The Stanford Daily An Independent Publication
FRIDAY April 22, 2022
UNDER THE BRIDGE
Letter from the editors: On mental health
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Kate Frimet
STUDENT COUNSELORS WORK TO BUILD A SAFE HAVEN FOR PEERS
s Stanford students, we often call ourselves “ducks,” trying to stay afloat. On the surface we look calm, but we are all, to varying degrees, furiously paddling beneath the surface. We balance commitments, academics, extracurriculars and personal challenges, while attempting to convince those around us that we are thriving. This is our shared experience — and yet we do not talk enough about the struggles that make the paddling so taxing. As a result, we often feel alone in our challenges, when the reality is that many, if not all, of us are navigating personal struggles. We push ourselves to succeed and compete, and we often define achievement in the context of independence and drive — in the context of everything looking “fine.” But it’s become clear that things need to change. It’s time to reframe the conversation about mental health at Stanford. At The Daily, we believe that we are well-positioned to start a dialogue. We want to amplify the voices of our community members and their experiences with mental health, while highlighting the resources that are available and investigating the issues at the heart of these challenges. That is why we’ve created this special issue focused entirely on mental health and wellness at Stanford. We hope that you’ll gain a broader understanding of wellness on campus and a desire to start the mental-health conversation within your own communities. Beyond this special issue, we want to ensure that our coverage continues to highlight and destigmatize mental health at Stanford. By talking about our experiences and supporting and listening to one another, can we promote meaningful change and cultivate a healthier campus community. This is just the beginning.
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Volume 261 Issue 10
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By YASTIKA GURU When Kaya first called The Bridge, she was alone, hiding in her friend’s Toyota Highlander. It was 2 a.m. on a Friday night during winter quarter of 2021. A few weeks ago, she and six other Stanford students moved into a house in San Jose together — after losing campus life to the pandemic, they were excited to create a community. Things didn’t go as planned. The relationships within the house were quickly strained and crumbled. Without the support systems and structures of campus dorms, Kaya and her friends found themselves overcome by disagreements. By the middle of winter quarter, they could barely stand to be in the same room, she said. “It was unbearable,” said Kaya, who asked to use a psuedonym and remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “We kept having house meetings and trying to communicate with
each other to no avail.” It was there in her housemate’s car when Kaya, feeling helpless and alone, Googled “mental health Stanford.” The search yielded the Bridge Peer Counseling Center, so she decided to dial their number. A bridge over troubled water When you dial (650) 723-3392, the call goes through to Room 102 in Munger Building 2. Three live-ins, or resident counselors, at The Bridge Peer Counseling Center, Jennifer Wang ’23, Eunice Yang ’22 and Kate Frimet ’22 are up from 12 a.m. to 9 a.m. every night, on call for any students who might need their help. The live-ins enable The Bridge’s 24/7 availability — the center is Stanford’s student-run peer-counseling center, staffed entirely by trained undergraduate and graduate students. Since its inception in 1971 as a confiden-
THOMAS YIM/ The Stanford Daily
tial drug-counseling center, The Bridge has become a source of support and relief for students like Kaya seeking answers, advice or just someone to talk to. The Bridge was named after the Simon and Garfunkel song “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” “I’m on your side / When times get rough / And friends just can’t be found / Like a bridge over troubled water / I will lay me down,” the song goes.
Please see BRIDGE, page 11
SEARCHING FOR THE ‘SECRET TO LIFE’
HOW CHERRIAL ODELL LEARNED TO HEAL HERSELF AND OTHERS By ZOE EDELMAN
Cherrial Odell
BEAT REPORTER
Content warning: this story contains references to self harm and suicide. If you or someone you know is at risk, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255.
EMMA TALLEY Editor-In-Chief GEORGIA ROSENBERG Executive Editor ANANYA NAVALE/ The Stanford Daily
SAVANNA STEWART Executive Editor
Cherrial Odell ’25 was 13 when she attempted to take her life for the second time. She remembers being “at the lowest I’d ever been, probably even lower than when I had attempted to take my own life.” “I could not respond to my parents,” she said. “I couldn’t look them in the eyes. I was
somewhere else.” Sitting beside Odell in the hospital was her friend Ryan. He pulled out his phone to show her videos of friends and supporters, each sharing a personal message of compassion and love. “The people that were on the videos kind of shocked me out of my thoughts,” Odell said. “Within seconds, I was smiling.” That’s the secret to life, Ryan pointed out. “You can snap out of your thoughts and feelings at any point in time.” The realization was transformative for Odell. “I can separate from these thoughts, they’re not true,” she said. “From there on,
Please see STUDENT, page 10
OPINIONS
UNIVERSITY
Part one: The darker side of achievement
CAPS leaders turn over a new leaf
By EMMA MASTER Content warning: this article contains references to suicide. If you or someone you know is in need of support, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. was heartbroken by the news of another Stanford student’s passing by suicide. Over the past seven years, I have engaged with student mental health from several angles: first as a student, then as a student staff member and now as a staff member. I want to share what I have ob-
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Community voices: Mental health at Stanford
served about mental health on campus in a two-part article to encourage the University to better support students going forward. In Part one, I give my perspective on the mental health distress students are facing and reevaluate the modern university’s responsibility to its students. In Part Two, I offer some concrete changes that Stanford can make to address its students’ mental health needs. During my time at Stanford, I have used Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) myself, called CAPS on behalf of friends in crisis, served as a Resident Assistant (RA) in an all-freshman dorm
and now help teach wellness courses. I can only speak to my own experiences and not those of all Stanford students. If other members of the Stanford community have no-
ticed important facets of this issue that have not been represented, I encourage you to speak out or to
Please see PRESSURE, page 10
By SARINA DEB
17 months into the pandemic in August of 2021, Vivek Tanna’s ’22
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mental health crisis was induced by “the perfect storm” of events. Tanna had a sense of community before the pandemic, but the geographic distance and virtual scattering all weighed on him heavily. “In retrospect, I held it together for as long as I could,” Tanna said. Tanna explained that he was being “pulled in every direction, and all the stars aligned.” As a
STAFF WRITER
By JACKIE LIU STAFF WRITER
Content warning: this story contains references to self harm and suicide. If you or someone you know is at risk, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800273-8255.
