I
expected the world to look
different when I woke up
last Wednesday. I don’t
know exactly what
I
expected
it
to
look like; perhaps
I thought I would
see
catchy
quotes
lighting up the sky
in bold pink font,
proclaiming that the
future is female and
therefore that I am
the future. Maybe
I expected the sun
to
shine
a
little
differently, to reflect on the
crimson maple trees around
campus so the leaves would
glow like a thousand little
stars and light my path as I
walked down State Street to my
economics lecture.
For the past two years, I
had been told Tuesday would
be my chance to change the
world. Instagram had been
flooded with glossy images of
feminism and intersectionality
that promised a better life for
us all if we would simply vote.
We were told that if we voted
on Tuesday, we would have
a chance to paint America
sparkly pink and wrap it up
with a bow. We were told our
fate was in our hands if we
would just show up to the polls.
So we showed up. We voted in
record numbers.
It was a groundbreaking
election. We, as voters, decided
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will
be the youngest woman ever
to serve in Congress, Ilhan
Omar will be the first Somali-
American in Congress, Sharice
Davids and Deb Haaland will
be the first Native American
women in Congress, and Letitia
James will be the first African
American woman to serve as
New York’s attorney general,
among several other decisions.
We decided it’s finally time
for over 100 women to serve in
Congress. For a split second,
I let myself get caught up in
the hope and hype. I thought
maybe when I woke up, things
would look and feel at least a
little different.
Then,
Wednesday
night,
more than a dozen people were
brutally murdered on American
soil simply for spending time at
a country music bar.
After 20 years of living in
this country, I should have
known better. I should have
known the country has never
been glossy and pink and hope
always appears to be in vain.
One of my good friends grew
up
near
Thousand
Oaks, Calif., which
was
the
location
of the shooting. I
didn’t talk to her
much about it, but
I know she spent
most
of
Thursday
in
mourning.
Real
people in Thousand
Oaks
—
people
with
families
and
dreams
to
change
the world — simply went out
to enjoy their evening at a bar,
and now they’re dead. Gone.
Executed for committing the
unforgivable crime of existing
on American soil.
On Friday, the same friend
sent me a video of her neighbor’s
house in California, engulfed in
a blanket of sinister flames that
danced with gleeful knowledge
of the destruction they were
causing.
Historic
wildfires
have taken over the region, and
have now killed more than 30
people. Thousands of families
have lost their homes, and
dozens have lost someone they
love.
How
are
we
possibly
supposed to find hope when
there seems to be nothing but
death from sea to shining sea?
Personally I know of two
activities that give me hope:
When I’m loving kids and when
I’m telling stories.
It’s fairly simple, actually. I
volunteer for two really great
organizations: one for which I
spend time with 10th graders
in Detroit and one for which
I hang out with middle school
students
in
my
hometown.
To me, nothing beats being
with these kids, hearing about
their classes and career goals
and their crushes. And telling
stories – well, you can already
see God gave me a love for
words, and when I sit down and
put them on paper, it just feels
right, like all my confusing
thoughts finally have a purpose.
There’s
nothing
profound
about either of those things,
and they won’t put an end to
mass tragedy, but they give me
a small opportunity to make
the world a little bit better,
and when faced with that
opportunity, I’m going to take
it.
As heartbroken as I am by the
current state of our country,
I am a proud American and I
consider it my honor to perform
my civic duties. I’m an informed
voter and I’ve participated in
multiple protests when voting
didn’t seem to be enough. I
actively reach out to my elected
officials. If you’re an American
and you don’t do those things,
it’s high time to ask yourself
why not. Nothing is going to
change if we don’t demand
change.
But I have another civic
duty, one that wasn’t listed
in my Advanced Placement
Government textbook: to sit
in a middle school cafeteria
and listen to 12-year-old girls
complain
about
their
gym
classes. Every one of us has
more civic duties. Some of
us are called to improve the
country by helping advance
our computer systems, or to do
research on cells, or to bring
beauty to people’s lives through
art.
I beg of each and every one
of you: Do what you were put
on this planet to do. That’s
your civic duty. You can’t
singlehandedly prevent tragedy
from ever occurring again, but
there are plenty of things you
can do to make this broken,
hurting country a little bit more
joyful.
