When Rachel Zuckerman, a junior majoring in journalism and political science, witnessed her father receive his masters in clinical mental health counseling, she started to notice the lack of resources for people struggling with mental health issues.

“During his past two years working in the counseling field, it became so evident how under resourced counseling is on a national level and that really plays into university campuses as well,” Zuckerman says.

As a two-year resident assistant (RA), three year member of University of Iowa Student Government (UISG) and member of Active Minds, a mental health advocacy student organization, she wanted the threads of each experience to come together to create action.

During the fall semester, Active Minds held a “Field of Memories” event, an initiative geared toward suicide prevention and awareness through a display of more than 1,000 flags on the Pentacrest. Each flag represented the lives lost to suicide on college campuses annually. Students were encouraged to write messages on the flags in memory or support of their fellow students.

“So many people have their own story,” says Zuckerman. “Once you start talking about it, you get reinforcement.”

As an RA, Zuckerman started realizing how strong her impact could be on other students. After meeting with the director of the counseling center and assistant director of Housing & Dining, she helped work toward implementing an embedded counselor to strictly service residence hall students.

“As an RA, you’re a first responder to any incident of mental health or illness crises and there is not enough support, there never has been,” she says.

“It’s really hard on the residents and it’s really hard on the RAs and so we talked about the issue.”

UISG took to lobbying for the cause, and eventually saw success with approval for an embedded counselor in the halls.

“There has been an amazing shift in campus culture and support for people living with mental illness,” Zuckerman says. “I think everyone is starting to realize that the rest of the work that we do is useless if our students don’t have their mental health first. We can work so hard at these things, but at the end of the day if a student isn’t even getting to class because their depression or anxiety is preventing them from leaving their dorm room, our academic initiatives are meaningless.”

As a junior, Zuckerman looks forward to making even greater strides her senior year. She hopes to focus on educating students to be first responders, whether it’s through a peer counseling program or extra training sessions. She believes that the need for mental health resources has become an accepted issue, but learning how to engage all departments to see a united vision for the UI campus will be a challenge she’s willing to take on.

Zuckerman has no doubt that moving forward with more counseling support, student initiatives, programs, and awareness events that offer support to students struggling with their mental health will make an impact on the future of the UI campus.

“It’s such a fundamental necessity that we need to establish and reinforce in this culture to the point that our counseling center is equivalent to our student health,” says Zuckerman.

“We would never talk about getting rid of or losing people from student health. What if someone gets sick? Well, mental health should be in that same boat. I just think it’s important to highlight the amount of people on this campus who have been working on these issues.”

Rachel Zuckerman

Current position: President, UISG
Education: Political Science & Journalism and Mass Communication
Hometown: Livonia, Michigan