Author: Kwasi Osei-Amankwah

UConn Newswrit­ing Course

March 21, 2024

By: Kwasi Osei-Amankwah

STORRS — There will be a nurs­ing cri­sis in the Unit­ed States by the year 2027, stud­ies say.

This is because nurs­es have been leav­ing their jobs in droves due to burnout, exhaus­tion, and oth­er fac­tors. Since the offi­cial shut­down in March 2020, pro­jec­tions show that the num­ber of nurs­es who have quit will only increase in the next four years. The gov­ern­ment is now inves­ti­gat­ing the impact of the pan­dem­ic on nurs­es’ men­tal health and the fac­tors con­tribut­ing to this cri­sis.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has hit the health­care indus­try hard, and nurs­es have borne the cri­sis. Four years lat­er, as the world is still try­ing to come to terms with the after­math of the pan­dem­ic, it’s becom­ing clear that nurs­es’ men­tal health has tak­en a hit.

Around 100,000 nurs­es have left their jobs dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, lead­ing to a short­age of health­care pro­fes­sion­als and increased pres­sure on those who remained. Over 60% of the sam­ple report­ed an increased work­load dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, and more than half of the nurs­es report­ed feel­ing emo­tion­al­ly drained, fatigued, burned out, or at the end of their rope a few times a week or every day.

Eileen L. Ken­ny, Reg­is­tered Nurse and Nurse Coor­di­na­tor at Stu­dent Health and Well­ness at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, who was work­ing at the school at the time, echoed these sta­tis­tics. “The stress lev­el of peo­ple work­ing in hos­pi­tal set­tings was even worse (than you could imag­ine) because they tru­ly did­n’t know what they were deal­ing with and could get peo­ple that they cared about sick.”

Renée M. Con­stant, Reg­is­tered Nurse and Nurse Coor­di­na­tor at Stu­dent Health and Well­ness at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, who worked at a hos­pi­tal dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, had thoughts sim­i­lar to Ken­ny’s. “Every nurse has their own expe­ri­ence, but I felt I was the go-to in a health care set­ting. Then I went home, and I’m the go-to for my friends and fam­i­ly who know I’m a nurse. It’s almost like you could­n’t escape it. It was all day, every day.”

Experts have warned of nurs­ing short­ages in the U.S. for decades due to an aging work­force and issues such as burnout and stress caused by high patient-to-nurse ratios, low pay, and work­place safe­ty con­cerns. This has led to many walk­outs, strikes, and oth­er protests.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has accel­er­at­ed these issues, lead­ing to unprece­dent­ed burnout among nurs­es. This report uses data to iden­ti­fy poten­tial indi­ca­tors of stress and burnout among the cur­rent nurs­ing work­force, which can help pol­i­cy­mak­ers devel­op tar­get­ed solu­tions and allo­cate resources effec­tive­ly.

Accord­ing to the Nation­al Library of Med­i­cine, the psy­cho­log­i­cal term for burnout can be defined as a ” psy­cho­log­i­cal syn­drome emerg­ing as a pro­longed response to chron­ic inter­per­son­al stres­sors on the job. The three key dimen­sions of this response are an over­whelm­ing exhaus­tion, cyn­i­cism, detach­ment from the job, and a sense of inef­fec­tive­ness and lack of accom­plish­ment.” And while it is easy for most to think back to the pan­dem­ic and remem­ber that it would nev­er end, that feel­ing was dou­bled for front-line work­ers.

Con­stant and Ken­ny shared that this made sense to them as they’ve wit­nessed peo­ple leave their jobs or retire ear­ly due to the pan­dem­ic. “I know from what my daugh­ter had said, who had been a nurse for a cou­ple years (at the time), she saw many new nurs­es come in and said to me, ‘I don’t think that they’re gonna stay for very long.” Ken­ny said, “To be brand new, even try­ing to learn stuff and not being taught nor­mal things because every­thing you have to learn now is COVID-19.”

Con­stant talked about the peo­ple on the old­er side, say­ing, “I think you have the oth­er extreme too where old­er nurs­es in hos­pi­tal set­tings that have been there for a long time have basi­cal­ly said ‘I can’t do this any­more, maybe I was gonna work a few more years, but this is what’s gonna push me out the door.’ ”

The sit­u­a­tion is expect­ed to wors­en in the com­ing years. By 2027, almost one-fifth of the nurs­ing work­force, near­ly 900,000 reg­is­tered nurs­es, plan to leave their jobs due to stress, burnout, or retire­ment. This mass exo­dus pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant threat to the nation­al health­care sys­tem, cre­at­ing an urgent need for imme­di­ate solu­tions. The main ques­tion is, how do we keep nurs­es at their jobs and encour­age them to push through any poten­tial issues?