queer student, he was living multiple lives. “There’s my life at Stanford, where I’m as ‘out’ as possibly can be,” Tanna said. “But at the same time I hadn’t come out to my parents because I didn’t feel that it was the right time. I was living these two lives, and I just didn’t have the energy to uphold that
Please see QUEER, page 11
Please see CAPS, page 10
@StanfordDaily | @StanfordSports
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By ISAAC LOZANO
By the end of fall quarter, Destin Fernandes ’24 was in his “worst state.” Since the start of the school year, he had been dealing with depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation. “I was literally unable to leave my room most of the time,” he said. “Go to CAPS” — Counseling and Psychological Services — is the conventional wisdom doled out to those struggling with mental health at Stanford, a piece of advice that students hear on a regular basis but do not always heed. This time, Fernandes did, calling up the short-term counseling center that has been the subject of stu-
Queer students turn to community Content warning: this article contains references to suicide. If you or someone you know is in need of help, you can call the National Suicide Hotline at 800273-8255.
Index
BEN LEES / The Stanford Daily
Emma Master argues that many drivers of the national mental health crisis fall within the University’s scope. “There are clear steps that the University can take now,” writes Master.
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The object of recent criticism, CAPS is taking steps to grow
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Recycle Me
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The Stanford Daily
By ISAAC LOZANO STAFF WRITER
Content warning: this story contains references to self harm and suicide. If you or someone you know is in need of help, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. “We are who we are, we are, stronger than all our demons,” croons singer and songwriter Richard Yuan ’25 in the chorus of “We Are.” The song, produced for a mental health songwriting competition, recounts experiences of insecurity and emboldens listeners to be “free to be who we are.” But despite the song’s uplifting tone, it evokes a deeply personal experience for Yuan: the feeling that he “isn’t enough.” For students like Yuan, mental health remains a significant challenge at Stanford. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, students nationwide have reported significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety and loneliness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a stark warning at the end of March about youth mental health: more than four in 10 teens reported feeling “persistently sad or hopeless” during the first six months of 2021. In 2020, Stanford’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) reported a sharp uptick in appointments amid virtual learning and social isolation. Classes eased their grading schemes from letter grades to satisfactory/no credit during spring 2020, and offered a satisfactory/no credit option during the 2020-2021 school year, to support students struggling with stress and quarantine. For many students, it was an opportunity to air their struggles in solidarity with their peers, as many felt the personal impact of quarantine. Still, over a year later, the mental health toll of the pandemic has persisted. Recent student tragedies have bared more wounds among the Stanford community, spurring calls for a wider reckoning with and increased funding for mental health resources on campus. The students I spoke to recounted episodes of suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety and shame that dampened an otherwise normal college experience. While their stories speak to the depths of private suffering at Stanford, they also offer hope: the students ultimately accessed counseling and found diverse ways to grow and recover. ‘Sometimes people just want to feel heard’ I meet Yuan one evening over Zoom, when he joins my call from a small, luminescent room in Munger 4. He sits mutely as I
Illustration: CAITLIN KUNCHUR / The Stanford Daily
CAMPUS LIFE
Silent stories: A window into student mental health Pressures weigh on student life, but hope can glow bright explain the interview procedures, his eyes quivering with contemplation. He tells me coming to Stanford forced him to reckon with his mental health. In high school, Yuan was a star artist, immersing himself in acting and singing that helped him stand out among his peers. He didn’t have “the best social skills,” but his artistic talents helped people “look past the awkwardness,” as he performed for local stages and even the streets of his hometown, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. But when Yuan arrived on campus, the transition to college was harder than expected. He realized he didn’t “feel distinguished” ramong his peers, which he said took away what so easily connected him to others in high school. “Coming to a big university,”
Yuan said, “I have to actually focus on my social skills rather than depending on external things because people are so much more impressive.” He added that a year and a half of remote learning affected his ability to “hold a conversation” and spurred familiar feelings of selfdoubt. “That kind of forced me to think about, ‘hey, is there something wrong with me personally?’” Yuan said. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to let go of self-judgment while having conversations here.” Grappling with a difficult transition to college, Yuan decided to focus on his mental health, which he said “revolutionized the things I do throughout the day.” The first things he did were simple: start journaling, and taking a walk every day. He
pulls out a green notebook, looking down at the pages as he speaks. “I write about how I feel after a given day [or] an emotionally impactful event. I also try to understand why I may feel frustrated,” Yuan said. “It’s helped me see the connections between events in my life and how I feel, and that level of awareness has really helped me feel more calm and make sense of things.” Destin Fernandes ’24 echoed the importance of addressing mental health challenges on campus, as he dealt with depression and anxiety throughout fall quarter. He had been seeing a therapist over the summer in Massachusetts, his home state, and “was working really well” with them. But after coming to campus for the new school year, Fernandes couldn’t continue seeing his therapist due to state licensing laws, which restrict the location of patients seeking therapists in Massachusetts. “I was out of any support systems because I was also away from my family and my friends,” Fernandes said. “So I basically was taken out of all the support I had, thrown into Stanford fall quarter, and expected to just transition.” Without a therapist, Fernandes struggled to feel motivated in his classes and “got progressively worse” as the quarter wore on. By the end of Week 10, he was experiencing suicidal ideation, which he hid from his