A Student Focussed Mental Health Newsletter: The Mindful Times Student Edition
Mental health has always been an important topic to me. In the past, I’ve had struggles with my mental health and remember the time and effort it took to regain my positivity. I remember feeling intrinsically discouraged to seek out resources that could help me out during these times. When I came to college, I was impressed by Champlain’s mental health services and their means of advertising their services to the student body. While it was noticeably accessible, I felt that there must be students who struggle to approach these resources when in a bad palace, much as I had in the past. An important thing colleges need for their community is an open dialogue about mental health and a means for students to voice their struggles in a safe environment. Not only should colleges advertise their resources, but should find ways of outreach that get their students more comfortable approaching these topics as a whole. I’m not saying Champlain doesn’t do this well, but rather that it never hurts to have multiple ways of reaching the same goal. One way this could be done is to encourage student engagement through student-run media that focuses on mental health.
Over my fourth year here at Champlain I’ve had the privilege of working as an intern for the college’s counseling center. One of my main duties was to create the counseling center’s monthly newsletter. As the months progressed I learned more about how to digitally design a neat and informative newsletter for the student body. As semester two came along and I began brainstorming ideas for my capstone, I remembered how much I enjoyed creating the counseling center’s newsletter and my appreciation of a specific campus newsletter, The Mindful Times. For those who do not know, The Mindful Times is a weekly newsletter created by Professor Kimberly Quinn that focuses on mental health and the use of mindfulness practices to help manage anxiety and negativity. As a reader, I’ve personally found this newsletter to be useful at times I’ve been overwhelmed at college. With all of this in mind, I met with Professor Quinn to discuss working with her on creating an updated and more student-focused version of her newsletter.
We dubbed this new version ‘The Mindful Times: Student Edition’ which includes more mental health content focused on advising students on ways they can manage their stress and mental health. I used design software I gained experience with through my internship to create a format with updated visuals and interactive content. The newsletters were created every week which allowed the format of the newsletter to evolve with each new issue. Iterating on the visuals and content weekly allowed the newsletter to slowly come into its own identity and format. The main purpose of the content included in the newsletter was to provide encouragement and guides for how students could integrate mindfulness practices into their routines as well as facilitate dialogue on mental health topics in a safe environment. The goal of this project was to create a newsletter format that could be continued into future semesters by interested students. This could make The Mindful Times Student edition a mainstay piece of Champlain student media. I believe this newsletter will be valuable for Champlain College as it may embolden students to adopt new strategies when dealing with mental hardship and to be more comfortable accessing the plentiful mental health resources provided on campus.
If this project remains a part of Champlain’s digital media, then it could become a student-run club or internship for future students to gain experience in digital media and marketing. If future students passionate about mental health take interest in continuing this newsletter then it could evolve into a prominent go-to resource for the student body. I had a blast creating this newsletter and learned a lot about design, mental health, and mindfulness practices. Professor Quinn and I would love to see this newsletter continue and become something Champlain College can be proud of. Click here if you are interested in seeing all of the newsletter issues created up to this point. Each newsletter will be listed in this document in order with its corresponding link. Thanks for reading!
