The Student Association is holding events to commemorate Mental Health Awareness Week through Thursday in the Student Union. The events are part of SA President Gunnar Haberl’s push to address mental health awareness on campus.
Haberl said this week’s events have included mental health trivia on Monday and “ask a counselor in training.”
Thursday’s upcoming events include “Plant & Sip,” where students can “create succulents” and enjoy tea, coffee or cocoa. SA will host SUNY’s Got Your Back, where community members can create comfort kits for violence victims, in Alumni Arena from 7-10 p.m. on Thursday.
Haberl said he is most excited for “Plant & Sip,” an idea which he got from the popular painting activity “Painting with a Twist,” where people paint while drinking wine.
“There’s gonna be like tea and stuff, we can’t offer wine on campus,” Haberl said.
Mental health is one of Haberl’s initiatives this year, and he looks to have UB’s mental health resources printed on the back of all UB ID cards for next year. Haberl said he hopes to make mental health resources mandatory in UB professors’ syllabi.
Haberl said the Faculty Senate was working on a resolution for this cause.
The senate voted to pass the resolution at its Wednesday meeting, to “strongly encourage” faculty to include the syllabi statements.
Haberl discussed the week’s events in his student-wide email on Monday, which also included links to sign SA’s petitions to include mental health resources on UB IDs and mandatory syllabi statements.
Mental health advocacy is personally important, Haberl said, due to his own experiences working a 40-hour work week as SA president while also being a student.
“Being a student who is so involved in many different things that have so many expectations, sometimes I forget about my own mental health,” Haberl said. “UB Counseling Services has helped me tremendously.”
Additionally, Haberl said mental health and sexual violence prevention were among the top concerns for UB students according to a university-wide survey last year.
Tanveen Vohra and Jacklyn Walters are co-senior news editors and can be reached at news@ubspectrum.com
Jacklyn Walters is a senior communication major and The Spectrum's managing editor. She enjoys bringing up politics at the dinner table and seeing dogs on campus.
Tanveen Vohra is a former senior news editor and covered international relations and graduate student protests.