family and friends for fear of making them worry. By then, Fernandes had gotten in touch with a counselor through CAPS and later received medication for his depression and anxiety, which he says immediately helped him regain some energy and motivation. “I knew it was something I had to do for a while, but it took me so long, just because of how difficult phone calls were for me,” Fernandes said. After receiving medication, Fernandes said his winter quarter progressed more smoothly, and he was finally able to find a regular therapist at an affordable price under Cardinal Care. When he came home for winter break, he also disclosed his struggles to his family, who ultimately supported him and reconnected him with his traditional support systems. Still, he says, it took too long for him to be vulnerable with friends and family due to the stigma around mental health. For students like him, Fernandes said, being open about their mental health struggles can be essential to addressing them. “We should be focusing on these open conversations without feeling judged or like you can’t talk about them,” Fernandes said. “People don’t know the extent to which it can actually impact your life. So no one really is
Please see FEATURE, page 14
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
A student voter’s guide to the ongoing ASSU election By CASSIDY DALVA BEAT REPORTER
After the first in-person campaign season in two years, students will vote on Thursday and Friday for next year’s Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) representatives. Three slates are competing for the ASSU Executive position, while 17 candidates are vying for 15 spots on the Undergraduate Senate. Two slates, RISES and SPARC, are running for the Sophomore Class Presidents position. A third slate, Root 4 Trees, was eligible for the ballot, but announced that it was withdrawing its candidacy on so-
cial media. Five candidates are running for spots on the Graduate Student Council, which has 15 spots available. When spots are left vacant on the GSC after election, the council’s co-chairs typically reach out to groups and individuals and ask them to serve. Any candidates selected after the election process will be voted on by the sitting GSC councilors. One slate is running unopposed for Junior Class Presidents, and the same holds for the Senior Class Presidents. Students will also vote on several amendments to the ASSU constitution, including Single
Transferable Voting for Undergraduate Senate Elections, Judicial Reforms, Gender Neutral Language and a Non-Discrimination Statement. Additionally, students will vote on whether to approve or reject funding for student organizations. Stanford’s Sexual Health Peer Resource Center (SHPRC) will appear on the ballot alongside the full funding that they initially requested — $56,800 — after obtaining more than 1,000 signatures (15% of the undergraduate population) in support of their petition disputing the lower amount recommended by the Senate. Every eligible voter will re-
ceive an emailed link to the general election ballot, and the election will be held from Thursday at 12 a.m. to Friday at 11:59 p.m. Results will be announced Monday, April 25 at 5 p.m.
BEAT REPORTER
It all starts with the coffee machine. I stand awkwardly to the side, phone in one hand, watching my benefactor twist knobs and buttons on the sleek hunk of metal that looks like something out of the inside of my roommate’s car. There is a trickle of espresso; a scream of pressurized steam into frothing milk. When the milk is finally poured, with a flourish, into the cup of espresso, what is left is a delicate, frothy white heart. I stare at it for a moment, then reluctantly step away. Alas, the espresso is not for me. Suddenly, I regret ever asking Shreyas for tea. Shreyas Lakhtakia M.S. ’23 is a friendly, bespectacled first-year graduate student with well-coiffed hair, a firm handshake, and most of all, a love for coffee. It’s roasted coffee beans that are a cornerstone of Shreyas’ passionate, one-man effort to cultivate, as his website proclaims, “a place for conversation, caffeination and community.” The Beagle Cafe, as it is called, is perhaps more a cafe in spirit than
Wills Baird, a first-year medical student, said that he found out about the Beagle Cafe after meeting Shreyas at a graduate student mixer. Shreyas had invited several other students from other graduate programs to talk. For Wills, the conversation started off as usual — speaking about personal experiences at Stanford and what they’re interested in. But then, he said, it went a little deeper. They started talking about what led them to Stanford and how they wanted to spend their lives. “Each of us looked at problems differently, but they were sort of the same problems,” Wills said. “It was an eye-opening experience.” Michael Ward, a student in the Stanford Teacher Education program staff in the Graduate Program of Education, said he found out about the cafe through a weekly newsletter in EVGR. Michael said his group’s conversation touched a lot on international topics, as his coffee-mates were all international students. Michael remembers sharing his experience living in a rural town in Taiwan as an ESL teacher, as well as getting to talk Asian geopolitics with his other groupmates. “I think the ‘so what’ of it,” he said, “is that we were able to bring in all of our own perspectives and just see how they interacted with each other.” It’s this sort of confluence of graduate backgrounds that Shreyas is trying to foster, at a school where graduate student community can be hard to come by. “Sometimes the grad student experience is pretty lonely,” Shreyas said. “Finding avenues for
This report covers a selection of incidents from April 13 to April 18 as recorded in the Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS) bulletin. Learn more about the Clery Act and how The Daily approaches reporting on crime and safety here.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13
One graduate student’s grand café experiment in infrastructure. All the action happens in his small apartment in Escondido Village Graduate Residences (EVGR) B, where Shreyas serves as barista, host and community leader. Here, Shreyas makes coffee for groups as small as two and as large as eight, while they make themselves at home on whatever seating he has to offer — a couch, a chair, his bed. By the time the drinks are ready, it’s time for conversation. Shreyas tells me a story about where the name of his cafe comes from — back when he lived in Boston, he lived across a cafe called “Darwin’s Cafe.” Shreyas says he wanted to replicate the sense of community he found in the cafe, first in his later home in Brooklyn, NY, and now here at Stanford. From Darwin came the name “Beagle,” an homage to the vessel that held Charles Darwin as he sailed the world in search of his theory of evolution. “It’s this idea of a cafe that moves around the world with me,” said Shreyas, who was born and raised in southern India but moved to the U.S. to attend college. “That, and my love for dogs.”
