Occasional updates, comments, and reflections from President Feridun Hamdullahpur
It has been a year filled with extraordinary challenges, stress, anxiety and difficult decisions none of us thought we’d have to make. Not a day has gone by that I have not thought about the safety of our University of Waterloo community, and top of mind has been our community’s mental health. Many of us have dealt with and continue to deal with sleepless nights brought on by worry and apprehension – I know I have.
Now is the time for us to come together. Now is the time for us to look out for one another. Now is the time to thrive.
When I signed the Okanagan Charter this past October, our University took a significant step forward in our journey to embrace the lens of wellness in all that we do. From the decisions we make about our policies, buildings, programs and initiatives, wellness – particularly mental health wellness – will be a key factor in how we make the choices that will shape our campus.
I was excited to see the recent launch of the Wellness Collaborative which the result of the signing of the Okanagan Charter and the signing of the Healthy Workplace Statement. The Wellness Collaborative takes the commitment found in these two documents and turns it into action by bringing our community together to share ideas, perspectives and experiences on an ongoing basis.
It has now been a year since the President’s Advisory Committee on Student Mental Health submitted their comprehensive final report and list of 36 recommendations to be implemented and I can assure our community that progress will continue to be made.
The Committee on Student Mental Health (CoSMH) was tasked with implementing the recommendations through deep collaboration with on-campus and community stakeholders, and through their hard work a total of 72 per cent of the report’s recommendations are either in progress or have been completed.
The University of Waterloo has come together as a stronger community after our community, especially our students, asked for a stronger system in place for mental health about 18 months ago. Since then, we have made strides on many fronts in our journey to strengthen student mental health and wellness supports at our institution.
Earlier this year, we took important steps to transform the support we provide to students who are dealing with mental health challenges while also creating conditions that support the mental health of all students.
This column also appears on the Insight page of today’s Waterloo Region Record.
Millions of Canadians, including celebrities, sports teams, governments and universities, made it a point to show their support for people struggling with mental health challenges at the end of January.
Hitting the retweet button is an easy way for any of us to show our support for mental health wellness. It is a lot harder when we're asked to do more than click a button.
On Monday, March 5, our campus lost a student to suicide. In the hours that followed this tragic event, our campus expressed shock, anger and grief at the loss of another young life.
Words cannot express my sadness upon hearing this news. Like many of you, I am asking what was going on in this young man’s world where taking his life seemed the only way out. I am thinking about his parents, his family, and his friends and the terrible impact this will have on their lives.
As I look outside, I can feel the winter in my bones. I know the atmosphere of short days and cold weather can contribute to feeling down this time of year. This time of year also brings with it a great deal of work and pressure. It’s human to feel stress as it is a common part of life that can come and go with shifts in commitments and workload.
We have all worked hard through the first half of the Fall term and now it’s time to take a breather. Fall Break offers us a pause to reflect on what we need to be successful for the remainder of the term.