This
isn’t
a
call
to
complacency, telling you to
follow your dreams instead of
fighting for change. Far from
it, in fact. Please do everything
you can to enact change in
this
world
because
we
so
desperately need it in more
ways than I can begin to list in
this column.
My call, instead, is for you
to remember though we may
never see bold pink words
engraved in the skies, though
perhaps we will always find
ourselves in a country of
mass tragedy and heartbreak,
we can never be stripped of
our hope. There is always
something we can do to make
today a little bit better. And in
two years’ time, when our fate
is once more in our own hands,
I hope we believe it, and show
up to the polls again, and,
despite everything, I hope
we continue to vote in record
numbers.
T
his experience we call
college has the potential
to be the most integral
quest
for
self-discovery
in
our lives. Exalted in popular
imagination as a wild, inspiring
and fulfilling era, adults often
reminisce
on
their
college
years with a wistful smile. This
is because people in college
are
afforded
the
freedom
of
adulthood
without
its
consequential
responsibility.
Yes, many students work and
pay their way through college,
and some have to sacrifice a lot
to make college happen, but few
wrestle with the true pressures
and entanglements of adulthood
like raising a child, nurturing a
marriage, and paying taxes and
mortgages for an entire family.
By its very design, college can be
an inherently selfish time. You
set off on your own adventure
and find out what’s important
to you and who you are. You’re
constantly concerning yourself
with what classes you’re going
to take, who you’re going to
develop
relationships
with
or what organizations you’re
going to participate in across
campus. There’s the danger that
you might develop a routine
blindness to the people who
brought you to college in the
first place: your parents.
By parents I don’t just mean
biological parents. Perhaps you
were influenced more by your
grandparents or a teacher or
community organizer (further
references to “parents” herein
indicate the people or person
who
raised,
mentored
or
otherwise supplied you with
the building blocks from which
you constructed yourself). A
parent can take many forms,
but whoever they are, there’s a
chance you’ve become numb to
their struggles in your constant
juggling of the new and exciting.
“They didn’t get me into college!
I did through hard work and
determination,”
you
might
assert. As a matter of fact some
people at college even have
an unfortunately adversarial
relationship with the people
who raised them because of past
complication or hardship.
The
important
truth
to
recognize here is regardless of
the tone of your relationship
with your parents, they still
represent the order around
which you oriented yourself in
the world. Whether someone
has a close and loving or
contentious
and
distant
relationship with their parents
— the philosophy of life that
you’ve inherited from them
is your familiar anchor in the
world, the truth from which you
go out and explore.
Whether
you
consciously
realize it, those elements are
the very things that stabilize
your life. Discovery, the new
and uncharted, is chaos. That’s
where learning comes from,
exposing yourself to something
beyond order so that you might
incorporate it into yourself
and expand. Too much chaos,
and your life might fall out of
balance. Too little, and you’ll
never learn, grow or change.
But how do you embrace the
chaos without throwing the
order your parents gave you
out the window? How do you
create your own values without
desecrating
the
ones
your
parents instilled in you? How do
you discover yourself without
leaving them behind?
Start by trying to understand
and appreciate the kind of
order your parents have given
you. Partly as a function of
our mutual respect, effective
communication and openness,
I’ve
been
fortunate
in
my
relationship with my parents.
Their order has helped instill
in me values that allow me to
make sound judgments and
balance the temptations and
opportunities presented to me
as a young person living away
from home. One ingredient
of this order is my parents’
conscientiousness.
My
dad
organizes his briefcase and
closet every night before work.
He arms each pocket and drawer
with a toolbox of materials
for nearly every situation: a
backup
pair
of
headphones
and medicine for a theoretical
future cold. It’s the doomsday
prepper of briefcases, a trait
accumulated from a lifetime of
being prepared to face chaos for
him and his family. My mom, too,
has a specialization in making
our
home
feel
perpetually
organized,
comfortable
and
safe. It isn’t just tidiness. My
mom is establishing order in our
house so that those who enter
know that this is a place safe
from the chaos of the world,
that this is a home in the truest
sense of the word.
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 —Thursday, November 15, 2018
Emma Chang
Ben Charlson
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland
Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger
DAYTON HARE
Managing Editor
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
ALEXA ST. JOHN
Editor in Chief
ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND
ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
HANNAH HARSHE | COLUMN
Hope amid tragedy
Integrating parents into the college experience
MILES STEPHENSON | COLUMN
Hannah Harshe can be reached at
hharshe@umich.edu
Miles Stephenson can be reached at
mvsteph@umich.edu.
