Episode 609: Pedagogical Wellness and the Conditions for Flourishing with Theresa Duong 

Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today, on episode number 609 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Pedagogical Wellness and the Conditions for Flourishing, with Theresa Duong. 

Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:13]:

Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential. 

Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:22]:

Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonnie Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches, so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. In today’s episode, I’m joined by Theresa Duong to explore the concept of pedagogical wellness, the intersection of teaching, learning, and well-being in higher education. Theresa shares how pedagogical wellness goes beyond classroom strategies to include institutional structures and cultures that shape how both instructors and students can flourish.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:16]:

We discuss wellness as thriving, the art and science of pedagogy, and how small and systemic changes can create more humane and sustainable learning environments. Theresa Duong is a pedagogical wellness specialist at the University of California, Irvine, where she works at the intersection of wellness, pedagogy, and faculty development. Her background with her PhD and other studies in public health and educational research informs her interdisciplinary approach to fostering cultures of care, compassion, and mutual respect in higher education. Theresa Duong, welcome to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Theresa Duong [00:02:01]:

Thank you, Bonnie. Thanks for having me.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:04]:

I am excited to have this conversation with you. It feels so core to who we are as human beings. We’re going to be exploring some really fascinating intersections, but before we do, I want to start with the pieces. So, can we start with wellness? What does it look like when we humans experience wellness, not necessarily a formal definition, but paint this picture for us, whether it’s an example from your lived experience or your observations of your fellow human beings.

Theresa Duong [00:02:36]:

Yeah. Well, one experience that I wanted to talk about was my story of how I even became a researcher and how I got to this PhD. And to me, wellness is really about thriving and flourishing in the work that you’re doing. And it makes me think about my journey a lot because in undergrad, I had no idea what a PhD was. And I just stumbled upon my public health program, and we were able to have some research experiences there, where we, like for me, I was able to join an honors research program. And first of all, I didn’t know what research was until I joined this program, because I had great mentors who kind of pushed me towards it. But I think I never would have gone down this path of becoming a researcher, or having a PhD at all if it weren’t for the instructors and the teachers that I had along the way. So for me, it was about an instructor really seeing a light in me, something that could lead me down a career path, but also see where I could thrive and where I could flourish.

Theresa Duong [00:03:50]:

And so I really felt like that was a time towards the end of my undergraduate career, was where I felt like I experienced wellness because I was both being— I felt like I was myself, authentic, and then I also felt like I was succeeding in the work that I was doing alongside the mentorship that I received. So shout out to all of my mentors during that time. But then that trend kind of continued into my PhD program. I kind of have a unique story in that, I actually never applied to my PhD program, and I applied for a master’s in public health. But because I had these relationships with the instructors, with the professors in the public health department, they actually recommended me for the PhD. So at the time, the program was growing, and so they were trying to get new students in. And so for me, going from an undergrad degree to a PhD within like the span of a year after my undergrad was a big change. So I will say that I personally experienced a lot of challenges just going from the undergrad to the PhD.

Theresa Duong [00:05:00]:

First of all, none of my family members have gone to receive a graduate degree. So that was new to me. My parents still don’t understand what it is nowadays. And so thinking about how, how could I make this transition as kind of like a first-gen graduate student, I felt the unwellness, which was the expectations, the high expectations of research, service, like having to do TA shifts along with having to teach as well. So it was a lot. And so I think experiencing that unwellness, I felt comfortable enough to go and talk to a counselor. And I think that’s kind of where I started to think like, hey, like maybe this journey doesn’t have to be that hard, right? There are other people around who can support me. And on top of that, I had a great mentor who also supported me through the program.

