Student groups focus on mental health

On the evening of SEAS first-year Eric Harms’ death, a counselor came to the Engineering Student Council meeting, offering his services to any student who wanted to talk. At ESC’s next meeting, members of student groups Q and Nomads, as well as staff from Columbia Health Services, also presented themselves as allies to whomever needed a listening ear.

“I never felt that there wasn’t enough outreach,” Judy Kim, an ESC 2012 class representative, said. “We talked about it at our meeting. I mean, Eric was always there, so it hit us the hardest.”

But outside of ESC meetings, Columbia students wanted more dialogue. “I was a little disappointed that ESC didn’t do more outreach,” said a SEAS ’09 student, granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.

Harms’ death was the second student suicide in three years, following that of SEAS senior Richard Ng in spring of 2006.

“I’ve been hoping for more dialogue about some of the issues of stress and pressure that SEAS students, in particular, deal with,” the student said. “Of course I’m stereotyping myself and others, but yes, there are some ... who I think would appreciate some more outreach. I’m also honestly surprised more student groups don’t deal with these issues.”

Columbia offers a variety of support services—facilitated by both students and administrators—to students who need to talk about their mental health. Still, it is difficult to say how many students actually know about these programs or take advantage of them.

One of the main reasons for students not taking advantage of these services—according to Rachel Simonson, CC ’10 and co-director of Nightline—is stigma.

Nightline is a student-run, phone-based counseling service that operates from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. every night. Students can call the phone line anonymously and talk to respondents about whatever problems they might be having. Simonson stressed that not all of the calls they receive—between zero and five per night—are “desperate.” Still, because of anonymity, the effectiveness of the service is difficult to gauge.

Nightline is not the sole mental-health resource on campus, though. Many other student groups openly collaborate and maintain relationships with Health Services.

The Student Health Advisory Committee contains a mental-health subcommittee, on which representatives from Columbia College Student Council, one from ESC, and others from a handful of student groups serve.

The mental-health subcommittee is now working with resident advisers to improve the support system outside the administrative and academic realms and inside the dorms.

“I was under the impression that we do a pretty good job,” George Krebs, CC ’09 and CCSC president, wrote of mental-health services in an e-mail. But after receiving criticism in the aftermath of Harms’ suicide, Krebs admitted services could be improved.

“If we are neglecting our duty to detect the mental health problems within our student body, then we are not doing our job as well as we can,” Krebs stated. “That may have been what happened in Eric’s case.”

Barnard’s Student Government Association is also bringing mental health to the forefront. On April 13, the SGA’s second town-hall meeting will focus on the topic. Though SGA planned the event before Harms’ death, the group “felt much more strongly” about the theme after the tragedy occurred, according to Katie Palillo, BC ’10 and SGA vice president of communications.

But as these initiatives prove useful for publicizing mental-health support systems, it is difficult to break the stigma that comes with any discussion of the issue. As a result, some student groups are working to create their own dialogues about mental health rather than simply promote campus services.

In the last year, ROOTEd has held two open discussions on the topic of mental health, which have been among the organizations most successful events.
Kim Ashby, CC ’11, facilitated the discussions and stated in an e-mail that mental health can be a challenging topic for students to address, even among friends and family. “For this reason, I think that our discussions have provided an outlet for students to discuss mental health in a non-threatening space,” she explained.

Still, other mental health-focused student groups have struggled. A campus chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness was started two years ago, but organizers had trouble sustaining interest in the group’s events. Students Against Silence, a group formed in 2001 in response to the suicides on campus around that time, has been on hiatus.

“A lot of students had questions, and there wasn’t that much transparency between the students and their rights and responsibilities when it came to their mental health,” Saidah Adams, CC ’10 and co-president of SAS, said.

Adams and the other co-president of SAS are both abroad, so the group is undergoing a period of stasis. When back on campus, Adams said the group hopes to expand its scope by becoming a chapter of the national organization, Active Minds.

Ashby said that increasing dialogue should be a priority on campus. “Just providing people with a voice is important,” she said. “Mental health is something that a great deal of people on this campus struggle with.”

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