President

As president of the Trinity College Mental Health Initiative, I was responsible for overseeing and implementing the mandate to support student mental health. Within this mandate, the executive sought innovative ways to break free from familiar stress-buster events and spark excitement around mental health programming. 

To combat this gap in our operations, we set the framework from which new initiatives had to fit, including financial constraints, students’ limited times, and its need to accommodate academic schedules (i.e., no summer plans). After understanding the mandate and framework, the executive group brainstormed ideas and researched options, leading to the decision to run a weekend mental health retreat. As an event coordinator, the challenge was understanding the collective resources and limitations, working with an awareness of them, and having faith in the planning team to choose responsibility within the capability and empower them to succeed. The event was only successful due to the required delegation of responsibility, maintaining communications with the respective stakeholders, and collaborating with other student groups for financial assistance and activity facilitation support.

Before entering this position, I knew that a common criticism is the lack of a comprehensive and user-friendly guide for student mental health resources. To address this issue, I made my flagship project for my presidency to create an online resource database specific to the members of my community. While I did not have any technical experience or skills needed for this project, I found the time and resources to learn and accommodate to produce the desired results. While I did not have the time to effectively evaluate the impact without its publications, many I consulted in its creation phase viewed it as a crucial step forward and a valuable initiative that provides a foundation for future improvements. You can view the website [now run and maintained by my successors] at tchmi.ca.