The Minnesota Student Association, Faculty Consultative Committee and Council of Graduate Students could soon join forces to form a united front promoting mental health at the University of Minnesota.
According to MSA President Joelle Stangler, the University needs a “more cohesive strategy” to address mental health on campus. She would like to see more teamwork to address mental health issues affecting a variety of community members, including staff, faculty, undergraduates and graduate students.
At a meeting of student and faculty leaders last month, Professor Jean Wyman of the School of Nursing also recommended that medical students begin doing clinical placements at Boynton Health Service. She noted that this policy would simultaneously train students and expand mental health resources.
Wyman’s idea is a simple, yet highly effective way of expanding mental health resources in both the short and long terms, and we encourage University officials to do whatever they can in order to realize it in practice.
We also support the idea of enhanced cooperation between University institutions to expand mental health resources. However, some students have expressed frustration at what they see as MSA’s empty promises on matters of mental health.
If University leaders decide to form another task force, we encourage them first to establish clear goals and fixed deadlines in which to attain them. Permanent task forces become sluggish institutions, but a task force with clear, realistic goals has the potential to improve this campus by expanding students’ access to mental health resources.