‘Stop Being Sad’ AU Office of Campus Life Announces New Program To Combat Depression
by Lucas Trevor
In a letter sent to the student body early Tuesday morning, the American University Office of Campus Life announced a new program to reduce depression among its students, just telling them to stop being sad.
“American University has long worked to provide its students with mental health services which reach the federally mandated minimum requirement. Now we are taking this dynamic step forward to help our students get over their mental illness and asking them to simply stop being sad.”
The new program, titled ‘Stop Being Sad,’ aims to reduce the annual budget of the counseling center while also providing care that is accessible to the largest number of students possible. The ‘Stop Being Sad’ program has no physical space or staff, but is instead considered to be “a slogan that students can live by,” as well as a “full and complete replacement for all other services the counseling center had been providing.”
‘Stop Being Sad’ was created by Dr. Greg Ballard. Dr. Ballard rose to national prominence at George Washington University, when he pioneered their anti anxiety movement, “Chill Out With That Crippling Social Anxiety Man.”
Describing how he created ‘Stop Being Sad,’ Dr. Ballard explained, “I took a lot of time to talk to students and hear their voices. I didn’t just sit there disassociating and watching their mouths move. I really liked to hear the words. From these conversations we found that no one had ever told them they could just stop being sad. These kids didn’t know that they could also just not have depression and quite frankly, that kinda bummed me out. So we decided to give them permission to stop being sad.”
Student response to ‘Stop Being Sad’ has been overwhelmingly positive, and many students saw massive improvements in their mental health just from reading the announcement email. Senior Aerial Powers explained, “I have been battling depression for almost my entire life, and in the past I have had great difficulty getting the care I needed. On Tuesday morning, three weeks into my six week counseling session wait, I read the email from AU, and everything changed. I felt like a cloud was lifted from on top of me, and I realized I no longer had depression.”
Sophomore Robert Dandridge said of the program, “Ever since Sylvia Burwell wrote that thing for Foreign Affairs I knew that she cared about her students’ mental health. It’s nice to know the university is finally doing something to represent those totally real and tangible views of hers.”
When asked for a comment on where the money saved through implementation of the ‘Stop Being Sad’ program would be spent, representatives of the American University Board of Trustees replied with an image of two minions from the film Despicable Me and the caption ‘Good vibes please.’