STAFF WRITER
I Between 2:30 p.m. and 3 p.m., burgla-
CAMPUS LIFE
By BRANDON KIM
By HANNAH BASALI
grad students to be social is hard, because it isn’t super organic. But that’s part of the ambition with this initiative.” Michael chalks up the lack of engagement to the wide range of backgrounds — there’s people from different graduate programs, graduate students who live on campus, graduate students who live off campus, graduate students with children. And it certainly doesn’t help that a lot of graduate student events, according to Michael, feel more like “networking” events. “I’ve been pitched startups,” Michael said. “It felt like people were coming at it from a ‘what can this do for me’ angle.” Wills echoed Michael’s sentiment, saying that it’s easy for graduate students to become “siloed” into their individual graduate programs without some sort of “mechanism” to bring them together. For Wills, the Beagle Cafe — with its emphasis on community — does that very thing. “With Beagle, it’s a smaller setting,” Wills said. “It’s a mechanism that facilitates engagement with people you normally wouldn’t cross paths with.” But what exactly makes the cafe tick? When Shreyas invited me over for a drink and a chat, I didn’t refuse — and by the end of our hour-long conversation together, I felt like I understood a little of his dream for the Beagle Cafe. Shreyas is searching for something, although he doesn’t know entirely what it is. Maybe it’s community. Maybe it’s a great conversation. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the chance to brew a really good cup of coffee.
ry from a vehicle occurred at Tresidder Memorial Union parking lot. I Between 2:40 p.m. and 2:47 p.m., burglary from a vehicle occurred at Tresidder Memorial Union parking lot. I Between April 11 and April 13, petty theft occurred at Durand House.
THURSDAY, APRIL 14 I Between April 13 and April 14, vehicle
theft occurred at Wilbur Field Garage. I Between April 13 and April 14, a bike theft occurred at Gavilan in Florence Moore Hall. I Between 9 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., a bike was stolen from Castano Hall. I Between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., petty theft occurred at Lathrop Library. I Between April 13 and April 14, a vehicle was stolen from Branner Hall.
FRIDAY, APRIL 15 I Between April 14 and April 15, an at-
tempt at commercial burglary occurred at Rains Apartments. I Between 11:30 a.m. and 5 p.m., petty theft of property from a vehicle occurred at Stock Farm Parking Lot. I Between April 14 and April 15, petty theft of property from a vehicle occurred at Manzanita Field Parking Garage.
SATURDAY, APRIL 16 I Between
10:55 a.m. and 11:45 a.m., burglary from a vehicle occurred at 300 Palm Drive. I Between April 9 and April 16, grand theft of property from a vehicle occurred at Manzanita Field Garage.
SUNDAY, APRIL 17 I At
5:30 a.m., a bike was stolen from Avery Aquatic Center.
MONDAY, APRIL 18 I At 9:55 a.m., an adult was arrested for
disorderly conduct involving possession of drugs. I At an unknown time, burglary from a vehicle occurred at an unknown location. I Between 2 p.m. and 2:35 p.m., burglary from a vehicle occurred at 295 Galvez St. I At an unknown time, vandalism and damage of property occurred at Building 60.