Accord­ing to Ken­ny, “What (hos­pi­tals) are doing more now than they used to is giv­ing sup­port to new­er nurs­es; they have some pro­grams where nurs­es get a peri­od like ori­en­ta­tion and give them time to talk and debrief, which is prob­a­bly not enough. But rather than just assum­ing, ‘Oh, nurs­ing is stress­ful, so you’re going to be stressed,’ instead say­ing, ‘Okay, this par­tic­u­lar time is more stress­ful than usu­al.”

For Con­stant, the one thing that got her through COVID-19 was “the col­lab­o­ra­tion with our peers, talk­ing, and being with one anoth­er. I feel that (UConn) is very dif­fer­ent from a hos­pi­tal set­ting. We’re an excel­lent group, and we worked well togeth­er (at the time). Where­as in a hos­pi­tal set­ting, I don’t know if you have that. You need more men­tor­ship; you need some­body to talk to, to grieve with.”

In August 2023, the Biden and Har­ris admin­is­tra­tion passed a $100 mil­lion bill to train more nurs­es and grow the nurs­ing work­force. Accord­ing to the U.S. Depart­ment of Health, These invest­ments will “address the increas­ing demand for reg­is­tered nurs­es, nurse prac­ti­tion­ers, cer­ti­fied nurse mid­wives, and nurse fac­ul­ty.”

For Ken­ny, more needs to be done: “We need more lead­er­ship (in hos­pi­tals). We need some­thing like, ‘Oh, it’s been tough the last few weeks. Can we give you piz­za or an extra half hour so you guys can meet and vent or some­thing?’ You just don’t want to go home and vent about it and bring it to your fam­i­ly; every­one is stressed.”

“Exact­ly; just because we’re nurs­es and we see these things often does­n’t mean we’re super­hu­man,” Con­stant said

By Kwasi Osei-Amankwah

Feb 9 2024

GREAT NECK — New York’s 3rd con­gres­sion­al dis­trict will hold a spe­cial elec­tion after Con­gress removed its rep­re­sen­ta­tive, George San­tos, due to evi­dence of fraud and libel.

Elec­tions in the dis­trict usu­al­ly hap­pen in Novem­ber, like most oth­er elec­tions. But New York’s third con­gres­sion­al dis­trict recent­ly saw a his­toric event when Con­gress vot­ed 311–114 to expel Rep. San­tos. 

This will lead to an emer­gency elec­tion on Feb 13 to fill the vacant seat. This is the first time a mem­ber of Con­gress has been oust­ed from the House with­out a pri­or con­vic­tion since the after­math of the Civ­il War. Some mem­bers who vot­ed to keep San­tos argued that his expul­sion could set a bad prece­dent for future Amer­i­can pol­i­tics.

The Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Jus­tice revealed that San­tos had applied for and received unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits while he was employed and run­ning for Con­gress dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. 

It was also dis­cov­ered that he had used cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions to pay off per­son­al debts and buy design­er cloth­ing. The North Shore Leader, a Long Island news­pa­per, first report­ed this, but the pub­lish­er, Grant Lal­ly, was not avail­able for com­ment.

The out­come of the upcom­ing elec­tion will have a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the 3rd con­gres­sion­al dis­trict of New York and the entire nation, espe­cial­ly with the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion approach­ing. 

Democ­rats have called for the nom­i­na­tion of Tom Suozzi, the for­mer dis­trict rep­re­sen­ta­tive, to run for re-elec­tion after los­ing to San­tos. Mean­while, the Repub­li­cans have nom­i­nat­ed Mazi Pilip, a reg­is­tered Demo­c­rat, as their can­di­date.

Jef­frey Ladewig, a polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, described this event as “his­tor­i­cal.” When asked if Con­gress’ deci­sion was jus­ti­fied, he empha­sized the unques­tion­able pow­er wield­ed by Con­gress and backed their deci­sion, say­ing, “In essence, what does ‘jus­ti­fied’ mean? It was up to Con­gress to estab­lish their cri­te­ria. They have the author­i­ty to remove some­one they deemed need­ed to be removed.” 

This removal from office before a crim­i­nal con­vic­tion sets a unique prece­dent, rais­ing ques­tions about the cri­te­ria Con­gress employs in such deci­sions and how the San­tos case will affect future gov­ern­ment mem­bers.

Ladewig also com­ment­ed on San­tos’ elec­tion despite fac­ing fraud accu­sa­tions, high­light­ing the impor­tance of jour­nal­ists in deliv­er­ing accu­rate infor­ma­tion to the pub­lic to avoid such sit­u­a­tions. He also men­tioned the rise of polit­i­cal per­son­al­i­ties as a rea­son for San­tos’ elec­tion and empha­sized the respon­si­bil­i­ty of vot­ers to research and elect offi­cials who rep­re­sent them.

