UNC grad donates collages to fight freshmen homesickness

Separation anxiety among young children has age-old remedies: a teddy bear to clutch, a warm smile or a pat on the back. 

Or maybe, as Ireland’s National Council for Curriculum Assessment advises in its pamphlet “Identity and Belonging,” photos of mom or dad near bed.

But what about those who’ve left the nest for good — today’s college freshmen?

A Pew Research Center survey in 2010 described millennials as more involved with their parents than previous generations. 

This description correlates with a rise in homesickness among college freshmen, said Jay Cutspec, director of the Health and Counseling Center at UNC-Asheville.

“I’m 53," Cutspec said. "When I was a college student, students would call parents once a week on a payphone in the hallway. Parents were not as involved." 

The involvement encourages a sense of dependency, he said, and may contribute to school retention rates.

The National Center for Education Statistics said 20 percent of freshmen in the U.S. in 2012 didn’t return to college the following year.

UNC graduate and entrepreneur James Oliver’s solution for college homesickness is WeMontage, a company that prints photographic collages for college students and others on reusable fabric wallpaper.

“When you see that, because it’s your art, your photos, your family, your friends, your loved ones, it makes you feel better,” Oliver said.

Oliver learned about the pervasiveness of college homesickness while doing promotional donation research for WeMontage.

“I was shocked to see the statistics around, you know, 95 percent of students that go away to school have some form of homesickness," Oliver said. 

"You have 20 percent who have moderate levels of anxiety and homesickness,” he said, referring to statistics documented by John Burkhardt, professor at the School of Education at the University of Michigan. “And some of it gets so bad they go home."

To combat this, Oliver decided to donate one collage each to 100 randomly selected U.S. college freshmen. Winners will be selected Aug. 24 from among students and parents who upload photos on the WeMontage Facebook page or on Instagram using #WeMontageCollage between July 1 and Aug. 23.

The giveaway might attract students such as Peter Yodzis, who moved near UNC from Charlotte.

“Oh yes, I felt better when I put a photo of my nephew on my wallpaper on my phone,” Yodzis said.

But exceptions abound. During Chapel Hill native Caroline Stanton's all but one semester at Indiana University, she found solace only in calling home.

“I had pictures up of my friends and family, but that didn’t really help very much,” Stanton said.

Holly Hall, a UNC graduate student, said her parents’ voice was also her coping mechanism during childhood trips abroad or at camp.

“I don't imagine being particularly helped by a photo montage, but it's hard to put grown-up me back in those shoes from childhood. I bet it could have been comforting. Or it might just have reminded me of what I was missing,” she said.

Cutspec echoed Hall’s sentiment. He said family photos risked perpetuating some students' homesickness by distracting from the moment.

state@dailytarheel.com