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Friday, April 22, 2022 N 3
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The Stanford Daily
OPINIONS The Stanford Daily
From the community Established 1892 Executive Team Emma Talley Editor in Chief
Georgia Rosenberg Executive Editor for Print
Savanna Stewart Executive Editor for Digital
Board of Directors Andrew Bridges Eleni Aneziris Emma Talley Anastasiia Malenko Kevin Zhang R.B. Brenner Sam Catania Tim Vrakas
A N I N D E P E N D E N T N E W S PA P E R Managing Editors Kirsten Mettler, Peyton Lee
Cameron Ehsan
Ron Rocky Coloma
Arts & Life Editors
Newsroom Development Director
Social Media Director
Carolyn Stein, Matthew Turk Audience Engagement Editors
HANNAH JEOUNG / The Stanford Daily
Eleni Aneziris Chief Operating Officer
To many survivors, rushing is “that deep” The author has requested anonymity for fear of harassment. Content warning: this article contains references to sexual assault. s a survivor, I’ve felt an awful ache this week as friend after friend has told me that they’re rushing. Each day has brought a new conversation, jaw clenched, heart racing and dropping and breaking, as I try to stand my ground and somehow demonstrate that survivors’ experiences, People of Color’s, queer folks’ — my experiences — and everyone who embodies any combination of these identities, are worth making the individual choice to opt out. I ask myself if it’s reasonable to be upset, years of internalized rape culture reminding me to paint myself as overreactive. I hate that I care so much, self-blame again creeping in as I wish I could return to ignorant bliss. I hate that they care so little. I can no longer determine how to feel safe with these friends — friends I’ve disclosed to,
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friends I’ve been vulnerable with, friends who frat brothers have separated me from with no remorse, leaving me panicked and alone with nobody to walk home with. How can I know my friends won’t become the next doorkeepers, the ones that let assailants stay at the party? How can I know they won’t remain loyal to the institution they’ve paid to be a part of — one that promotes secrecy, protection and maintaining tradition and dominance on this campus? Sexual violence is an inflicted trauma that can come with incredibly dangerous side effects. I think of my own assault, perpetrated by my best friend at the time, and how hopeless I feel three years later. I think of the foreignness I feel in my own body, the ways I wish I could crawl out of skin that no longer feels like my own. I think of how long I spent wishing I could escape a world that I no longer feel at home in. I think of how many survivors share the feeling that assault has ruined their life — it is “survival,” after all
Please see RUSH, page 5
Sophie Callcott
Holistic admissions harm students’ mental health Content warning: this article contains references to suicide. You can contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 800-2738255. n April 2, 2022, MIT announced that it was bringing back standardized testing requirements for the class of 2023, amid massive waves of its peer institutions dropping them. This decision once again raised the issue of equity in the college admissions process. While the SAT and ACT have been criticized as “wealth tests” — students with more money generally have more resources to perform well — MIT actually cited the tests’ ability to display excellence in spite of socioeconomic status as a main reason for reinstating the requirement, writing that it “help[s MIT] identify socioeconomically disadvantaged students who lack access to advanced coursework or other enrichment opportunities that would otherwise demonstrate their readiness for MIT.” But all this debate over the institutional use of standardized testing raises a broader question about the college admissions process that seems to get lost on the adults involved: how does this all make the students feel? For a high-achieving high school student, getting into your “dream college” seems like exactly that — just a dream. The class of 2025 faced a Stanford with a record-low 3.95% acceptance rate. Harvard, Yale and MIT all had similar single-digit admissions rates, and these figures are falling fast at colleges and universities across the U.S. A perfect SAT or ACT score and stellar extracurriculars only help edge an applicant’s foot into the door of a college admissions office. And notwithstanding the extremely low chance of getting into these highly selective schools, the methods these colleges and universities use to admit students routinely tell students that their selfworth is defined by their college acceptances. Take the first question on the Common App: “Some students
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“Students mold their very being into an image of an applicant.” have a background, identity, interest or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.” At its core this question asks students to exploit the most meaningful aspect of their identity for the hope of a college acceptance. These types of essay questions are typical of “holistic admissions,” which the College Board defines as a process of evaluating an applicant based on “Mission alignment, ... their likely ability to succeed ... their ability to enhance the educational experiences of their peers ... Consideration of multiple, often intersecting, factors — academic, nonacademic, and contextual — that, in combination, uniquely define and reflect accomplishments and potential contributions of each applicant in light of his or her background and circumstances.” In theory, this practice would allow students to succeed based on their authenticity as an applicant regardless of socioeconomic background. Instead, students mold their very being into an image of an applicant they think will appeal to admissions officers — undermining this goal of authenticity while simultaneously forcing students to exploit themselves in the hope of a college
Please see ADMISSION, page 5
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Emma Master
Part two: The pathway to progress n Part One, I introduced the widespread problem of mental health distress in Stanford’s student body. I also reevaluated the University’s responsibility to address its students’ mental health needs, especially when those needs are becoming a safety concern and are created in part by the University and its high-achieving culture. Here, in Part Two, I offer some pathways to progress for mental healthcare at Stanford. There are concrete steps that Stanford can take to address this distress in a preventative and communal way rather than as a reactive response to tragedy. Many students have relationships and communities that support them when they face challenges; often at the heart of this are the Resident Assistant (RAs). I will not address RA roles much in this piece, but the topic deserves an article of its own. Student RAs are on the front lines, serving their peers in some of their most extreme moments of crisis, as well as providing everyday support that should not be overlooked. They do their best despite training that is inadequate for the mental health crises that they must handle, struggles to be heard and supported by the administration, low pay and more, all on top of leading their own lives. Currently, student RAs bear the brunt when formal institutional resources for student well-being lack the funds to meet student demand. In terms of these formal institutional resources, I see two major areas in which increased funding would greatly benefit students: Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and wellness-oriented curricula (spanning Wellness Education, Health and Human Performance, LifeWorks, Institute for Diversity in the Arts, the Office for Religious and Spiritual Life, the Leland Scholars Program and more). Last fall quarter, Wellness Department classes at the University filled up even before freshmen had their enrollment holds lifted, so they could not enroll. For this spring quarter, my 35-person Wellness class “Meeting the Moment” filled as soon as enrollment opened, as did our 40-person waitlist. We are still getting emails from students asking to be added to the waitlist. CAPS is also underresourced relative to students’ demands for care. Students have long complained of multi-week wait times between sessions and the difficulty of procuring longterm placement after they are referred out. When I was an undergraduate (2015-2019), Stanford was constantly encouraging students to reach out for help when they needed it. At that time, the common
