In thinking about the death and loss of a professional colleague the authors identify with the "tumult of feelings" that Simone Beauvoir notes in speaking of death. They occasion the void of understanding of this loss with a reflection on the nature of friendship. In doing so they align themselves with philosopher, Alexander Nehamas,…

This article focuses on the difficult event of death. The audience for this article is classroom teachers, librarians/media specialists, curriculum developers, and so on. The purpose is to share points to consider when choosing quality picture books focusing on death as well as exemplars to represent these points. These points were concluded as a…

Death and grief are concepts that most people will grapple with at some point throughout their lives. Death became a reality for me on July 2005, when Ryan Terry's father died of cancer. As a grieving high school and later college student, studying the experiences of grieving college students is both personal and professional journey. His…

Death is inevitable and universal, and the corona virus disease has only further intensified a world of uncertainties as a result of frequent accidents, HIV/AIDS, cancer and natural disasters. Bereavement after any death is a potentially disruptive life event with consequences in physical and mental health, relationships and social functioning.…

Sixty percent of students experience the death of a close person at some point in their post-secondary studies. This life stage is characterized by cognitive, academic, social, physical, emotional, and identity-related stressors which together may also intensify grief. Importantly, post-secondary students' unique needs may not be addressed by…

In this article we explore the grieving-through-writing process of two researchers who dialogue about spousal loss. Drawing on the idea that bereavement requires meaning-making, we engage in an interview-style conversation about how: (1) we each made sense of our spouse's death; (2) experienced Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) as described by Calhoun…

In this article, the author discusses how her mother's death uncovers the implications of how people do not deal with grief in higher education, as well as what that means about the work alongside students and each other.

In her work with bereaved children at the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston, Fox (1988) identified four universal tasks that grieving children must complete in order to achieve a grief outcome that is good: "understanding," "grieving," "commemorating," and "going on." In light of the need to support…

Given the legacy of John Bowlby, Attachment theory has often portrayed separation from a caregiver as likely to provoke protest, despair, and ultimately detachment in infants and young children. Indeed, the emotional challenge of separation is built into a key measurement tool of Attachment theory, the Strange Situation. However, James Robertson,…

Many student affairs professionals have experienced grief spanning across their personal and professional lives. As student affairs professionals, they often serve on the "front lines" when bad things happen. These roles are mentally exhausting to take on and can be overwhelming. This article explores two different cases of staff deaths,…

Given the unavoidable prevalence of death in the world, the author writes that she finds it interesting that teachers devote little if any class time to the topic of grief. Teachers often avoid talking about recent losses, cloak death in metaphors and euphemisms, and feel discomfort around grieving students. Yet death still comes to classrooms.…

Recovery is one of the five National Preparedness System mission areas and is a critical component of an education agency's preparedness. In the context of school emergency management planning, recovery refers to the capabilities necessary to assist schools affected by an event or emergency in restoring the learning environment. Recovery is also…

The death of a parent can strike at our very core, rattling our sense of self and raising questions of how we could possibly continue beyond their departure. For the PhD student, parental loss can act as a significant disruption, saddling them with a heavy emotional toll to carry alongside the typical challenges of completing a thesis. Yet,…

Substantive research indicates that 37 to 44% of college students report the death of someone important to them (i.e., family member or close friend) in the prior 2-year period (Cousins, Servaty-Seib, & Lockman, 2017; Cox, Dean, & Kowalski, 2015). Yet, few institutions in the United States offer bereavement leave policies for students that…

This autoethnography investigation used guideposts for whole-hearted living as a means of processing grief as a teacher educator during the COVID-19 pandemic. Life stories were drawn upon to understand the social, cultural, and political dimensions of the mental health crisis facing teachers and students. I conclude by asserting that centering…