Mind Your Health, a student organization dedicated to breaking the stigmas around mental health issues on campus, is sponsoring Stress Less Week from Dec. 2-6. The week involves a series of events to promote wellbeing amongst students before finals week hits at the conclusion of the fall 2019 semester. These varied and quirky self-care focused events are intended to help students release school-related stress.
Neuroscience major Sadie Knill and biology and Spanish double major Chloe Wilkinson ran the event “Pie Your Professor” from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday Dec. 3. Students paid $1 to throw a pie tin full of whipped cream into a participating professor’s face.
“We’re putting on different activities and giving students resources for how to deal with mental health and stay healthy,” Knill said.
Department Head of Sociology and Anthropology Alan McEvoy participated in the “Pie Your Professor” event, consenting to be repeatedly pied in the face.
“I think the evidence shows that this generation is coming into university with more and more stressors on them, and it’s hard. So anything that we can do to create networks where people feel less isolated and more accepted—places where they can talk and exchange information—I think that destigmatizes it, and I’m all in favor of creating a climate on campus where people feel supported,” McEvoy said.
The funds generated from “Pie Your Professor” will go to support mental health resources and enterprises on campus.
“It’s motivation for students to throw something in their professor’s face, a little bit of justice for all the stressors we’ve imposed upon them, McEvoy said. “Plus, it’s fun! It’s a stress reliever to just laugh. I’m more than willing to be a target in a good cause.”
Students are invited to participate in the remaining mental health events: Dog Therapy, which will take place from 6 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday Dec. 5 in the Lydia M. Olson Library, and De-Stressor Game Night, which will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 6 in the Hunt/Van Antwerp Halls lobby.