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narrative among students was, “I’m capable and competent. I can’t let anyone know I am struggling.” That nar rative has changed. Now, many students are asking for help; the departments who give that help just do not have enough resources to meet that demand. Immediate-Term: Increase Resources to Meet Student Need As an immediate-term measure, both CAPS and Wellness require more funds to employ enough staff members to meet student needs. CAPS needs to be able to employ enough staff to effectively triage short-term mental health care and reduce wait times. While CAPS does have an on-call service for immediate crisis response, students in distress cannot experience weeks of wait time in between appointments. Wellness departments need to be able to offer enough classes to meet student demand, instead of having consistently long waitlists that are filled with students who are asking for skills to manage their distress and are being denied appropriate and timely care. Longer-Ter m: Str uctural Change As a community, we need to be clear about what CAPS is and is not. With 37 clinicians (some of whom work part-time), CAPS physically cannot provide longterm care for a student body of almost 17,000 — nor is it meant to. What CAPS is meant to do, as efficiently as possible, is to triage care so that students can be seen in the short-term, and then *ideally* be refer red out to long-ter m providers if they still need care or ongoing support. Here’s the problem: the referral process is so long and arduous that students often give up before they are connected with long-term care, leaving them in a distressing state of mental health care limbo: needing care but not being able to get it because their short-term care expired and long-term care is extremely difficult to obtain. CAPS gives students a provider search engine called “The Shrink Space,” which seems straightforward enough. However, due to high demand in the Bay Area, many providers on that list do not have openings, are not responsive to phone calls, or have openings too expensive to sustainably afford. The process of contacting a ton of therapists and having to keep track of all the threads is especially grueling when, as is the case for most people in this position, you are already in mental health distress. If you have a stomach condition and your doctor at Vaden cannot help you, they will refer you out to a specialist, where you can get an appointment through your Cardinal Care insurance. The same process should
apply to mental healthcare. One possible solution here is for Stanford’s insurance to partner with long-term providers (both in-person and telehealth options) to subsidize the cost of appointments, so that students can be referred out reliably and affordably. Stanford already has partnerships through its SHCA insurance with local providers that subsidize long-term therapy with copays as low as $5. While this is a considerable investment, further partnerships with long-ter m providers would be a powerful statement of Stanford’s commitment to supporting student mental health. Wellness Curriculum With regard to an integrated Wellness curriculum, I propose a Wellness class requirement for frosh year, perhaps in collaboration with pre-existing programs such as FROSH 101. We have STEM and humanities requirements. Why not a life skills requirement where students learn orientations and practices to cope with the darker sides of highachieving and develop healthier relationships with perfectionism, stress management, self-criticism and dealing with failure? Students can learn emotion regulation and communication skills to strengthen their relationships, which are one of the strongest protective factors for mental health, according to the Harvard Study of Adult Development. These classes can also be spaces for reflection and the cultivation of values, which are critical for meaning-making, another protective factor. In such a highly stimulating, fast-paced environment, students would hugely benefit from scheduled time in which to pause and reflect on how they want to make use of their time at Stanford and why — before launching into the workforce. While a wellness course is not a remedy for mental illness, it is a preventative measure which, when taken early, can encourage students to be more balanced and internally resourced. It gives them enough knowledge about their own emotional state to know when they need to outsource help to mental health professionals, as well as how to communicate with their peers if their peers are the ones who need support. Student mental health is multifaceted, and these issues run deep. While increased funding for CAPS and wellness curricula are necessary steps, there are many other factors outside of the scope of this article that I hope my peers and colleagues will bring to light; for example, the unsustainable pressures on RAs previously mentioned and efforts to support ongoing cultural competency initiatives
Please see PROGRESS, page 5
Friday, April 22, 2022 N 5
The Stanford Daily BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY
Breaking space barriers Jessica Watkins ’10 to be first Black woman on an extended ISS mission By KRISTEL TJANDRA CONTRIBUTING WRITER
When she launches to the International Space Mission later this month, Jessica Watkins ’10 will become the first Black woman to embark on an extended space mission. Watkins will board Space X’s brand-new Dragon spacecraft, “Freedom,” and spend six months at the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the SpaceX Crew 4 mission — NASA’s fourth commercial mission to the ISS. Millions of miles below, countless viewers from around the world will be tuned in to watch the launch. Among those fixated to their screens will be a handful of people who knew Watkins as an avid scholar, a fearless rugby player and a student leader — her former peers and mentors who she met as an undergraduate at Stanford. Though the launch was previously slated for April 15, multiple delays announced by NASA have pushed the earliest potential launch date to April 26. The delays are a result of schedule changes for the landing of the Axiom Mission 1 crew, which is now planned to undock from the ISS on April 23. Watkins will be joined by three other crew members: Kjell N. Lindgren, a board-certified emergency medicine doctor who has pre-
RUSH Continued from page 4 — and how many have been killed by a world and culture in which they can never feel safe. So when I think of this university — one at which two in five undergraduate cis women will experience sexual violence before they graduate — I remember that I am not at home here, that a place with such academic achievement has an extremely violent underbelly. That I follow brave women like Chanel Miller and Leah Francis, and so many others, who fought fervently to even be listened to and who were denied justice. Between 1997 and 2014, only one rapist was expelled at Stanford, despite nine findings of responsibility for sexual assault during that same period. One. The exceptional part about sexual violence at this school is not that our frats
PROGRESS Continued from page 4 at CAPS. Culturally, we stand at an inflection point with respect to mental health care. High-achieving athletes such as Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka are speaking out publicly about their struggles with mental health and the strain of high performance. Health insurance providers are now covering more telehealth therapy and beginning to see mental health as on par with physical health after a surge in therapy use during the pandemic. Bay Area tech companies are expected to provide mental healthcare benefits in addition to physical healthcare benefits for their job offers to be considered competitive. Given the modern mental health crisis’ disproportionate impact on our young people, universities are sure to follow suit.
