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New Group Promotes Mental Health
by Courtney Evans
Active Minds promoter Carla Meador
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With all the focus of Mars Hill College on Open Doors recently, another organization trying to receive recognition by the Student Government Association has gone unnoticed. Nineteen students are hoping to have a chapter of the national organization, Active Minds, on the Mars Hill campus. Led by President Rachelle Brockway, group members presented themselves to SGA on April 7. Voting on their application will be April 14.
Alison Malmon, then a junior at the University of Pennsylvania, founded the group now known as Active Minds in 2001. Malmon started the organization to raise awareness on college campuses about mental health issues after the suicide death of her older brother, Brian, in 2000. Malmon noticed that very few students at the University of Pennsylvania were talking about mental health issues, but the issues affected many.
She decided to change that silence on her campus. Malmon "wanted to combat the stigma of mental illness, encourage students who needed help to seek it early, and prevent future tragedies like the one that took her brother's life." (www.activemindsoncampus.org) Malmon searched for existing groups that provided these things to bring to the University of Pennsylvania, but could not find any. She then created a group that first was known as "Open Minds."
After the first year, Open Minds at the University of Pennsylvania received so much support that it moved onto other campuses. Kate Hard used her first year at Georgetown University, after transferring, to make the University of Pennsylvania program known on her new campus. She started the second chapter of Open Minds at Georgetown in the fall of 2002.
The second chapter had the same energy and support as the University of Pennsylvania chapter. The National Headquarters was established in Washington, DC, in the summer of 2003. This new non-profit organization, and all of the affiliated chapters, was then renamed Active Minds, Inc., to reflect the progressive features of the mental health awareness movement. There are now 18 chapters nationwide and seven more chapters known being developed.
Mars Hill Counselor Jane Carter went to a workshop where Malmon was speaking about all the struggles Brian had gone through. She met and spoke with Malmon and thought it was an organization that should be on the MHC campus. Carter spoke with many students to see if they were interested in starting a chapter.
"The students really took the initiative and have pretty much done everything with it…writing the Constitution, taking it to SGA," Carter said. She also mentioned Assistant Professor of Psychology, Yael Baldwin, who has seen a strong chapter at Duke University and agreed with Carter that Mars Hill should have a chapter.
There are four main things to be accomplished by the Mars Hill chapter. First is to educate students by telling the risks, signs, and symptoms of mental illness. This will be achieved through flyers and brochures "so students unaware that they have a problem will be able to recognize the symptoms and know to go to our counseling center if they want help," says Junior Carla Meador.
The second point is to expose students at Mars Hill to the mentally ill. "They're not just the stereotypes, but people you sit next to every day," Meador says.
Third, Active Minds wants to "work to reduce the stigma that surrounds mental illnesses. People are uncomfortable about talking about it in the open, but the more we talk about it, the more we can reduce that stigma," says Meador. Active Minds also wants to have round table discussions about the diseases that aren't as common and also talk with students about personal experiences.
The number four idea is to plan campus-friendly events. As as an introductory event, members have scheduled a Field Day/Cookout on Reading Day, April 28. Students who donate money to the group can throw a pie in the face of any professor of their choice.
Anyone can join Active Minds. To be an active member, students and faculty or staff must attend three meetings and one event. Meador emphasizes that this group is not just for students. Members especially want to make the group welcoming for incoming freshman and give them information because the first semester away from home is usually the hardest.
Reader Comment from:
Kathy Faw - senior - 4/15/2005, 1:25:11 p.m.
I am the President of the Student Government Organization at the Bon Secours Memorial School of Nursing in Richmond Virginia. Studying about mental illness has really opened my eyes as to treating the patient with holistic care. The students of Bon Secours are aware of the stigma attached to mental illness and strive to care for the patient as a whole human being.
Barbara Hanna - Relative, 4/15/2005, 8:11:59 p.m.
I am Carla Meador's aunt. I am so proud of her interest in this subject. I am not sure just how much Carla remembers about her cousins' mental illness. I wish we had had a "peer group" at the time for our daughter. This is just great.
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