The Associated Student Body passed both a resolution and a bill to promote stronger mental health on campus Tuesday night.
Sen. Elizabeth Romary presented and spoke in affirmation of Resolution 17-05 at Tuesday’s ASB meeting. The proposed resolution would request that the school add an additional counselor to the school’s counseling center. This counselor would focus on mental health and other issues related to substance abuse.
Romary said that this year, Ole Miss has lost three students to substance abuse, and a stronger counseling center would give similarly struggling students the help they need.
“This is the best counseling center in Oxford, and I ask you to vote in affirmation for this because it really will help the student body,” Romary said.
Resolution 17-05 passed after Romary’s personal testimony about losing a friend to substance abuse.
Mr. and Miss Ole Miss stopped by Lamar Hall to address the Senate about another facet of mental health on campus. Cole Putman and Acacia Santos spoke in affirmation of a bill written by Sen. Terrius Harris that would support mental health during school elections.
Harris said Bill 17-06 allows an opportunity for candidates who are going through ASB or public elections to have specialized counseling sessions. Putman and Santos shared stories about the psychological effects being thrust into the public eye can have on a college student.
“There’s a culture perpetuated at Ole Miss that everything is all good and we’re great, but that is not the case,” Putman said. “These people (are) put on a pedestal in the public eye. It’s just an opportunity to change that opinion about the school.”
Santos said she supports the bill because too often people feel alone on campus. She said she remembered being cursed at on the street and harassed via her cell phone.
“You don’t often tell people what’s actually going on with you,” Santos said. “That you have people coming at you and putting you down.”
The mental health bill passed unanimously. Those in support said if the school’s most public figures were open to using the school’s counseling center for help, the rest of the student body would fall in suit.
Bill 17-07 also passed with unanimous consent and now requires the ASB president and vice president to report to campus two weeks before the school year officially starts. Emily Hoffman, the bill’s author, said this would establish a uniform system for returning to school.
The two other bills passed deal with Senate efficiency.
