Introducing... ACTIVE MINDS

Active Minds is a national organization that started at the University of Pennsylvania in 2000 by Alison Malmon following the death of her brother Brian by suicide. Brian was a student at Columbia University, a rigorous and elite institution, where he developed depression and psychosis, yet refused to talk about them with anyone. After he ended his life, Alison looked for ways to get more involved in mental health awareness around her college campus, but found none. Starting as Open Minds, the organization and its message spread around Alison’s campus, and then nationally as people wanted to open new chapters on their campuses. Today, Active Minds is on 600 different campuses, and has grown to be a premier organization of mental health advocacy in the higher education system.

Alison’s main goal in starting Active Minds was to break the stigma of talking about mental health, and encourage students to seek help early before it was too late. Alison relied on a student-to-student approach for mental health awareness, advocating that seeking help makes one strong rather than being something shameful. The goal was to make mental health as talked about as physical health, so no student would assume they were going through their battle alone.

TCU’s Active Minds chapter was reawakened in fall 2017 by our current president Stephanie Villaire, and has been working hard since then to do good things for our campus. We host events, provide educational materials, and work to change the conversation about mental health here at TCU. We hear tragedy after tragedy in the news regarding preventable deaths from a lack of awareness about mental health resources, so we, as Active Minds, are trying to change that and break the stigma of talking about it. We look forward to the coming academic year as we continue to grow and build our organization, and hope you’ll join us!