Jessica Fisher, Staff Writer
The national organization Active Minds began in 2003 at Penn State University.
In 2012, almost 10 years after its origin, Active Minds came to the campus of Kennesaw State University. With a mission to “improve the status of mental health at Kennesaw State by educating people about mental health disorders, and breaking down the walls of silence surrounding mental health,” Active Minds is not an organization simply for psychology majors.
While KSU Psychology is dedicated to service and the Psi Chi National Honor Society is reserved for psychology majors who meet certain qualifications, Active Minds hopes to reach out to students, faculty and staff of all stripes.
In the almost three years that Active Minds has been on campus at KSU, it has accomplished a significant amount. In its first active year, the club won The Image Award. The Image Award recognizes student organizations that have a strong professional presence on campus.
Active Minds also won New Organization of the Year.
Lastly, the club did a research project called “Prevalence and Perception of Mental Health” at KSU, which won second place among 73 posters at the Symposium of Student Scholars.
Organizations like Active Minds are important to campus communities. Depression among college students is higher than it is among the general population. 25 percent of college students live with some form of mental illness. Despite the fact that 44 percent of American college students report having symptoms of depression, 75 percent of them do not seek help.
Amongst college students, suicide is the third leading cause of death.
With all of these things in mind, Active Minds is an organization that can act as an intermediary between students and campus services, such as Counseling and Psychological Services. Students may not be as quick to trust adults – parents, professors or pastors – but who they will trust, if anyone, are other students.
As important as combating the mental health issues themselves is addressing the stigmas; addressing why students do not feel comfortable talking about it. How many students come from households where psychology and psychiatry are considered liberal pseudo-sciences? Combine this with the actual and sensationalized history of the mental healthcare industry and what one is left with is students who are terrified of being honest with themselves or others about how they are feeling. Terrified for fear of being put on drugs that will immobilize or otherwise ‘change’ them. Terrified of having to face in-patient for all the horror stories that circulate about it.
Because of the realities of these fears, Active Minds serves an invaluable purpose to educate students, advocate faculty and staff, and work against the fears and apprehensions of students so that they can get the help that they need.
No announcements have been made yet about meeting times for the club this semester, but students who are interested can find Active Minds on Facebook at Kennesaw State Active Minds and on KSU’s club portal OwlLife.
