NSU Horizons Spring/Summer 2009

29 horizons to six sessions,” Roxanne Bamond, Ph.D., assistant direc- tor of Student Counseling, said. Leonard Gralnik, M.D., Student Counseling’s med- ical director and psychiatrist, is available on-site to see students at modest rates. Fees are usually covered by the students’ insurance. “If not, we find a workable alterna- tive,” Bamond said. “Like in hospital emergency rooms, nobody is refused service.” In 2008, NSU Student Counseling saw a total of 1,400 clients—up from 1,250 the previous year. At any given time, the caseload may run from 250 to 350 students. Shortly before Flemons became director, on-campus students began receiving the support of a counselor who lives and works in the residence halls. The first step in inviting a student into treatment often involves recognizing the need for help. So, the counselor- in-residence continually tunes in to see how students are doing, reaching out to those who might be in need. The counselor-in-residence and the 24/7 crisis line are just two branches of the safety net Flemons’s team maintains for NSU students. Another involves exceptional outreach, including orientations for students in each academic program and workshops to help them adjust to the challenges and opportunities of coming to school, juggling competing demands, and staying centered. One such workshop on stress management, entitled “How to De-Caffeinate Your Life,” makes the point that multitasking is “a myth.” Staffers offer comfort and advice to overwhelmed students who feel that they can meet the demands placed on them only by continuing to push themselves beyond their limits—eschewing essential sleep, rest, and exercise. “There’s no such thing as multitasking,” Flemons insists. “Our brains don’t operate that way. For example, when you drive and carry on a cell phone conversation simultaneously, you are, research suggests, operating with the same effectiveness as you would with a .08 alcohol level. Even a juggler has to let go of one ball to grab onto the next one. Keep adding balls and, sooner or later, the jug- gler will drop one.” Observing the principle of what he calls “sequence-tasking,” Flemons says that we all have more success when we break seem- ingly impossible tasks into digestible, individually do-able bits. “It allows us to get moving again.” Additional outreach sessions are held to teach NSU employees how to recognize the signs of students at risk, what to do to help, and how to access NSU resources. Back when he was teaching full-time in the family therapy program, Flemons put to work his desire to “figure stuff out” by designing and teaching a course on academic writing. This was in response to his graduate students who complained of being frus- trated when the standard undergraduate composition courses they’d taken had left them confused and paralyzed. “If you see confusion as the enemy, you rob yourself of the opportunity to find clarity. And when you think you need to have your ideas all figured out in your head before you write them down, you set the stage for that notorious malady: writer’s block,” Flemons said. Flemons’s advice to his students is to divide writing into two separate tasks—creating and editing. When in “creation mode,” students worry only about getting words down on paper or onto the computer screen. Later, in “edit mode,” thoughts can be refined and connected to other thoughts. In presenting this approach, Flemons recalls author William Zinsser’s maxim that “there is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.” Flemons got so interested in this topic that he wrote a book about it, Writing Between the Lines . His muse has taken him all over the academic landscape, with authorship extending to books on the logic of hypnosis ( Of One Mind ) and the inter- weaving of Gregory Bateson’s ideas with Taoism to create a unique way of conceptualizing and practicing family therapy ( Completing Distinctions ). Flemons said he is motivated not by dry intellectual curiosity, but by the “juicy curiosity” that comes into play when “sizzling collaborative creativity” results in the invention of something wholly new. The wide range of his academic projects, plus his proven ability to orchestrate Student Counseling innovations, leave no doubt that Flemons is very good at figuring stuff out. Adds Brad Williams, Ph.D., dean of student affairs: “Douglas runs Student Counseling with such creativity and sensitivity to student needs that we’ve been really fortunate to have him. People talk about the importance of collaboration, but he really walks the talk.” For more information on NSU Student Counseling, visit www.nova.edu/studentcounseling or call (954) 262-7050 (available 24 hours a day, seven days a week). n Flemons conferring with fellow staff members of NSU Student Counseling