Theresa Duong [00:05:59]:

So I felt like I could thrive in my PhD program, because I had these people who kept pushing me to go and kept pushing me to take care of myself. And that I felt like I was not being trapped in, like, the toxic cycle of academic culture as much as perhaps other people were. And I think maybe that is just a unique experience that I had. So I personally have thought that this teacher-student relationship really can help students either thrive, or not thrive in the work that they’re doing. So I hope that answers the question.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:35]:

Oh, it’s so powerful, as I’m hearing you share these experiences, and thank you for these powerful stories. I’m just thinking about each of these people that came into your life at that time. And I’m just, I’m experiencing this overwhelming sense of you being seen, of you mattering, and then also your, then evolving ability to have such rich self-awareness and then help-seeking behavior, you know, that that was normalized enough for you to be able to do that, which is wonderful things to celebrate in your life. The other thing I find interesting, and maybe this is just because I remember knowing nothing about public health. So we used to go work out at a community center, and this is probably 20, 25 years ago. I remember a young woman who, ironically was from UCI. I think she was in undergraduate. They do/did have undergraduate degrees in public health, correct? So I think I’m remembering correctly, and I think perhaps she was considering that she would be graduating at this,

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:39]:

this is obviously a very faint memory because it was such a long time ago. But the thing that I notice about someone like yourself, who would have studied public health as you’re talking about it, just this ability to zoom in. You’re sharing a story about you and your lived experience and how you were able to navigate that to be able to thrive, to be able to flourish because of that support. And you sort of started hinting at the things where academia is not always as welcoming or able to help people adjust to those things. And it sounds like you were very fortunate in that. Before we go too much deeper, because I’m excited about this zooming in and zooming back out that I know your discipline helps you to be able to have a good mind for, and set of lenses for, let’s first explore one other idea before, again, we get into those intersections, and that is the word “pedagogy”. When I talk to pedagogy, either I talk about it with undergraduates or sometimes if I’m talking about it with our kids or whatever, I’ll typically say it’s a fancy way of talking about teaching because I want to normalize it. Like, it sounds so highfalutin, but it’s actually just a word about teaching. But I’m curious for you, how you might describe it to someone who might not be familiar with the term.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:56]:

And then, is it distinct in your mind? Are teaching and pedagogy two different things, or could the terms be used interchangeably in your mind?

Theresa Duong [00:09:05]:

Yeah, for me, I think pedagogy, the formal definition in my mind, is this art and science of teaching and learning. I think oftentimes, especially at these types of R1 institutions, we focus a lot on the science, but I think for me it’s a lot of the art, right? It’s a lot of practice, and a lot of refining, and reiterating your practice. And to me, teaching and pedagogy, I think there’s those two parts. Like, teaching is the thing that you’re doing, right? So the practice. For me, pedagogy, maybe, maybe the word itself could lend itself a little bit more to the idea of research in different ways. To me, I think they’re not that distinct, although there’s like these two arms, if that makes sense. Like, there’s this art, but there’s also this science. So we practice the art of the science.

Theresa Duong [00:09:58]:

Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking about.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:00]:

So now we get to get to the fascinating— I mean, it’s all fascinating, but the— it’s like, as I’m thinking about it as a researcher, it’s like you have these cleaner things when they exist on their own, but once they start to intersect, I, I can picture in my mind all the ways in which the possibilities really begin to rapidly expand exponentially. So tell us about this intersectional part. What happens when the idea of wellness intersects with pedagogy?

Theresa Duong [00:10:32]:

Yeah, so for us, I think pedagogy and wellness, they live in two kind of separate circles, usually in the literature. But here at UCI, we’re trying to blend these two things together. And I would say that it is a challenge to convince those who perhaps are not used to the idea of bringing wellness into the classroom, and that this can be good, right? A lot of instructors that I think when we you first, you know, brought this position to our campus, and brought this idea to our campus, there was some pushback actually because, not everyone saw the good in it, and people were thinking, wait, isn’t this just hand-holding for students? Are we just setting them up for failure because the real world is not like this? Right. So for me, I think pedagogical wellness is— yes, like, it could seem like we’re just making things easier for students, but really, we’re— all we’re really trying to do is create these conditions that can help our students flourish and thrive within our classrooms while maintaining the rigor of our work, right? So I am always thinking, what are the strategies that we we can, that can use to just create better systems for our classrooms so that students are less stressed and can excel in our classes? And so that’s, that’s kind of a challenge, but I think something that I’ve seen come from this work is that instructors who are already kind of very used to doing this kind of stuff, they’re able to think about new ways that they could incorporate wellness into their classrooms, whether it be like something small for themselves or for their students. So an example that I can give you is, like during one of our sessions with— so I lead something called the Institute for Pedagogical Wellness, and one of the instructors in my, my course, she actually has already kind of started doing some of this, this work, but she, she thought about like a different way, right? And I think a lot of this work is really about what is like a small like tweak that I could do to facilitate the well-being of both myself and for my students. And something that she came up with was providing stickers to students, because she likes to design— she likes to design things. And I think that’s, uh, she was going to give them as like incentives for like answering questions or doing, doing something extra in her class. And it was just kind of like a fun way to cultivate, you know, a positive emotion, which is something that we talk about in our institute, something to foster fun in the classroom.

