By Gurjot Kang
This article is from the February 27, 2020 print edition of The Mast newspaper.
Active Minds
During her sophomore year on the rowing team, Grace Bingay ‘21 quickly began to notice a pattern of mental health struggles among Pacific Lutheran University students, especially athletes.
“Last spring, I had several peers who came up to me and expressed their frustration with a lack of resources with mental health needs on campus,” Bingay said.
She saw that there was an unfulfilled need on campus and wanted to do something about it, so she scheduled a meeting with Vice President for Student Life, Joanna Royce-Davis.
“She connected me with Active Minds, which was not active last year, but we had a chapter that existed,” Bingay said.
Active Minds is a national organization, with over 500 chapters on high school and college campuses all over the country. The organization seeks to increase awareness and reduce stigma around mental health by providing resources and a safe space for students to hold conversation.
Bingay reached out to two PLU Alumni who previously ran the club and decided it was time for a re-launch. Since hosting a re-launch party in May 2019, Bingay is now the President of the PLU chapter of Active Minds.
“We have five officers, over a 100 people on our email list, about 15 people who regularly attend meetings and next week, three of us are actually going to D.C. for the national conference,” Bingay said. “And last night we did a mental health workshop for athletes.”
The mental health workshop held on Feb. 10, from 8-9 p.m. in Xavier 201, was the club’s first event, in partnership with Lutes Lead, a program that aims to provide student athletes with personal, leadership and career development. The event helped sophomore and junior athletes practice paced breathing, positive affirmations, and provided info on the crisis and suicide prevention text/call lines, counseling center and couples and family therapy.
PLU Active Minds is planning more future events, including a suicide prevention workshop in March (date to be announced) called “Talk Save Lives” with Associate Professor of Nursing, Dr. Mary Moller. The group meets biweekly on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month in AUC 201 from 7-8 p.m. and welcomes all to participate.
Lute Telehealth
When it comes to the Counseling Center, students have often expressed their difficulties with scheduling appointments due to the finite number of staff hours available.
Royce-Davis has listened to these concerns and realizes the need to “develop more flexible, fluid systems that are responsive to students where they are.”
This past semester she has been working on launching Lute Telehealth, a 24/7 medical and mental health resource where students can access licensed physicians, nurse practitioners and mental health providers any time in the day from their phone, tablet or computer.
With Lute Telehealth, students can now meet with an available counselor in minutes and schedule up to 12 appointments in advance. Those registered for next fall will be able to continue accessing this resource over the summer, even if they’re not on campus, from all 50 states in the U.S.
Lute Telehealth is now live on the PLU Counseling and Health Center websites, or at www.plu.edu/lute-telehealth. Students can also download the TimelyMD app on their mobile device to access the service. To use this resource, students must first set-up a Lute Telehealth account with the preferred name they provided in the PLU student information system.
“You can utilize the service from wherever is most convenient and comfortable for you…it could be in your car, in your residence hall room, or it could be somewhere else that feels secure and private to you,” Royce-Davis said.
The Division of Student Life has shared information about this new resource in campus communications and met with faculty and student organizations like ASPLU. During this past week from Feb.18-19, Active Minds and timelyMD, the service provider for Lute Telehealth, tabled together in the AUC, handing out informational key ring cards to students.
For more resources, check out the following:
Lute Telehealth: www.plu.edu/lute-telehealth.
Counseling Center: Open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in AUC Suite 300. Visit their website at https://www.plu.edu/chws/counseling/.
For urgent mental health support, please contact:
Counseling Center Crisis Line: (253) 535-7075
Pierce County Crisis Intervention: 1-800-576-7764
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