The cit­i­zens of the 3rd con­gres­sion­al dis­trict must reassess their ini­tial choice and choose a new rep­re­sen­ta­tive, an unprece­dent­ed sit­u­a­tion trig­gered by extra­or­di­nary cir­cum­stances. Despite the uncon­ven­tion­al tim­ing of the elec­tion in the mid­dle of win­ter, res­i­dents, includ­ing col­lege stu­dents, must remain vig­i­lant and well-informed as they pre­pare to cast their votes.

The cit­i­zens of the 3rd con­gres­sion­al dis­trict, known for its award-win­ning school dis­tricts and being a com­muter town near New York City, must choose a rep­re­sen­ta­tive who aligns with their val­ues, aspi­ra­tions, and ethics. While the dis­trict has his­tor­i­cal­ly swung both ways, Tom Suozzi is cur­rent­ly lead­ing the polls as the favorite to retake his seat in the House, with only a 4‑point lead over Pilip.

By Kwasi Osei-Amankwah

April 9 2024

STORRS — Where do uni­ver­si­ty fees go? 

Alli­son Wall, a junior at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut and a nat­ur­al resources and envi­ron­ment major, is one of many stu­dents grap­pling with the esca­lat­ing cost of high­er edu­ca­tion. As a state that ranks 46th in afford­abil­i­ty nation­wide, Con­necti­cut pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial chal­lenge for stu­dents like Wall, striv­ing to achieve their aca­d­e­m­ic ambi­tions. 

Wall said she works two jobs sev­en days a week to sup­port her­self and is keen to under­stand how her tuition fees are dis­trib­uted. She wants to ensure that her invest­ment in her edu­ca­tion is being uti­lized effec­tive­ly and hopes for greater trans­paren­cy in the allo­ca­tion of her tuition dol­lars. Like many stu­dents, Wall works often to finance her edu­ca­tion and wants to ensure that her efforts trans­late into the best out­come. She wants to know where her mon­ey is going.

“I do not even know what a uni­ver­si­ty fee is,” said Wall.

Can stu­dents locate the loca­tions of their stu­dent fee pay­ments? 

Wall jug­gles two jobs every day of the week to sup­port her­self. Despite her demand­ing sched­ule, she main­tains good grades and strives to make the most of her col­lege expe­ri­ence. Her com­mit­ment to her edu­ca­tion is evi­dent in her work eth­ic.

Like many stu­dents, Wall does not use the uni­ver­si­ty recre­ation cen­ter. Instead, she prefers to work out on her own time, when it is con­ve­nient for her. How­ev­er, when she received her fee bill for the upcom­ing semes­ter, she was sur­prised to see a $250 charge for the uni­ver­si­ty recre­ation cen­ter. 

“I have no idea where all this mon­ey is going. I do not even go to the rec cen­ter!” Wall exclaimed, con­fused. 

Feel­ing dis­heart­ened by the cost of her edu­ca­tion, Wall is try­ing to deci­pher the num­bers on her bill. She can­not com­pre­hend why she is charged for a facil­i­ty she has nev­er used. The fee seems unjust and needs to reflect her actu­al usage of the recre­ation cen­ter, she said. 

Many stu­dents have expressed con­cerns and asked about the spe­cif­ic allo­ca­tion of fees. The uni­ver­si­ty’s stu­dent gov­ern­ment is hold­ing meet­ings to dis­cuss the issue, and the stu­dent body is putting up posters around the cam­pus to dis­play their frus­tra­tion over an accom­pa­ny­ing tuition increase.

Ris­ing tuition and stu­dent debt costs have become press­ing con­cerns for many col­lege stu­dents. For exam­ple, at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, stu­dents like Wall face the finan­cial strain of pur­su­ing their aca­d­e­m­ic aspi­ra­tions.

The most con­fus­ing part of this finan­cial ques­tion is the uni­ver­si­ty fee struc­tures, which leave stu­dents won­der­ing where their tuition dol­lars are allo­cat­ed. Take UConn, for instance; uni­ver­si­ty offi­cials say stu­dent fees con­tribute to essen­tial ser­vices and ini­tia­tives, includ­ing aca­d­e­m­ic pro­grams, cam­pus facil­i­ties, and stu­dent sup­port ser­vices.

How­ev­er, the lack of trans­paren­cy and account­abil­i­ty in fee allo­ca­tion has left many stu­dents dis­il­lu­sioned and dis­em­pow­ered. “The mon­ey prob­a­bly goes to Radenka’s (the school’s pres­i­dent) Fer­rari,” said Katie Tutil­lo, a fresh­man at UConn major­ing in psy­chol­o­gy.

UCon­n’s web­site has a spot that describes the fees and why stu­dents are charged for them. 

