A lot of things can affect a students mental health during the school year when balancing friends, family, jobs, bills, school and in some cases on campus, sports.

The pressure to do well in your classes to complete your major while maintaining all of this with outside variables constantly changing around you from things like family to even the weather around us.

This brings forth the question, do the students believe that their mental health is cared for enough by the Ashland University staff?

Sophomore Kennedy Flores, a double major in Psychology and Criminal Justice, balances her heavy workload in school as well as her time as a thrower on the Track and Field team. She believes that the workload of everything at times can be a factor into her mental health. Her solution to this problem is making time for friends that truly care.

“The best way I get out of that slump is managing my time and making time for friends who care and want me to succeed which always makes me feel much better,” said Flores. “I feel like professors will ask you how you’re doing in an email that has every single person who is also in the email attached to it. I have never had a professor actually ask me individually how I am doing and I think coaches and professors should ask often how you are doing.”

Sophomore Hailey Maloon, a middle grades education major, is also on the Track and Field team as a Multi and just like Flores stated that she has not had a faculty member ask her about her mental health and that only her track coaches have kept tabs on how she is doing.

“Coaches ask how my body feels, but that’s a lot different than how I am feeling mentally,” Maloon said.

Both students expressed in later questions how much it would mean to them if they were actually asked by a faculty member as they are in contact with them as much as they are with coaches.

Sophomore Riely Weiss is a student-athlete on the football team and is currently undecided on what his major is. He feels like his mental health is steady throughout the years noting that his teammates and coaches are constantly keeping up with him and making sure he’s alright.

“Being around friends and working out with the team helps my mental health during the school year and my coaches ask me how my mental health is going and if I’m keeping up with school,” said Weiss.

These students all happen to be athletes and have all said that they are taken care of by their teams and coaches in most cases, but for the students who do not have an organized group and do not have coaches surrounding them, could the lack of staff involvement in how the student is doing mentally be hurting them?

Almost one third of the student population are athletes and that is a tremendous number of students that are involved in programs that are mostly looking out for them and giving them a family atmosphere.

However, for the other two thirds of the university, that leaves them without the help and acknowledgement that their mental health matters and is being cared for.