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Mental Health Awareness Week Aims to Combat Stigma
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Mental Health Awareness Week is part of an ongoing campaign to change the culture of mental health on campus, whether through raising awareness, eliminating stigma, or providing assistance.
Columns
GUEST ROOM | The Crazy Thing About Mental Health Week
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By NATHAN WEIERICH
“The easiest Ivy to get into, the most difficult to get out of.” Cornell University’s reputation is not always one to envy. Worrying about prelims, papers or presentations, watching sleep-deprived students trudge around campus, talking to friends about ever-impending deadlines, students feel the stress of Cornell every day. But only on anonymous platforms, such as Yik Yak or Overheard at Cornell, do the true costs of this enormous stress begin to surface. Five years ago, in response to the suicides of six students, Cornell built fences and posted security guards and installed cameras on the bridges that span its gorges. Twenty-nine people, including fourteen Cornell students and one Ithaca High School student, jumped from Cornell bridges between 1990 and 2010, according to a study on suicides the University commissioned in 2010.