Dr. Lujia Feng, Programme Director, MSc Human Resource Management (International Development), writes about the mental health session & social dinner on Tuesday, 25th November 2025 for students on the course.
As we move toward the end of Semester One, our students have found themselves deep in the familiar whirlwind of the essay-writing period, juggling readings, deadlines, revisions, and the emotional weight that often comes with academic pressure. Add to that the challenge of settling into a new country and a new learning environment, and it’s no surprise that many students have been carrying their stress not just in their minds but in their bodies. Watching this unfold, I felt strongly that what we needed was not another reminder about time management, but a moment to pause, to breathe together, reflect, and reconnect. That was the spirit behind our mental health session and social dinner in the Pendulum Hotel on Tuesday, 25 November 2025, a gentle invitation to step out of the rush and into community.
Starting from the Body: When Stress Is Something We Live
Our lecture session ‘From Pressure to Power: Stress & Burnout Support for Students as Workplace Leaders’, with Rachel Kanarowski, our colleague in the School of Medical Sciences, invited us to think differently about stress. Rachel is a UCLA-trained mindfulness educator, mental health advocate, and organisational development consultant who has spent years supporting staff wellbeing across healthcare, education, and nonprofit organisations. Her approach is refreshingly honest: instead of offering quick tips or familiar ‘self-care’ advice, she began with the body, the place where stress quietly settles long before we speak it out loud. Drawing on a modern framework for navigating stress, Rachel challenged us to notice how pressure shows up physically and emotionally, guiding us through an evidence-based mindfulness exercise and a step-by-step process for creating personalised self-care plans.
One of the most powerful moments came when she asked students to simply write down their current anxieties. It sounds small, but students later told me that this act made their worries feel more manageable, more honest, and somehow less heavy. Her fast-paced and practical session gave students tools they can use now, during the busy essay-writing period, and later in their careers as HR practitioners, when they will help others navigate similar pressures.
What Students and Staff Took Away
Our student representatives, Alicia Reid, Jiarui Wang and Sanjukta Menon, reflected:
‘The session was creative, reflective, and tailored to our experiences. Rachel introduced us to various stress categories that influence us consciously and subconsciously, making the discussion relatable through personal examples. A key insight was understanding that we gain power over our insecurities by identifying and naming them. She guided us through an exercise in which we wrote down our current anxieties and then broke them down step by step, helping us recognise how awareness forms the foundation of emotional management. For us future HR professionals, this offered a meaningful perspective on the personal struggles employees may face and how these can influence workplace performance.’ These insights struck me as thoughtful, honest, and deeply relevant to the people-centred work our students aspire to do in their future careers.
Deputy Programme Director of MSc HRM (ID), Dr. Dereje Regasa captured something essential in his reflection:
‘The evening gave students valuable informal access to the academic team… and the stress management session was timely, practical, and highly relevant. It reminded me that we must equip our students with resilience, not just technical knowledge.’ I appreciated these words. Our field is indeed people-heavy, emotionally layered, and constantly changing. Resilience is not optional.
When a Dinner Becomes More Than a Dinner
After the session, we walked together to the beautifully decorated venue we booked in the Pendulum Hotel, where Christmas lights, shared food, and warm conversations made the space feel softer. Friendlier. More like home. Many students hadn’t had the chance to talk to each other outside class, so the evening felt like a small exhale, a reminder that belonging grows in the smallest interactions.
People sometimes ask what sets our MSc HRM(ID) programme apart. For me, events like this are part of the answer. We don’t treat well-being as an afterthought. We don’t separate academic life from emotional life. We understand that stress, belonging, identity, and community all shape learning as much as any textbook ever could.
For me, as the Programme Director of MSc HRM (ID), the evening was a reminder of why I care so much about this work: because learning is about developing people and transforming us most when we feel connected, seen, and supported.
A Special Thanks — The People Who Made This Happen
Events like this are never the work of one person. They happen because of a generous, supportive network of colleagues who care deeply about our students.
A heartfelt thank-you to Rachel Challinor and Julie Simcock for steering the funding approval and payment processes so smoothly, and to our colleague Francesca Prinzi in the Programme Team for working with the timetabling team to pull together the arrangements for both the session and the dinner. Lorraine A. Brown, the brilliant conference coordinator and colleagues at the Pendulum Hotel, for arranging such a welcoming and beautifully prepared venue. Our guest speaker, Rachel Kanarowski, offered not just a session but a moment of genuine grounding and clarity. Dr. Dereje Regasa, our Deputy Programme Director, for standing beside me and supporting this session and event. Our teaching assistants, Wenkai Xue and Mengjie Xu, whose behind-the-scenes support ensured everything ran smoothly. Two senior colleagues, Prof. Aminu Mamman and Prof. Farhad Hossain, for attending the dinner and offering encouragement to our students; your presence meant a great deal to them and to me. These contributions helped turn an ordinary Tuesday into something memorable.