2020 Gumbo Final - Book - Page 87
Goat Yoga
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LSU Student Health Center, NAMI and
Student Government sponsored Mental
Health Week
he LSU Student Health Center partnered with
Student Government and LSU’s National Alliance
on Mental Illness to put on the first official Mental
Health Week last week.
This was an activity-packed week with two to four
events each day, ranging from a television show
screening to goat yoga. Each event uniquely
worked to help students learn more about mental
health and well-being.
“We have seen this week as being a success
in that we’ve gotten to interact with students
that otherwise we wouldn’t have,” LSU Student
Health Center Wellness and Health Promotion
Coordinator Crystal Loup said. “We’ve been able
to provide opportunities for students to participate
in discussions about mental health. But not only
participate- start the discussion.”
Story: Joanna Clark
Photo: Ben Caplan
Design: Mariah Graham
The week offered students two different
opportunities to get a free, brief mental health
consultation. This was featured as part of the
Mental Health Week, but is actually a new initiative
that began last semester. And is consistent every
week on Monday and Thursday. The Student
Health Center created the initiative to combat the
lack of staffing and long wait times for therapy
sessions. Students can now receive short mental
health consultations every Monday and Thursday
at the Student Health Center.
“In the fall our mental health counselors decided
that they really wanted to get out into the campus
community,” Loup said. “To be a little bit more
visible and provide options for students to just
talk about mental health briefly and maybe ask
questions that they wouldn’t necessarily feel
comfortable asking.”
History and philosophy junior Savannah
Weisensee is currently serving her first year as
president of LSU’s National Alliance on Mental
Illness (NAMI). NAMI is a student-led organization
that works to promote, educate and advocate for
mental health and overall well-being on campus.
The organization has around 130 members and
holds monthly meetings and movie nights.
NAMI partnered with the Student Health Center
for Mental Health Week, but mostly worked on
promoting the events.
“The Student Health Center really did most of
the work,” Weisensee said. “We weren’t really
involved. They did all the planning. We were a
partnership in outreach, getting students involved.
Partnership wise, this year at least, they put it
together, we helped get the students involved.”
Vice President of NAMI and psychology
sophomore Christopher Hart wants to work even
harder in promoting for the event next year. He
said even his psychology professor didn’t know
about the Mental Health Week events.
Weisensee agrees, stating that there is only so
much their organization can do to advertise the
week.
“The Student Health Center sent out the
information on their social medias, but it would
have been very easy for LSU to send it to every
student,” Weisensee said. “There’s always next
year. But we send it to our email list and we can
only ‘word of mouth’ the events so much. LSU
has the capacity to inform all of the students, so
hopefully we can see that next year.”
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