Starting on Monday, Apr. 8, Hamilton’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) participated in the Mental Health and Wellness Awareness Week that took place at all 11 NESCAC (New England Small College Athletics Conference) institutions. The theme was decided by the NESCAC SAAC, of which two Hamilton students are members: hockey player Ian Nichols ’19 and softball player Caroline Chivily ’19 (co-presidents of Hamilton SAAC.)
The mental health and wellness awareness week is part of a current, larger, nationwide initiative. Students at Hamilton and colleges across the country have been making an effort to create supportive and accommodating campus cultures and request more resources in this regard from their administrations. The SAAC mental health initiative was a way for NESCAC schools to acknowledge the importance of mental health — in athletes and the student body as a whole — and make students more aware of resources available to them.
Hamilton SAAC worked with student organizations to plan various workshops, events, and speakers open to all students to participate in throughout the week. Chivily, along with volleyball team captain Emma Parkhurst ’21, led the planning of the week.
Chivily explained to
The Spectator
, “The organizations we have on campus do an amazing job at opening up the conversation and helping break the stigma surrounding mental health […] Partnering with them allowed us to reach a larger group of students and will hopefully help further the conversation.”
On Monday, the Mental Wellness Collective (MWC) released their biweekly newsletter with an article highlighting the SAAC events of the week. MWC is a student group that works with faculty to enhance Hamilton’s policies and procedures surrounding mental health. Missy
Mouritsen ’20 and Gavin Meade ’20 in particular were vital to the MWC partnership with SAAC.
The same day, SAAC along with the Positive Thinking Club, organized an Affirmation Wall in the Kirner-Johnson Building. Hamilton student athletes volunteered to explain the initiative to other students and encouraged them to write positive messages on sticky notes that are still hanging in the building’s entrance. The article in the MWC newsletter stated, “The idea behind this wall is to increase the number of affirmations we hear in our daily lives.”
Sticky notes and pens were left around the stairs of KJ for the rest of the week for students to add to the wall. Parkhurst said the activity was successful. “[It] was great to have a visual and prominent showcase supporting the week’s initiative,” she said. “A lot of the messages people wrote were extremely thoughtful, relatable, comedic, and encouraging.”
Over the next few days, both identified and anonymous Hamilton student athletes shared their personal mental health stories to be posted on the Hamilton SAAC Instagram page. This was a way to validate students’ individual journeys and make the rest of the community aware of the various mental health struggles faced by their peers. Parkhurst explained that it was important to use social media as a platform for this topic, as mental health issues are usually hidden from it.
On Sunday, Apr. 14, the Hamilton Association for Volunteering, Outreach, and Charity (HAVOC) hosted their annual kickball tournament, which served as a fundraiser for Active Minds, a nonprofit organization that aims to increase mental health awareness in college students. Active Minds was started in 2003 by Alison Malmon, then a student at the University of Pennsylvania, following the tragic suicide of her older brother. The kickball tournament took place in Hamilton’s Margaret Bundy Scott Field House on Sunday morning.
Also on Sunday, the women’s lacrosse team played Middlebury College on Steuben Field. For this “Game of the Week,”
SAAC worked with Minds for Change, a student organization whose objective is to destigmatize the issue of mental health on Hamilton’s campus. The lacrosse team wore shirts that had the phrase “Proud To Be Stigma-Free” on the back during their pre-game warm up to support the goals of Minds for Change. The shirts and MWC logo stickers were also given out to spectators of the game.
The final event planned by SAAC took place the following Friday, Apr. 25. SAAC worked with MWC again to bring Victoria Garrick to campus and give two speeches. Garrick is a senior volleyball player at the University of Southern California. She openly struggled with her mental health throughout her four years on the team. In 2016, Garrick delivered an eye-opening TED Talk about mental health, body image, and other issues facing student athletes, which has led to her garnering a large social media following and traveling to high schools and colleges to speak on these topics. Chivily said about Garrick, “Emma and I really felt strongly about bringing Victoria to campus. She is our age and knows and can actively relate to a lot of what we go through in our lives.”
SAAC organized a lunch for Garrick on Friday afternoon with around 20 Hamilton student athletes to meet with her and talk with her in a casual setting before her talks later in the day. Jane Fanning ’22, a member of the volleyball team who attended the lunch, said, “I really enjoyed it. We were able to ask her questions about her personal experiences as a student athlete. Some people asked about what they can do to improve their own teams’ cultures, which led to a really interesting conversation.”
Garrick’s first talk at 4:30 PM focused on self-love and social media pressures. Her engaging speech took the audience through her memories of body image struggles from as early as 11 years old to her years at USC. She gave advice on self-compassion, social media usage, and disordered eating.
Garrick’s second talk took place at 7:00 PM and covered the significance of mental health in athletes. Again, she explained her personal experiences with depression and anxiety while playing on the USC volleyball team and the importance of mental health to athletic performance and overall well-being. She spoke about the value of a positive mindset and how to support teammates and friends who might be struggling as well. After each talk, Garrick answered questions from the audience, often concerning students’ specific situations or dilemmas.
“Having Victoria on campus was absolutely amazing,” Parkhurst said. “She is extremely open about her experiences and her ability to speak about [difficult topics] in such a personal and relatable manner made her talks very rewarding for those who were able to attend. It was great to be able to have a space to discuss the struggles and impact of mental health and body image in our own lives especially when facilitated by someone who is our age.”
SAAC’s Mental Health Week was full of successful events and looks to be only the start for large-scale mental health conversations on campus. Chivily mentioned the importance of the NESCAC supporting this intuitive, saying, “Not only because of how large of a presence athletes have on their respective campuses, but also because there is still a huge stigma surrounding mental health in athletes. I think this week was helpful in continuing to bridge the gap and helping breakdown the barriers that a lot of athletes face when confronted with struggles with mental health […] [It] affects everyone, no matter what year you are at Hamilton, what you’re involved with, or where you come from.”
Parkhurst, who will take over as SAAC co-president for the 2019–20 academic year, added, “I would love to see both the NESCAC and Hamilton’s SAAC keep moving forward and [making] mental health in athletes a topic that is discussed more. I think this week proved successful in initiating conversation about this topic, and it would be great to continue to build off of that and keep the discussion going.”