Theresa Duong [00:13:27]:

And so I think, thinking about this intersection is it’s not just, it’s not like big things that you have to do. It’s like little tiny things that you can think about, whether it be like a dance break in your classroom, which I’ve done before, or a breathing exercise, or you just, know, thinking about the health and well-being of your students. Like, can you offer snacks during your class if you have a small enough class? Like, I’ve brought tangerines to class before. And then thinking about maybe stretches, like body movements. There’s a lot of different things, and course design is also obviously, I think, something that you can build into your class, that can make your class be a well, well-designed course. And thinking about like, how can we create, you know, maybe flexible deadlines for our students, having allowing drops for our students to, if you have multiple quizzes throughout a course, or you just, know, thinking about maybe even adding a wellness day in the middle of a quarter or in the middle of a semester where students perhaps don’t have to come to class, but they have to do something for their wellness. And that also gives you a break as an instructor, and then they have to report on it. So we’ve had instructors who actually have students take that day and then report on what they did, how they felt, and how it will help them succeed the rest of the quarter.

Theresa Duong [00:14:54]:

So little things that we can think about, and I know I gave a lot there, so feel free to steer me in another direction, Bonni.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:15:01]:

No, I love the examples, and I know people are really going to appreciate hearing those. I hope we hear even more. How might we think about separating out what does make it too easy for students, and what actually creates those conditions, maybe, you know, for leisure to help people grow?

Theresa Duong [00:15:21]:

Yes. So the conditions that we create for our students can help us, can help them succeed because we’re removing the barriers, right? So like, for an example, a student who perhaps lost a grandparent or lost somebody, right, in their, their family, but they have to make a decision like whether to attend a funeral or to, go to class and get their points, right? So a condition that I’m thinking about that we can, as instructors, can create is like a flexible attendance policy, right? Where you can miss maybe up to 2 or 3 classes in a quarter, no questions asked. Then that student doesn’t have to email you and then tell you, like, have to disclose to you that they lost somebody, and which is, you know, they’re going through a time of grief, and perhaps they need that particular moment to, to grieve and not go to class. So some of those are types of, I guess, accommodations that I’m thinking about in terms of how you can build flexibility into your course design to help facilitate wellness of the student. But other things I’m also thinking about in terms of, you know, how can we create these conditions, is even for ourselves as instructors. I’ve done some work around interviewing instructors in the— on our campus, just learning about different challenges that they themselves experience. I’ve met some really incredible instructors, who are so dedicated and intentional with the way they teach, but they themselves are like struggling with, with different issues, right? So some, some have disclosed disabilities, like having ADHD or being neurodiverse, right? And so I’m thinking about even for instructors, like, how can we foster the conditions for them to thrive, removing administrative barriers of like having to find a classroom, or having technological challenges, you know, when they’re trying to teach. So thinking about— I think this is going towards the systems-level approach, again, creating conditions for instructors to thrive in the work that they’re doing.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:17:32]:

