Following the suicide of her son last year, Maria Holmes, assistant director for the Elliott T. Bowers Honors College of Sam Houston State University, decided to do something to help prevent her students from meeting the same fate.
Teaming up with the resources available at the newly renovated Student Health Center, Holmes and a group of students are currently in the process of launching an “Active Minds” chapter at SHSU, the first chapter of its kind to exist within the Texas State University System.
“Many college-aged students, one in four actually, experience some type of depression or mental illness and the greatest problem is that they’re afraid to talk about it because of the stigma,” Holmes said. “So because of the reluctance to share their problems or seek help, the students are experiencing an increase in mental health issues and problems and suicides are increasing.”
Founded in 2003 by Alison Malmon after losing her brother to suicide, the student who was a junior at the University of Pennsylvania at the time, developed a student organization called “Open Minds” with the goal of promoting awareness and education of mental health, while combating the stigmas commonly associated with them.
Today, the non-profit organization known as “Active Minds” has more than 400 student-led chapters nationwide, nine of which are based in Texas.
Although Holmes said her personal interest in research regarding mental health sparked after the passing of her son, a group of her students were actually the ones who proposed the chapter launch which bloomed out of a class project assigned in Holmes’ university 1301 honors course in fall 2014.
“Active Minds is not just about suicide, it’s about all types of depression,” Holmes said. “They also look at bullying and they help support LGBT students. So it’s any type of mental health and wellness that young people are experiencing, and we hope to just provide lots of information, lots of support and do lots of programming just to raise that awareness among all the students and even people in the community.”
Although the program is still in the process of getting approved by Student Activities, Holmes said that in preparation of their anticipated approval, she and the student officiants are already brainstorming ideas for programming next semester. After the group’s first meeting in January, Holmes said some of the ideas they came up with included various stress-relief activities and suicide-awareness demonstrations.
“I feel like students at SHSU could really make a difference,” junior math major and Active Minds president Rebecca Wood said. “We are a diverse campus and it’s a great organization to make people aware. We are a close knit group of people and we’re all leaders and I think every college student should play a part in spreading awareness.”
For more information about Active Minds, contact Maria Holmes, Ph.D. at maholmes@shsu.edu or 936-294-4157.
Hannah L. Zedaker 