Active Minds at TCU

Hey there, Christiane here. I am the new Research Director for Active Minds and I will be writing these blog posts to dive into mental health topics more deeply than we can in our one hour meetings or five minute table talks. If you have any suggestions for topics that you want to hear about, please let me know! To kick this off I thought it would be useful to answer the recurring question, “what is Active Minds?”

Active Minds is a national non-profit organization dedicated to raising mental health awareness among students, specifically through peer-to-peer dialogue and interaction. Alison Malmon started Active Minds her junior year at the University of Pennsylvania after her older brother, Brian, committed suicide. It was during his freshman year at college that he started to experience his struggles with mental health. He kept his symptoms concealed, feeling like he was the only one because nobody talked about feeling how he felt, if they did it was mockingly. He took his own life at the end of his senior year.

After his death, Alison realized how many people there were like her brother out there, afraid to seek help and suffering in silence. She saw the statistics on mental health among college students and also saw that there was no one talking about these issues. Alison wanted to combat the stigma surrounding mental illness, encourage students who needed help to seek it early, and prevent any future tragedies. Active Minds number one goal is to spread the word that seeking help is a sign of strength and not something to be ashamed of. The organization itself was nationalized in late 2003 and since then its consistent message has been that mental health needs to be talked about just as easily as physical health. There are now active minds chapters across 800 campuses, directly reaching nearly 600,000 students each year.

Our chapter at TCU was founded in March 2018 by Stephanie Villaire during her freshman year. She brought the organization to TCU’s campus because mental health is a topic that too many people will not discuss. Especially in college, it seems like people just sweep it under the rug not paying any attention to it. The people who do pay attention are most typically adults who cannot always relate the same way peers can. Stephanie met with Brad Stewart, Associate Director of the Wellness Center, at an SGA mental health dinner and together they brought an Active Minds chapter to our campus.

Since being established in 2018, we have been working to grow our voice on campus and help break the stigma surrounding mental health. Our organization has built a relationship with the wellness center, as well as the mental health center. We hope to start more conversations and get more people committed to putting a stop to the stigma surrounding mental health. Outreach to students along with being actual activists within our community are things we strive for. Making our peers care without having to hold signs in their face that read “PAY ATTENTION, YOUR FRIENDS ARE DYING,” is something we are still trying to figure out.

So.. what is Active Minds? Active Minds at TCU is a chapter that is a part of the Active Minds

National Organization. We are a student led organization dedicated to stimulating conversations about

mental health and breaking down the stigma surrounding mental health in general.