As the rate of students suffering from mental health issues continues to rise nationally, Syracuse University must increase its efforts to meet the needs of the campus.

For the start of Wellness Week, Active Minds, a campus organization focused on mental health awareness, created a mural to help end the negative stigma surrounding students seeking help for mental health issues.

This stigma mayprevent students from searching for necessary help. About two-thirds of students who need help with these types of issues don’t receive it, according to statistics from Active Minds.

The mural puts mental health issues in a public setting, showing the campus that this is not a subject to feel embarrassed about. SU should do more to add onto these efforts, by raising awareness of mental health and how students can seek help.

The negative connotations of seeking help for a mental illness need to end. A student should not feel ashamed to seek help from a therapist for a mental illness in the same way a person who goes to the hospital for a broken arm does not feel ashamed.

Active Minds reported that mental illnesses are most likely to develop between the ages of 18 and 24 — the main age group of college students. It also reported that about 1,100 college students commit suicide every year.

With students on campus so susceptible to developing mental illnesses, SU should improve the Counseling Center to address this growing issue.

The Counseling Center only provides short-term services, and then refers students to an appropriate private therapist, according to its website. Many students who are afflicted with the stigma may prefer the privacy that the Counseling Center offers or are unable to afford services from an outside therapist.

The Counseling Center should provide a stronger presence among students and work to build a community on campus to help end the stigma surrounding mental illnesses. Much like how the Advocacy Center hosts “Take Back the Night” annually, the Counseling Center could benefit from a similar event.

Additionally, SU should reach out during orientation and in freshman seminars to let students know these resources are available. Residential advisers should also be well-versed in mental health and the resources the university provides.

As national trends show that mental health is becoming a prominent issue for the college demographic, SU needs to ensure that it has the resources available to accommodate for these increases.

Published on April 21, 2014 at 1:00 am