Those examples that you gave, Theresa, are so powerful, and they’re actually reminding me of the episode when I recently had Karen Costa on, she’s talking about her new book about ADHD. She was talking about her challenges, more at the systemic level, just navigating the system of providing the proper documentation, all the steps that it takes in order to receive accommodations at most of our universities. And she has for herself she’ll always want to make sure and thank the student who might bring her a letter regarding accommodation because you don’t want to shame anyone, but then, she will bring that conversation around to, actually, my whole class is designed to really not— she didn’t say it quite like this, but just not even have this be necessary because everyone has the conditions to thrive, but that if that’s ever not the case for them, that she wants them to come back to her. I just thought it was such a great example. And I so appreciate your empathy that you’re showing to— because this is a system, right? So we’re not just talking about students, we are absolutely talking about our faculty as well. And I’d love to have you share a little bit about what the University of California, Irvine is doing more at the systems level. And while some of us at different universities may not have such an entity, I think it’s really important for us to know that such things exist, but then also to be able to perhaps draw inspiration of what it might look like at a systems level in our unique context. So would you share a bit about some of those more systems-level, systems thinking ways that you’re exploring pedagogical wellness?

Theresa Duong [00:19:08]:

Yes, so at UC Irvine, we are— we have this pedagogical wellness position, but we are also embedded within something called the Okanagan Charter and the Health Promoting University initiative. So this is basically an aspirational I guess, commitment to becoming a campus that is all focused on wellness. And it’s not just the people who are in at the university, but also like the plants and the, the ecosystem of our campus, the birds. And so the idea is that we are working together as a system, not just in the classroom, but also with our sustainability efforts, with our health, healthy campus initiatives, or healthy eating, healthy diet. There’s a lot of different components, but pedagogical wellness is embedded in this idea of the culture of well-being, which is one of the pillars. So we have these 4 pillars, and we are pillar number 4, which is the culture of well-being, and we are trying to work with our partners, right, with all of these efforts. So the the work that I do is very collaborative in that the training programs that I run are really about drawing experts from different places on our campus to be able to share what they know about wellness. And the idea about pedagogical wellness is that it’s interdisciplinary, and we don’t do this work alone.

Theresa Duong [00:20:45]:

I have a background in public health, I don’t know everything about wellbeing. So we have an expert on positive psychology who comes in and talks to us about their work. And then, we also have contemplative pedagogy practices that we incorporate into the work that we’re doing in our Institute for Pedagogical Wellness. We also have a neuroscientist and also, folks who are serving students, like counselors, and those who are also serving faculty and staff as mental health experts as well. So it is really a partnership, and we, we also invite lots of resources on our campus to come in and talk to the instructors, build relationships with instructors. For example, our Basic Needs Center, our DSC, our Disability Center, our CARE office, Career Center, like anything. Every resource I think has some sort of well-being lens that will help our students be well and succeed in their, their time at our institution.

Theresa Duong [00:21:48]:

So it really is this campus-wide effort, and I see my role as really being a bridge to all the great work that’s already being done on our campus. And I think every campus has some sort of version of this. It’s not whether or not it’s maybe just having one partnership with someone from a center, or having even like faculty colleagues who are thinking about wellness. And then I’ll also talk about, you know, a smaller way in you know, which, just I have these large collaborations, but I also have these smaller collaborations with faculty in, within departments. Like I kind of mentioned before, I run the Institute for Pedagogical Wellness, and I think this, this program is, is like my, my baby. And although we have like all these collaborators coming in and out, the core of it is really these instructor partnerships. And currently in the, in the iteration that we just ran recently, we had grad and faculty pairs, faculty-faculty pairs, and grad-grad pairs who are the instructors for our institution. And they go through this training program, and then they work together to form a learning community in their department.

Theresa Duong [00:23:04]:

So these are really just pairs, like two people per department working together to facilitate some kind of pedagogical wellness conversation in their department, whether it be about academic culture, you know, wanting to kind of stop that cycle of toxicity, or having conversations about small tweaks that you could do in your classroom that can involve like breathing exercises or just taking more breaks in the classroom, just fostering ideas with each other. And then they— the idea is that the information is disseminated into their department, so that we can have this larger level change and have these advocates for well-being embedded in these departments. So I think there’s a range of ways in which instructors can be involved in pedagogical wellness work, whether it be in the classroom, you know, in their department, beyond that. But the expectation is really to start with themselves, too. I think, think we haven’t really touched upon that, but a lot of these practices that we recommend are for the instructors to think about, you know, what are some wellness practices that work for me that I would like to incorporate into my classroom so that my students can feel equally well, right? So it’s this, this inter— I think it’s this symbiotic relationship between the instructor and student, but it really starts with what the instructor values, and what the instructor feels like works for them.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:24:30]:

