On college campuses across America, Student Unions sit empty, club sizes shrink, and messages between friends remain unsent. The number of young people actively dating or seeking a partnership–romantic or otherwise–declines more with every passing year. Students spend their days speaking less to their peers, having a harder time building friendships, and spending more time than ever at home.

This isolation is no exaggeration. It’s a reality for many across the country, and Southwestern University’s students are feeling it more with every semester.

The U.S. Surgeon General reported in 2023 that America is in a full-blown isolation and loneliness epidemic, with one in three adults self-reporting chronic loneliness, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the 19^th and 21^st U.S. Surgeon General, wrote that loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling:“[Loneliness] is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.”

In a small community like Southwestern, the effects of social isolation are felt by almost everyone at some point in their time at school. A summary of findings from 2020 at the height of the COVID pandemic reported that 64% of Southwestern students screened positively for chronic loneliness–almost 14% higher than the national average. Although these numbers are to be expected in the COVID-era, informal polling since then has seen little change to these figures. If you don’t believe the numbers, all you need to do is ask around. Countless students from all departments report feeling alone for more days than not.

“It felt like you were invisible,” James Cosman, class of ’26, said. “It’s different being out of state; you have ways of coping with loneliness, because you can’t just go home. While you’re on campus, everyone talks about how the community’s very great, very helpful, but you don’t see that happening.”

To address these issues, I went to the Southwestern Counseling Center to talk to Jason Bonick, the Director of Counseling and Health Services. Bonick has been counseling at Southwestern University for 16 years, with a background in counseling students at other colleges before that . He had a lot to say about loneliness on campus and the role that counseling plays in helping to support the students affected, adding that in his experience, the loneliness crisis on campus is pervasive.

“While I’ve only worked in private schools, I talk to my peers at the A&M’s and the UT’s and the big state schools around the country, and they share the same issue,” he said, adding that larger schools have an advantage in preventing loneliness due to their size and especially their greater access to “third spaces”, places that a person can visit or spend time in that aren’t their home, work, or classroom.

“UT has their Student Union, where you can sit and play pool; we have the Cove, which is our only iteration of that. Is it as welcoming; does it create that space? I don’t know that I would ever encourage a student, if they’re lonely, to just go hang out in the Cove on a Tuesday night and you’re going to find some people. I don’t know if that’s true.”

Talk about the loss of welcoming third spaces on campus has been prevalent among students and even faculty ever since the Cove’s redesign in 2023 and especially in the wake of the Mood-Bridwell renovations. The decision to renovate student spaces without much student input has given rise to a range of opinions and consequences for student life at Southwestern. You can read The Megaphone’s article about it here.

But Bonick speculated that the reasons for the rise in loneliness on campus could run deeper than that. Many different factors – in the United States, among young people, and on campus – have roles to play in shaping how we socialize.

“What is it that we’ve done to kids over the course of the last twenty years that doesn’t encourage [socializing]?” Bonick asked while he listed off all of the reasons for this alienation mentioned in his field in the past. “Is it the internet? Is it the fact that the freshmen here–and everyone here–were hit really hard by COVID?”

Bonick also described the changes he’d seen over his sixteen-year tenure. The loss of spaces like the Koruva Milk Bar plays a role in how students connect, but also the role that Southwestern University should play in encouraging the growth of student life, instead of letting it slip off-campus.

He specifically mentioned: “When I started here, APO was the largest student organization on campus, and they would do these big philanthropy events that drew hundreds of people. The only thing we have that touches that many students is Chunch, which is off-campus, and is adjacent to us.”

To cap it off, Bonick ended with some advice for students who may have struggled with chronic loneliness and involvement on campus.

“Give yourself grace and patience. We hear often ‘I’m too late, I can’t get headway into that group, and I feel super awkward and uncomfortable’. I think we have to say–try it anyway. You’re going to be uncomfortable but try it anyway. Give yourself the grace and the patience to venture outside your comfort zone and try and then learn from it. See each failure or hiccup as an opportunity to learn and grow.”

Whether or not Southwestern has been successful in providing a place where a student can embrace the most fulfilling version of themselves, all students and all people deserve the opportunity to build meaningful connections.With mental health conditions, isolation, and other social issues on the rise in our communities, it’s very easy for anyone to feel as if they’ve fallen through the cracks or missed their chance for happiness.

If you, like many others at Southwestern, struggle to see where you fit into the school’s ever-changing social fabric, take some advice from the people you haven’t met yet who still believe in you. Remember that you are still wanted here, no matter how many times it takes to find the place you can really call yours.If you or someone you know struggles with isolation or loneliness on campus, consider making an appointment with Southwestern’s Counseling Center, which is available for use to all students and fully confidential.