In the wake of Matias Sosa-Wheelock’s ’20 death by suicide last spring, The Mac Weekly came out with a special issue centered around mental health at Macalester. The issue discussed the changes the Laurie Hamre Center for Health and Wellness planned to make in order to better serve the increasing number of Macalester students seeking…
Macalester has seen an increase in hate crimes on campus of late. There were at least 11 swastikas discovered in fall 2017, two in the spring of 2018 and four in the fall of 2018. Swastikas were also found in previous years, and we have also witnessed instances of anti-Arab and anti-Black graffiti. These white…
Macalester is joining forces with Minnesota’s National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) this February to bring a Mental Health First Aid training to the campus community. The initiative will give community members – especially first-aid workers – the tools to respond to mental health crises as they occur on campus. According to NAMI Workshop Coordinator…
This October, the student organization Voices on Mental Health is expanding its effort to combat the stigma on campus connected to suicide. As part of its observation of Mental Health Awareness Month, the group, informally known as Voices, is set to sponsor a series of events that all emphasize coping with grief after suicide. “We…
Earlier this semester, Voices on Mental Health sent out a survey to the student body asking for professors who were supportive or helpful with their mental illness, disability, or mental health. Below is a list of all faculty for which at least one student felt their actions towards mental health, disability, and/or mental illness were…
On Sunday, Feb. 18 at 11:18 p.m., Macalester President Brian Rosenberg sent an email to students, faculty and staff announcing that Matias “Tea” Sosa-Wheelock, a sophomore, had died from suicide. For most of the college community, that message was the first they knew of Sosa-Wheelock’s passing. However, a small number of friends, residents of Wallace Hall and bystanders had been aware of the situation for hours. They’re still dealing with it today.
Students rarely see Macalester’s responses to their individual struggles beyond each unique, isolated moment. But as an institution, Macalester has set policies and procedures for dealing with the aftermath of campus suicides as well as the larger issues of mental healthcare and mental illness.
Involuntary leave policies across the nation are a result of educational institutions walking a fine line between balancing student health concerns and complying with a litany of federal obligations. Fail to walk that line, and college administrators risk violating civil rights laws.
While mental health concerns were discussed in several classes after Matias Sosa-Wheelock’s death two months ago, members of the anthropology course “Anthropology of Death and Dying” have taken their class response a step further.
Despite their role on the front lines of student life, Macalester professors are often unequipped to do the work of identifying and helping students struggling with their mental health. In the current mental health climate, that unpreparedness is having serious consequences.