I’m really enjoying how you’re concluding this part of our conversation with just the, it’s almost like, I don’t know, I was gonna give an example that we’ve had a couple of times on the podcast, where people have actually led us through breathing exercises. And I’ve also been a part of my fest in past years, where people have also led breathing exercises there. And so in the, in early January 2026, I was the closing keynote for the Lilly Conference, and I didn’t plan on doing this, but I just led everyone through 3 deep breaths. I mean, I’m not certified as a yoga person or whatever, but it was just kind of like, that’s what I felt like I needed in the moment. It was a very heavy week, and pretty much just pick a week, and it’s gonna be a very heavy week. And I just felt like that’s what I needed and that’s what they needed. And once I guess you kind of get past the, “Gosh, maybe I’m not like certified to be able to lead people to take deep breaths”. It’s kind of like the sort of a ridiculous thing I realize as the words are coming out of my mouth.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:25:33]:

But like it, because that’s the other thing I was thinking about while you were sharing, Theresa, is that sometimes we’ll tell ourselves, oh, we don’t have time. So whether it’s, I’m not good enough or trained enough to take a few deep breaths and lead other people through that, let’s really break that down, because that’s some stinking thinking right there. But then secondarily, I don’t have time. How long does it take you to take 3 deep breaths? And I, again, I don’t mean to oversimplify wellness. That’s very insulting to you and the other researchers who are looking at this. But I also think we could just sit and then do nothing. And so if we can just start with ourselves, I think that’s a wonderful place for us to start. And if we could even start with something as simple, but physiologically, I can tell you, it feels life-altering to me every time I do it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:18]:

I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a wonderful thing. So that’s a wonderful place to start. And for people who might want to go deeper here, I want to mention that, as always, I will have many links in the show notes where you could go discover more about the things that Theresa’s been sharing today. But as we close this part of the conversation, I just wanted to invite Theresa to share about something that would be an even deeper step people might be able to take, and be interested in taking. Tell us about the Pedagogical Wellness Day.

Theresa Duong [00:26:48]:

Yes, so UC Irvine, Division of Teaching Excellence Innovation is planning a Pedagogical Wellness Day on July 31st, 2026. This is a Friday, so we’re inviting folks to come to our campus, and learn more about pedagogical wellness practices, but also, you’ll walk away with a plan for what you can do on your campus given, you know, the context that you’re in. And the goals are really to provide some training, but also provide a collaborative community, where we can start to grow this initiative a little more on other campuses, because we’ve received so much interest. And so we thought maybe we would just convene those who are really interested in this and want to bring it back to their campus, and really start the efforts there. And it really doesn’t have to be like, you have to have a specialist position. It is really about, if you really have just staff who can like part two can integrate some of this stuff into their work, it would would be, it be very, I think would, I it would still be really great and successful. So we are inviting folks to come, and we’ll have the website in the show notes as well.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:28:02]:

All right. This is the time in the show where we each get to share our recommendations. And I have a recommendation, which links to so many recommendations in the past, which is that we should be trying new things. My gosh, when we learn new things, there are so many benefits, but I’ll spare you the lecture because listeners have heard this for years from me. But specifically in this case, I am getting so many benefits from taking an online art class. And it’s one of those things where I can’t quite track down how exactly it got me there. I’m sure some of it’s the advertising, algorithms of Instagram, which seems to know me particularly well, but I, on a whim decided to purchase an online digital art class. The one that I’m going to recommend, I absolutely— I’m loving.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:28:52]:

I’ve already finished one complete class. I am 25% through a second one, and I’m really enjoying the person who has this. It’s the Artmakers Club, the woman’s name is Lisa Bardot. But I’m also going to tell you, I did not go through extensive research to find like ‘Which one is the best?’ And what are the comparisons? I didn’t make any charts or graphs to like, decide. It was just one of those I thought, ‘Hey, that looks like something I would really enjoy.’ And I will tell you, I was not wrong. I am having so much fun. One of the things I particularly like about how she structures her courses is there are progress trackers.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:29:31]:

