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Emily Hainsworth
Grant Proposal
Be Anxious For Nothing: Coping With Anxiety in Undergraduate Student Culture
Introduction: My interest in this subject came from my own personal experience dealing with
anxiety. When I began college, I experienced minimal social anxiety. However, as my college
career progressed, my social anxiety increased. I didnt realize that what I had was called social
anxiety until several months before I began this project, and even then, I only found out due to a
random occurrence. In a book I was reading, the author discussed her experience with anxiety. I
realized, based on the fact that it took so long for me to learn about social anxiety, that there isnt
much education or awareness surrounding social anxietyor general anxiety, for that matterin
the college environment today. That led me to wonder about what kind of resources are available
for college students who suffer from anxiety or social anxiety.
Research Question: When I began this research project, I knew I wanted to investigate social
anxiety on college campuses. From that point, I broadened my scope from social anxiety to
include all forms of anxiety.

What are the resources available at Marquette University for students with anxiety and
social anxiety?
o What are the resources offered by the Marquette Counseling Center?
o What sort of treatment methods are used for anxiety and social anxiety?
o What more can be done at Marquette?

Key Words: Anxiety, social anxiety, students, college, university, college culture, college
campuses, counseling, higher education, mental health, resources
Audience: There are two major intended audiences for my research project. The first of these is
the Marquette students who suffer from anxiety and social anxiety, and the second is the
administration and faculty at Marquette University, that they might recognize the visibility issues
with anxiety and all other forms of mental illness on campus.
Methods:
Research Design: My research project is a mixed-method qualitative study using a variety of
different data sources, explained below. The variance in the data sources I chose serve to provide
a number of different perspectives on the topic of my project. My personal experience and the
social media sources, for example, provide a students perspective while my interview with the
Counseling Center and the scholarly articles provide a more objective, professional view. The
social media posts also gave me an unfiltered response.
Personal Experience: As I explained earlier, my personal experience with social anxiety is what
led me to pursue this subject. I thought telling my own story with my project might make it more
relatable, so I included my firsthand account of my first panic attack. I also included in this
category my discovery of Grace Helbigs book, which I stumbled across by chance. I used

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Graces testimony as an example of someone seemingly confident and collected that suffers from
anxiety. I pulled several quotes from her book, even using one on my research poster.
Interviews: I conducted two interviews. The first of these was with a friend from high school
who I knew suffers from a panic disorder. The interviewee is a good friend of mine, and I have
witnessed her struggle with anxiety over the yearsit is what led me to realize how serious a
panic disorder can be, even before I was aware of my own struggle. This interview was
conducted over the phone, as the interviewee attends Concordia University. The other interview
was with Dr. Christopher Daood, who is the outreach coordinator at Marquette Universitys
Counseling Center. I interviewed Chris Daood with a colleague, Breanna Klugiewicz. After
completing both interviews, I coded them by topic. These codes are included in the table below,
and the interview scripts can be found in Appendixes A and B.
Personal/Individual Struggles

How Anxiety Interferes with Social Lives

Ways to alleviate anxiety

Awareness/education
Campus Resources

Internal and mental struggles

Physical symptoms associated with anxiety
Emotional or spiritual struggles
How it can affect the university experience
How it makes socializing/making friends
difficult
Coping Methods
Medication
Counseling/Therapy
Self-education
Educating the general public about anxiety
What is being done on campus to help people
with anxiety and other general mental health
issues
How these activities are being advertised

Figure 1: Interview Coding Categories

Social Media and Online Resources: To substitute for field observationsbecause anxiety is a
difficult thing to monitor through observationI looked to the internet. This turned out to be a
good idea, as anxiety has a massive online presence. The first two of my online sources come in
the form of social media: Yik Yak, an anonymous messaging community, and Tumblr, a widelyused blog site. Im an avid user of both outlets, and while perusing them for my own interest, I
noticed a good deal of posts pertaining to anxiety and social anxiety. I took screenshots of my
findings and used them later on as examples of how commonly anxiety and social anxiety are
mentioned online. My next online source involves screenshots of the Counseling Center
webpages for Marquette and other colleges (UW-Madison and Georgetown University), which I
explored because I was curious about how rival schools compared to Marquette in the online
resources they provided for students with anxiety.
Finally, there was a number of smaller searches that I conducted. I typed social anxiety into
google, finding millions of relevant results. I perused hashtags on Instagram, Twitter, and

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Facebook, also finding an unbelievable amount of results. I used these as more examples of
anxietys online presence, even including some statistics on my poster and in my findings.
Relevant Scholarly Articles: Finally, I gathered scholarly data. First, I visited the Raynor Library
archives, looking for possible past mental health awareness campaigns at Marquette or even in
the general Milwaukee area. While I didnt find anything particularly useful in the archives, I did
find several other scholarly articles that fit my topic. In addition to the archives, I utilized the
librarys search engine to find articles pertaining to my topic, and I used these to learn about the
research that has already been conducted about anxiety on college campuses as well as to learn
more about anxiety.
Contribution: This research will be able to help both of my intended audiences in different
ways. It will help students suffering from anxiety and social anxiety by showing them that
theyre not alone and by educating them on the resources that are already available for them at
Marquette University. It will help the administration and faculty by making them aware of the
resources already available while also showing them what can be done to improve the resources
for this faction of students. Finally, it could help professors and other students realize the
seriousness of the issue and understand what their peers are going through.

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Bibliography
Helbig, Grace. "Tips To Manage Your Anxiety." Grace's Guide: The Art of Pretending to Be a
Grown-up. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. Print.
Tol, Wietse A., et al. "World Health Organization Guidelines For Management Of Acute
Stress, PTSD, And Bereavement: Key Challenges On The Road Ahead." Plos
Medicine 11.12 (2014): 1-5. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.
Twenge, Jean M. "College Students And The Web Of Anxiety." Chronicle Of Higher
Education 47.44 (2001): B14.Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.
Watson, David; Friend, Ronald. Measurement of social-evaluative anxiety. Journal of
Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol 33(4), Aug 1969, 448-457.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0027806
Appendix A: Interview with Undergraduate Student Script

Can you tell me the history of your struggle with anxiety?

How did it start?
When did you find out that what you have is a panic disorder?
Are you on medication for it now?
Have you seen one of your schools counselors/therapists about it?
What did the therapist do that worked? What did they do that didnt work?
Do you think it would have helped if you had another student to talk to about your

struggles?
In what ways did your anxiety affect your social life?
Are you aware of attempts your school makes to educate people about anxiety? Does

Carthages Counseling Center reach out to students?

Do you have anything else youd like to add?
Appendix B: Interview with Chris Daood Script

Could you tell us what your job as Outreach Coordinator is like? What are your

responsibilities and what do you do day to day?

When did the Counseling program actually start at Marquette?
About how many people does the center actually serve per year?
Do you think that has increased recently or has it been pretty steady?
How does the center advertise the services for the students?
What kind of programs are there for educating those that dont suffer from mental health

issues?
Is the group therapy program utilized?
What are sessions for a first time incoming student like and how are they different from a
student who is coming in for crisis/walk-in sessions?

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How many counselors do you have working on a given day?

Do you have a lot of people that come in with social anxiety?
What does the Counseling Center do to reduce stigma surrounding mental health issues?
If you could change one area of the program, what would you do?