The Student Government Association of Montclair State University (SGA) has passed a bill granting students an additional mental health day for each of their classes.
Once enforced, students will have one excused mental health day per class.
Sonya Agnew, the SGA legislator who wrote the bill, shared her intentions behind bringing it to light.
“So I had spoken to Richard [Steiner-Otoo, executive president of the SGA] but I also noticed a few other kind of just general notions on campus with regards to mental health especially following the pandemic,” Agnew said. “It’s become common place for every student to be struggling and especially with professors who have a range of lenience with excused absences and needing to provide documentation, we saw a definite need and a gap kind of in the support systems, especially as Montclair [State] does have a lot of mental health and wellness resources on campus.”
Agnew expressed the need for having further assistance for students struggling with mental health disorders and sharing that the bill is not difficult to implement, as it is not costly or poorly effective on classes.
“We saw this as an opportunity to kind of further that support for students,” Agnew said. “And I also think that it’s a pretty easy thing to implement, it’s not something that costs money, it’s not something that deters from curriculum or class schedules on an extreme level at all because of the way I in particular would envision it, I would see that students would be able to take their mental health days as needed.”
Richard Steiner-Otoo, executive president of the SGA, commented on advocating for the bill to be passed.
“This [bill] in particular is appealing directly to the president and the provost’s office to advocate for an additional mental health day, which would be separate from excused absences that are already in [Montclair State’s] curriculums,” Steiner-Otoo said.
Steiner-Otoo added the importance of the increasing epidemic of mental health issues amongst young adults and how these rules have already been implemented at other universities.
“The idea is for [students] to request a day off for their classes and it’s really just supporting mental health because there’s been such a large mental health epidemic that’s been happening not only on our college campus but in [other] universities,” Steiner-Otoo said. “This is actually something that has been implemented in other schools and I’m very hopeful to get started.”
Christina Vivo, director of psychological and disability services, explained the purpose of the bill.
“I think the purpose of it is to really advocate for the students because I know me myself, I’m very busy, I know a lot of other students are very busy whether it’s just class, work, involvement on campus, involvement outside of campus, we all have a lot of stress,” Vivo said. “We tend to forget that taking a break is okay and that we’re people at the end of the day, not just machines; going to class, going to work, going to an event. We’re people and we should remember that and take care of ourselves.”
Vivo outlined the benefits the passed bill will have on students once it’s implemented into Montclair State’s curriculum.
“I just think it would be really good [for students], because it gives the student time to relax and get away from that class specifically,” Vivo said. “If you take it and you have class that day then you have the whole day to just relax and you can catch up on work, you can not [do work] if you already have all of your work done [and] you can just take it to relax.”
Jaeda Rowley, sophomore information technology major, shared how the bill will benefit her.
Jaeda Rowley, sophomore information technology major. Karsten Englander | The Montclarion
“I think it’s very beneficial because it’s very tough, the classes are very tough so I feel like at least one or two mental health days per class would take a load off of a lot of stress-inducing [things] like a lot of work.”
Rowley shares how she would use her mental health days.
“I would take the mental health [day] not to just like relax but to also like catch up on work I fall behind [on] because I usually do.”
Christopher Perez-Mateo, junior physics major, shares that mental health days will give him time to focus on himself.
Christopher Perez-Mateo, junior physics major. Karsten Englander | The Montclarion
“Well I mean it would give me some time to focus on myself so you know like if I’m going through some stuff at least I have like free time to actually do something about it,” Perez-Mateo said. “When [professors] drop so much work on you it just makes it worse kind of.”
Will Robins, junior animation and visual effects major, is all for having mental health days implemented into Montclair State’s attendance policy.
Will Robins, junior animation and visual effects major. Karsten Englander | The Montclarion
“I’m for it, I think that if we need time off I think we deserve it,” Robins said. “I think if someone says that they’re going through something I think you gotta take their word for it because you don’t know what someone’s going through. You never know and some people don’t want to vocalize everything, so sometimes it’s better to just take the time and deal with it by yourself.”