[info­gram id=“pie-chart-for-university-fees-1hxj48mp0gj552v?live”]

Under­grad­u­ate fees at UConn total about $2,017 a semes­ter.  The fees charged to stu­dents attend­ing the Storrs or region­al cam­pus­es of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut include sev­er­al manda­to­ry fees. These fees can vary depend­ing on the cam­pus. Still, they include the Gen­er­al Uni­ver­si­ty Fee, the Stu­dent Health and Well­ness Fee, the Stu­dent Recre­ation Cen­ter Fee, the Tran­sit Fee, the Infra­struc­ture Main­te­nance Fee, the Tech­nol­o­gy Fee, and the Activ­i­ty Fee. The total cost of these fees is approx­i­mate­ly $2,017 per semes­ter or $4,034 per year. 

The uni­ver­si­ty requires all stu­dents to pay a Gen­er­al Uni­ver­si­ty Fee. This fee sup­ports pro­grams and ser­vices that are intend­ed to ben­e­fit stu­dents. The Stu­dent Health and Well­ness Fee is also manda­to­ry for Storrs stu­dents. It cov­ers the costs of health ser­vices offered by the uni­ver­si­ty, such as coun­sel­ing and men­tal health, nutri­tion sci­ences, well­ness and pre­ven­tion, wom­en’s health, and pri­ma­ry and urgent care.

The Stu­dent Recre­ation Cen­ter Fee is manda­to­ry for all Storrs-enrolled stu­dents and is used to sup­port the oper­a­tions and con­struc­tion of the Stu­dent Recre­ation Cen­ter. This fee can­not be waived and is not a usage fee. There­fore, stu­dents like Wall, who have nev­er stepped foot inside, still must pay the cost.

The Tran­sit Fee is a required fee for all stu­dents. It sup­ports the cam­pus shut­tle bus ser­vices at Storrs, such as Husky Safe rides, late-night ser­vice, and acces­si­ble van ser­vice. The fee also sup­ports shut­tle bus ser­vices at the region­al cam­pus­es and improves pub­lic tran­sit to and near UConn cam­pus­es through pay­ments made to the CT DOT.

The manda­to­ry Infra­struc­ture Main­te­nance Fee applies to all stu­dents at the uni­ver­si­ty. The fee is uti­lized to sup­port the expens­es asso­ci­at­ed with UConn 2000 projects and the pre­ven­tion and defer­ral of main­te­nance costs relat­ed to uni­ver­si­ty build­ings.

The Tech­nol­o­gy Fee funds var­i­ous IT projects direct­ly ben­e­fit­ing stu­dents. These projects include increased wire­less capac­i­ty, tech­nol­o­gy and media-relat­ed library ser­vices, and access to cer­tain Uni­ver­si­ty-wide soft­ware licens­ing agree­ments. 

The Activ­i­ty Fee varies by cam­pus and sup­ports stu­dent gov­ern­men­tal activ­i­ties. At Storrs, this fee also cov­ers the stu­dent year­book, stu­dent news­pa­per, Stu­dent Union, WHUS radio, and UConn TV fees.

Accord­ing to the uni­ver­si­ty’s fact sheet, this would mean that UConn, which has 32,906 stu­dents, gen­er­ates approx­i­mate­ly $133 mil­lion in fees annu­al­ly.

Micheal E. Enright, UCon­n’s deputy spokesman, said these all help stu­dents dur­ing their years at UConn. “Licens­es with the var­i­ous com­pa­nies, teacher pay, among oth­er things (is there the mon­ey goes to). Every­thing is pub­lic; noth­ing is set in stone. A stu­dent ref­er­en­dum passed the Rec Cen­ter. The 132M sounds rea­son­able; every­thing we pro­vide for stu­dents is not free. All of the mon­ey goes to sup­port our stu­dents. More­over, giv­ing out these fees is our way of being trans­par­ent with the stu­dents. We are mak­ing their expe­ri­ence at UConn bet­ter,” he said. 

“But the expe­ri­ence is not that great,” said Kylie Heath, a fresh­man major­ing in psy­chol­o­gy. They take all that mon­ey from us, and dur­ing the UCon­nic con­cert, they could only get Swae Lee? It does not make sense.” 

Even today, posters all over the uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus show frus­trat­ed stu­dents crit­i­ciz­ing the school for its tuition increase, which, accord­ing to an arti­cle in the Mid­dle­town Press, is increas­ing again as it has every year in the 2010s.

Sam Moore, a senior, agrees with Wall and Heath about want­i­ng trans­paren­cy about where the mon­ey is spent. “I want to see this exact break­down; it does not make sense. I would believe what they say if they showed me their receipts!” she said with a laugh.

Accord­ing to UCon­n’s last bud­get meet­ing, tuition fees are set to increase again in 2025. This news has left many stu­dents and par­ents won­der­ing where the mon­ey goes.

“I just want to know. Aren’t we a part of the same pack?” Wall asked.