The joint campaign’s ethos
is “Whether you or someone
you know is struggling, there
are
counseling
services
available to everyone at the
university … We’re here for
you.” U-M mental health
service
providers
also
expressed the hope that this
campaign will open up the
campus to new conversations
about mental and emotional
health.
As students, most of our
mental health falls under
the
guidance
of
CAPS.
Mental health on college
campuses is a critical issue.
A
2016-17
report
from
Healthy Minds, a national
network that surveys the
mental health of U.S. college
students, shows 31 percent
of students have depression,
31
percent
have
elevated
levels of generalized anxiety
and 11 percent have had
suicidal ideation in the past
year. Suicide is the second
leading killer of Americans
ages 10-34. These alarming
statistics highlight the need
for comprehensive mental
health services on college
campuses.
We
applaud
CAPS
and
other campus organizations
for attempting to bring more
awareness to the available
mental health resources for
students. One resource we
would particularly like to see
this joint campaign promote
is the embedded counselor
program run through CAPS.
While many students may
not be aware of it, 13 U-M
units, such as the College of
Engineering, the School of
Public Health and the Ford
School of Public Policy, have
their own dedicated mental
health provider available to
students. These embedded
counselors have their offices
not in the main CAPS space
but in the academic unit
itself. For instance, a Public
Policy
student
would
be
able to see their embedded
counselor at their office in
Weill Hall. The embedded
model was actually started
in four of the North Campus
colleges in 2014 and we feel
that, despite the general
lack of awareness among
students, this is a good
model. CAPS would do well
to highlight their embedded
counselors and expand the
program to other academic
units such as LSA, which
does not currently have its
own.
CAPS
has
developed
a
bad reputation among some
University
students
due
to long wait times and the
feeling that students are
not getting the help they
need. While we hear these
concerns and will continue
to urge CAPS to cut down
wait times, we also must
acknowledge CAPS is meant
to serve as a first-step on the
road to good mental health
and not the cure-all some
students may expect it to be.
While we endorse this
new awareness campaign,
we also call on CAPS to
improve
their
services.
As
previously
mentioned,
long waits are a serious
barrier to students wishing
to
access
care.
We
also
have concerns with stories
of students feeling forced
away from CAPS and toward
community providers. While
we recognize CAPS operates
under a short-term treatment
model and it may not be able
to provide the specialized
care needed to address some
mental health problems such
as eating disorders, pushing
students toward community
providers presents problems
of
access.
Unlike
CAPS,
community
providers
can
be
prohibitively
expensive
without
good
health insurance and many
students without a car could
have a hard time traveling to
appointments.
We encourage CAPS to
explore innovative solutions
to improve access to mental
health
services
among
the
student
population.
Potential
options
could
include a fully staffed CAPS
office
on
North
Campus
and providing teletherapy
as
an
alternative
to
in-person counseling. The
joint campaign should also
promote Wolverine Wellness
and the Wolverine Support
Network,
two
non-CAPS
mental health interventions.
The
joint
awareness
campaign
initiated
by
three of the University’s
counseling offices is a step in
the right direction. However,
promoting
resources
without actively working to
improve them would be a
wasted opportunity.
FROM THE DAILY
New U campaign is promising
T
his week, three University of Michigan counseling offices
announced a new joint campaign to increase awareness of and
access to mental health services for students, faculty and staff. The
University’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), Faculty and
Staff Counseling and Consultation Office (FASCCO) along with Michigan
Medicine’s Office of Counseling and Workplace Resilience together provide
no-cost counseling to the majority of the campus community.
We encourage
CAPS to explore
innovative
solutions
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION
Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the
editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300
words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words.
Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to
tothedaily@michigandaily.com.
JOIN OUR EDITORIAL BOARD
Our Editorial Board meets Mondays
and Wednesdays 7:15-8:45 PM at our
newsroom at 420 Maynard Street. All are
welcome to come discuss national, state
and campus affairs.
HANNAH
HARSHE
By its very design,
college can be an
inherently selfish
time
Read more at MichiganDaily.com