Campus, community partnerships expand MH access for students

When Renee Tastad, assistant vice president for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management at Holyoke Community College, learned that 15% of the college's student population struggled with suicidal ideation, 47% with depression, 56% with anxiety, and 67% with isolation, she knew something had to change. Those Healthy Minds survey numbers became a “call to action — we had to do something different,” she said at the annual American Association of Community Colleges Conference. “We had to move from being responsive to being responsible to supporting the whole student.”