In a quiet room tucked in the Nideyinàn building, there is a wall of bookshelves organized by categories like “Canada/USA” and “Activism,” and another decorated with graffiti. This space belongs to the Carleton Public Interest Research Group, where students are meeting to discuss political and climate anxiety.
These meetings, called “This is Heavy” sessions, started in late February and are prompting conversations among Carleton community members feeling overwhelmed by the ever-changing, never-ending news cycle. With these talks, Mariam Furré, the CPIRG volunteer and outreach coordinator, said she hopes fellow students can find comfort in the chaos.
“Students are feeling very anxious, I’m feeling anxious — let’s connect,” Furré said. “I feel like that’s what university should be: a place where we talk about heavy things.”
The sessions are casual by design, with no assigned topic of conversation and no restrictions on who is welcome. Discussions can also spark action, such as writing letters to MPs.
“If you graduated, you never went to school, if you go to a different school, you’re welcome here,” Furré said.
The CPIRG is student-led, but some professors are attending the sessions, too.
“We’re all a bit of an experiment on the part of big social media companies, exposing us to this sort of strange flow of real information, credible reports, but also a mixture of terrible distortion, bots, propaganda and disinformation campaigns,” said attendee Kevin Skerrett, a Carleton political economy professor.
For Skerrett, the sessions are a chance to meet new people and learn new perspectives.
“I felt very good about the exchange,” he said. “I actually came away sort of wishing that we had more time to pursue a couple of the subjects that came up.”
“Having a space for people to discuss these issues, and the kind of shared feeling of the collective aspects of them and how we address them, would be a beneficial thing,” he said.
For the sessions to alleviate political anxiety, they must be conversations instead of debates, Vanderhoeven added. He said the fear of being viewed as misinformed or becoming politically ostracized can alienate some from immersing themselves in politics altogether.
“People tend to get a lot of benefit from discussions where they perceive it as people who are similarly ideologically positioned to them,” Vanderhoeven said. “If it’s seen more as a debate where they might be coming into contact with someone who has a different position than them, that can actually heighten people’s feelings of stress.”
Constant access to news can be both informative and destructive, Vanderhoeven said.
“It can make [people] feel more informed on an issue and what they can do about that issue, or it can be something that can also end up becoming incredibly overwhelming.”
At the sessions, Furré said she prioritizes finding a balance between being informed and feeling comfortable – paying careful attention to how topics may be affecting participants. A recent session discussed Doug Ford’s OSAP changes.
“Many students might not be able to go to school next year because of OSAP cuts, many students have lost their ancestral homes in different countries,” Furré said.
Furré said she hopes to bring back the sessions this fall for the 2026-27 school year.
“I want people to feel like you could come, you could feel safe, and you could feel productive.”
Featured image by Madeleine Gordon/the Charlatan
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