Opinion
JONES | We Shouldn’t Be Afraid To Talk About Mental Health
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One of my Arts and Sciences Ambassador colleagues, Jady, and I casually conversed in Klarman Hall recently while checking in families and prospective students into an info session. Jady recounted an experience she had as panelist at another info session,where one audience member raised his hand to ask the panelists, “What’s your favorite location on campus?” Jady opted to answer the question and said, “I really love the bridges!”
Instantly, the mood of the auditorium got gloomy, and the room filled with an eerie, tense silence, she told me. One of the other panelists, an advising dean, gave her a death stare, followed by him shaking his head and covertly waving his hands to Jady to change the topic. When I first heard this, I found nothing controversial or anomalous with her response to the audience member, because I knew that Jady was referring to the beauty and marvel of Cornell’s bridges; Jady told me she assumed the audience knew this as well. However, we both eventually realized that bridges also have connotations of suicide and mental health, two very prominent concerns among current and prospective Cornellians.