viously participated in two spacewalks aboard NASA Expedition 44/45, Robert Hines, who was a NASA and a U.S. Air Force pilot, and Samantha Cristoforetti, who is the first Italian woman in space and held a record for the single longest spaceflight by a woman until 2017. In preparation for the mission, Watkins has forged her own unique role within the four-person team. “You learn to find the different ways that you contribute to the group,” she said. “I think for me it’s been interesting and fun to get to see how I insert myself into the crew.” An astronaut on the Farm Watkins came to Stanford as an undergraduate in 2006 with her heart already dead set on a future in space. While studying geological and environmental sciences, Watkins met geological sciences professor Donald Lowe. The two shared an interest in Martian soil — a mutual fascination that formed the basis for Watkins’ undergraduate thesis, which Lowe agreed to advise. Lowe said Watkins was more determined than most of her classmates: “She walked into my office one time and said she was going to be an astronaut. I was a little skeptical,” he said. “99 out of 100 young people who want to be astronauts are not going to become astronauts for a variety of reasons. But I quickly learned that there was no dissuading Jessica.” Aside from academics, Watkins was a core member of the Stanford women’s rugby team for four years, highlighted by a national cham-
are better at preventing it — it’s that our statistics are twice the average across universities in this country. Rape and frat culture are inextricably linked — some “friends” deny this reality, yet the few who acknowledged it expressed any desire or intention to change it. So no, I’m not overreacting when I wince at your plans to pay for this “Sacred Siblinghood” and contributions to upholding rape culture at this university. I’m scared. Students at this university, students of color, gender-marginalized students, queer students and every intersection of these identities deserve to be safe. But more than that, we deserve to be able to exist on this campus with some sense of security. I don’t care if frats control the social scene. I care about the safety and respect of everyone on this campus. I cannot sit idly by as privileged, unscathed students at this university churn out new survivors. Create lives that feel ruined. Rob us of that essential need to feel at home in the world.
For any institution, where it puts its money is the true sign of its values. I invite Stanford to take accountability for what it is — one of the most selective schools in the nation with the best and brightest high-achieving students, taught and guided by an innovative faculty and administration — by stepping up in a concrete, financial way to prioritize the mental health of its students. Stanford is a national and global leader in research, academics and athletics alike. And comprehensive, accessible mental healthcare has become a basic, pressing student need. Let Stanford now lead in this arena. EMMA MASTER is a staff member in student mental health and well-being. She serves as the Program Coordinator for “Meeting the Moment,” run by the Office for Religious and Spiritual Life, the Stanford Storytelling Project, LifeWorks Program for Integrative Learning, Health and Human Performance and Wellness Education.
Courtesy of NASA
Watkins will board Space X’s brand-new Dragon spacecraft, “Freedom,” and will spend six months at the International Space Station. The launch could come as early as April 26. pionship win in 2008. Despite picking up the sport as a frosh, Watkins rose to become one of the top players in the country by her sophomore year, scoring on the final play of the national championship game. Her time with the team continues to influence her today. “Being a team player is a really important part of what we do and I learned the best from the Stanford women’s rugby team,” Watkins said. While at Stanford, Watkins also made an impression on Jack Lissauer, a space scientist
at NASA Ames Research Center and a geological sciences professor at Stanford. Lissauer met Watkins when she was a student in his class, GEOLSCI 221: “What Makes a Habitable Planet?.” Watkins possessed a “very outgoing personality” and was “very memorable,” Lissauer said. “It was clear just in terms of her abilities to juggle so many things that she was going to go
Linda Liu
Reform trigger warnings in art s the first speaker of “Faces of Community” walked up the podium in Frost Amphitheater, the screen over her head immediately caught the audience’s attention. During this convocation of the Stanford Class of 2025 and transfer students, the colorfully illustrated texts like “Content warning: sexual assault, violence” on the LED screen became one of the first impressions that Stanford left on us. For some, this represented Stanford’s protection of those who are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while I viewed it as the institution’s meticulous effort to steer the line of political correctness in a way that does not offer concrete assistance to those in need. The concept of a trigger warning originated from the psychiatric literature to describe the process by which thoughts and images can bring traumatic events back to life for those experiencing PTSD, unleashing re-experiencing symptoms such as intense fear. With the rise of the focus on mental health across the country in the last few years, “care culture” — an environment in which those in a position of power are responsible for protecting the mental health of others — has surged on college campuses and the art community, two highly liberal-minded contexts. These changes, however, are often initiated from the bottom-up: from students pressuring professors and audience pressuring artists. According to a National Coalition Against Censorship survey, more than 34% of the surveyed university-level educators reported that their students pushed for the use of trigger warnings or made complaints about lack thereof, while more than half believe the warnings to be detrimental to classroom dynamics and/or academic freedom. Directors of artistic production also complained of having
