UNB Course Helps Entrepreneurs Face Mental Health Challenges
FREDERICTON – A new course at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) is aiming to make entrepreneurs self-aware and equipped to tackle the mental health challenges of running a business.
Entrepreneurial Resilience started in January within the Master of Technology Management and Entrepreneurship Program. It’s the first for-credit mental wellness course in Canada offered in a university entrepreneurial environment.
Topics range from the negative side of resilience, such as burnout, to building a proactive skillset and social engagement. Sleeping and eating well also come up.
“The number one thing that everybody says is ‘If I cheat myself out of one hour sleep I’ll get one more hour of work’ – not factual whatsoever,” program coordinator Rachel Clarke said. “You are not as productive during that hour as you would be if you got that hour of sleep.”
The idea for the course originated when a student approached Clarke in fall 2018, looking for a mindfulness and meditation class. The lack of options at UNB sparked a conversation with Rice Fuller, then head of counselling services, and Matthew MacLean, a mental-health strategist at the university.
The course developed last year with two students as an independent study before the rollout this January. Now, Clarke and MacLean teach a full class together of 15 students.
The issues addressed are widespread among entrepreneurs, who research shows are more likely to experience mental health challenges than the rest of the population – and less likely to seek help. Nearly half of respondents in a study by the Business Development Bank of Canada and the Canadian Mental Health Association said their mental health issues were affecting their ability to function at work.
Entrepreneurial Resilience includes frequent discussions, take-home self-care assignments and readings on mental wellness. Students reflect on their activities in a journal.
MacLean said topics are approached by presenting evidence and scientific research around mental wellness which has proven effective with technically-minded entrepreneurship students.
“They can see this data in front of them, and then these ideas and these values, they become self-evident for them,” he said. “So we throw it out there, we show them the map but they take the journey themselves.”
The mix in the program includes many international students who in addition to intense academics also face the challenge of leaving their communities behind while adapting to a new culture. That changes the conversation.
“You kind of have to frame the questions, pulling in that global perspective, to really make sure that we’re being cognisant of everybody’s background,” Clarke said.
Other Canadian universities offer similar wellness courses across faculties often without credit or as a requirement for students with low GPAs. The innovative approach by UNB is already generating interest as other institutions look to replicate the concept.
MacLean said the movement around mental health has long focused on ending the stigma preventing people from seeking professional help.
“There’s this whole other side of it, which is this resilience piece, this positive psychology, where instead of seeing mental health as […] when something goes wrong, knowing that mental health is a thing that we have every day, every minute, that we need to think about and talk about and we can build those skills, build that health all the time,” he said.
Program director Dhirendra Shukla said the course has just “scratched the surface” and he’d like to see mental wellness offerings expand. He said Entrepreneurial Resilience has created a “phenomenal” sense of community.
“We just see it growing because people will begin to connect and gravitate to the words of the course because it just simply grounds them with tools and resources that will just make them resilient people and be able to manage their lives in a much better way,” Shukla said.