts and crafts options, international snacks, and a welcoming space for conversation.

Leading this event, Intergroup Dialogue Coordinator AJ Johnson reflected on the importance of holding a trauma-informed space, as well as their approach to allowing peers to support one another.

“There have been so many things happening like legislation … and the wildfires [that] really struck me and made me think, ‘We need a place for people to come together and coexist,’” Johnson said. “Even if you’re not talking about it, being around other people that you know are going through something and being able to offer them that co-regulation feels really important.”

During this event, students created origami cranes with messages of support for one another, made flowers out of pipe cleaners, and colored with a variety of mediums. Unlike traditional forms of therapy and counseling, Johnson emphasized the benefit to processing complicated emotions through creative outlets. In fall 2024, they taught a LEAD course called “MRC’s Weekend of Intergroup Dialogue,” where they deviated from typical assignment formats.

“I’ve always been interested in how to bring different mediums into dialogue,” Johnson said. “Whenever I assigned homework, I gave people the option to submit something as a poem, a little movie, or whatever they wanted to do that wasn’t a paper. I believe … how they want to express their identities comes out in different media more naturally than writing an essay sometimes. It’s been on my mind a lot: what can I do to encourage processing that isn’t just verbal or written? Arts and crafts and having something to do with your hands can be such a good way of processing.”

Multicultural Specialist and Staff Psychologist Maya Akinfosile expanded on the uniqueness of an event that removes the pressure to speak, characteristic to traditional counseling.

“I often feel like we over-program or try to plan things, versus creating the spaces and seeing who shows up,” Akinfosile said. “Letting them be the ones to indicate their needs is more [important] than us trying to anticipate [them]. [It was about] being comforted by the fact that if you’re here, you probably are acknowledging that the world is pretty busy and chaotic. There’s a lot of stuff [happening globally] that could feel very traumatic to different people. Your presence here is acknowledging that that’s real.”

With a higher demand than space available in CAPS, Akinfosile spoke about the importance of building a community of support to regulate mental health outside of scheduled therapy sessions.

“In the average college counseling center, between 12–15 percent of the college campus utilizes it,” Akinfosile said. “Since the first day I’ve worked [at Oberlin], it’s consistently stayed between 30–35 percent. The upside is there’s less stigma, there are more people willing to acknowledge that there’s nothing wrong with talking to somebody and getting support. The challenge of that is that there are only so many of us counselors. You don’t have to do all the personal talk about yourself individually, but by showing up [in less formal and official spaces], you’re establishing community with people — other people — who’ve shown up here.”

Currently home to the Multifaith Chaplaincy and Sustained Dialogue, Lewis House hosts members of and events for Oberlin Buddhist Fellowship, Trans SpiritualiTea, Grief & Loss Support Group, and Barefoot Dialogue. Ella Newcomb, OC ’23, Sustained Dialogue Coordinator and House Manager of Lewis House, shared what makes the location so special for hosting events centered around dialogue and support.

“This house is to me like a house of care,” Newcomb said. “You walk in, it’s always warm. The lighting is always relaxing. It’s the culture that we’ve created here, but that’s already established because it is a home. You don’t necessarily get that when you walk into a sterile office to talk about something that’s really hard. When you walk in here, our dialogue is vulnerability-based, so we want people to feel immediately comfortable. It’s all about making it feel like home.”

Newcomb commented on the significance of coming into spaces that allow the freedom to process emotions without a predetermined structure.

“There are so many opportunities to engage in conversations of global trauma academically at Oberlin or socially with your friends,” Newcomb said. “Oftentimes, the hardest part of trauma is that it can be repetitive and continue to be pervasive in your life, and you can’t get away from it. And so what a wonderful gift to be able to walk into a space and know I’m held. I’m supported by my community, and this is trauma-informed, but I also just get to be me, make a crane, hang out with people I don’t know, and maybe get exposed to opportunities to talk about it more intentionally but know that I don’t have to and I can leave when I want to.”

The intimate setting of Lewis House paired with a general sense of ease and comfort in the informal approach to the event contributed to a non-traditional, successful afternoon of creative processing.

“My hope is by making it more informal, you don’t have to have the pressure to get it,” Johnson said. “All you have to do is say, ‘I’m sorry you’re hurting — me too. How can we support each other in this moment?’ If people say that they resonated with that, that would be great.”