So for every little piece of art that you complete, you also essentially make a copy of it and place it in a grid type of a progress tracker. So, there’s 4 or 5 that go across and then 4 or 5 that go down. And it’s just so motivating to me to have that ability to, in a snapshot of time, look at how far I’ve been, and then get excited about the new drawings and the new art that I’m going to be able to create. And after I finish this second class— it’s all on Procreate, by the way. Procreate is an iPad app, so I use it with the Apple Pencil. But obviously, you could take this recommendation and customize it more. Maybe you would rather take a watercolor art class, and you could do something that was actually in an analog format. But I’m just, I’m having so much fun.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:30:16]:

I already had purchased the Procreate app years ago, but never really learned it or understood how it worked. I’d always go to a quote-unquote easier app to, you know, whenever I was going to try to do some sketch notes or something at a conference. And so I will tell you, next conference I’m at, I’m going to be all about doing sketch notes in Procreate. I’m learning so much, but also, I’m learning more about who I am. I’m learning more about learning in general, and I’m just having a blast. So I would highly recommend an online art class. The one I’m taking is fabulous, but I’m sure you could probably find one that suits your needs, that might be a different one. So I’m just going to encourage you to get out there, try something in art.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:30:54]:

I’m having a blast, and now I get to pass it over to Theresa for whatever she would like to share.

Theresa Duong [00:30:58]:

That’s awesome, Bonni. I would love to take that class, by the way.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:31:01]:

It’s so good, so much fun.

Theresa Duong [00:31:04]:

Yeah, so I wanted to recommend two things if that’s okay. One thing is, there’s these little stickers I have on my laptop. They’re called Calm Strips, and they’re, they’re like little stickers that where you, you can do like a box breathing exercise, and it helps you like trace, you know, how to do the box breathing exercise when you’re like, you need a moment. And so I can link that. But another thing that I wanted to recommend is an app that I’ve started using again. I actually use this app, it’s called the Forest app. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it’s basically an app, kind of a Pomodoro method app, where it helps you keep track of your, your productivity, but it also helps you grow trees while you’re being productive. So basically you have, you start from like a seed, and then the more that you do, you grow these trees, and you can get, collect different trees and use coins to create like a forest.

Theresa Duong [00:32:00]:

And it’s also fun because you can actually do it with friends, too. And you could link accounts and be friends with others. And then you can see their forest and your forest and see whose forests are like very lush and whose are dying. So if your tree dies, it’s because you like exited your app and did something on your phone. So it helps to stay focused, especially when I’m writing. And I think that’s been really helpful for me. Yeah. So kind of recommending something for wellness, for calm, but also something for productivity.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:32]:

Oh my gosh. Those both sound amazing. I can’t wait to go check them out. And I’m very much looking forward to continuing to explore the work. Thank you so much for what you do, your generosity with which you share. It’s been delightful to get to know you both on and off the air. And I’m hoping to see some people at the Pedagogical Wellness Day. What, that’s just I’m so much looking forward to.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:55]:

It’s already in the calendar. And I’m just— thank you for all of you and your colleagues’ work that you’re putting into planning that event, everything that you do, and the generous spirit that you keep throughout. So thank you so much for being here today.

Theresa Duong [00:33:08]:

Thank you, Bonni. This is great.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:33:13]:

Thanks once again to Theresa Duong for joining me on today’s episode. Today’s episode of Teaching in Higher Ed was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever-talented Andrew Kroeger. Thank you so much for listening to this episode, and if you haven’t yet signed up for the Teaching in Higher Ed weekly update, it’s a great time to head over to teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. You’ll receive the most recent episode’s show notes, but you’ll also receive other things, like discussion questions, and quotes, and other recommendations that go beyond the ones from the episodes. I appreciate you listening, and I’ll see you next time on Teaching in Higher Ed.