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to spoil elements of their work but eventually gave in to the use of warnings out of consideration of the wishes of their patrons. For professors, including a content warning often entails merely adding a line or two about an assigned reading or film on the syllabus. The artist, however, has much more at stake in revealing details regarding their work. As argued by twentieth-century literary critic Viktor Shklovsky, one of the most important characteristics of art is its ability to unveil reality to the audience by “making-strange” day-to-day details, the ability of which would be significantly impaired by alerting the audience of what will happen ahead of time. While many argue that a good piece of art has the ability to surprise the audience despite the warnings, the popularized “care culture” norms in the consumer-driven art world means that those in the creative industry often need to present their message in a way that does not upset the audience. That audience can in turn use the public attention surrounding mental health to block out the content that they do not want to see. These norms tie the hands of the artists, who for centuries have been at the frontline of protesting societal oppression, like that of minorities. In the arts scene at Stanford, a liberal educational institution, the use of content warnings is no less prevalent. The event description of Asian American Theater Project’s December production of Among the Dead — which tells the story of the identity quest of Ana Woods, born of an American soldier and a Korean comfort woman during World War II — alerted the audience of “war violence, sexual violence, and M**der”; the refusal to fully write out the word “murder” is reminiscent of censorship. Moreover, trigger warnings alone are often insufficient in help-
ADMISSION Continued from page 4 acceptance. And, as Stanford lecturer and Challenge Success cofounder Denise Pope said, “some of these kids have had college on the brain since sixth or seventh grade or even earlier.” When at 10 or 11 years old one already believes that they have got to start making themselves into a competitive college applicant, the line between oneself and oneself as it appears to colleges becomes increasingly blurred. Getting rejected from your dream college, far from being a normal rejection, feels like a rejection of your very being, your heart and soul that you put into your application. Each component of the college process adds to the stress and anxiety students feel, especially among students looking for a coveted spot at a top 10 school. And note — since the pandemic, student anxiety has only gone up. In many exceptionally wealthy communities around the US — and especially the greater Stanford area — this anxiety and depression manifests itself in dark ways. Growing up in the Bay Area, it feels as though I’ve been acquainted with the negative impacts the college admissions process has on a student’s psyche my whole life.
L.A. CICERO / Stanford News Service
Sophie Callcott argues that holistic admissions add stress and anxiety to students’ lives, harming their mental health. “Each component of the college process adds to the stress and anxiety students feel,” she writes. Hanna Rosin’s Atlantic article “The Silicon Valley Suicides,” which examines the suicide clusters of 20092010 and 2014-2015 in the greater Palo Alto area, came out when I was in eighth grade. It exposed the lifeor-death bend that the competitive high school culture and the college admissions process can have. Rosin defines a “suicide cluster” as “multiple deaths in close succession and proximity.” Palo Alto is an exceptional case: “the 10-year suicide rate ... is between four and five times the national average” at Palo Alto high schools. In the 2014-2015 school year alone, Palo Alto saw two youth suicide clusters — for context, in the US there are about five a year. The CDC conducted an in-
Please see SPACE, page 11
vestigation into the suicide epidemic in Palo Alto after that cluster and found that the city had the largest youth suicide rate in the country, with 14.1 per 100,000 residents committing suicide between 20032015. After the 2009-2010 case, professionals from Stanford and the Bay Area helped train staff and created a “toolkit” to prevent an echo cluster — a second cluster in the same location within a decade. Echo clusters are extraordinarily rare, so the two Silicon Valley clusters suggest that the band-aid solution of a “toolkit” won’t cut it — the culture has to change. Rosin argues that, when a high school consistently ranks nationally in terms of STEM programs,
theater and arts programs, academics at large — not to mention the massive success of neighbors such as Mark Zuckerberg, Paul Allen or Elon Musk — excellence always seems out of reach. Part of this pressure stems from the economic environment in which these students exist. Professor Suniya Luther conducted a study that concluded that “rich middle- and highschool kids ... show higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse on average ... They report clinically significant depression or anxiety ... at a rate two to three times the national average.” These stressors seem to stem from the pressure to excel academically and extracurricularly to ultimately “make a lot of money.”
ing those experiencing PTSD process their trauma. Studies have shown that they do not alleviate trauma-survivors’ negative emotional response to certain materials and can even result in their greater anxiety. Their usage has persisted in the art world regardless. In effect, in pressuring artists to adopt the warnings, cultural authorities are shifting their responsibility to provide resources beneficial to the mental health of the citizens to the artists, creating an unnecessary burden on the latter and oftentimes limiting their expression. “Just like we do not ask hospitals and doctors to perform in purposebuilt environments for learning, entertainment, and social change, we should not demand that theaters and artists should become arbiters of what is triggering or potentially traumatic to an infinite number of possible audience members,” argued theater and performance studies professor Samer al-Saber in an email to The Daily. In a lecture to the students of ITALIC 91, Professor al-Saber voiced his opinion that in entering the theater the audience signs a contract with the artists to experience the production fully. To protect both those processing trauma and the artists’ right to make social impacts by impressing the audience, the path that Stanford and other institutions should take is to better provide mental health resources to the population and support artists’ free expression. Even so, as expressed by Professor alSaber, “Given the size of the task and challenge ahead, as well as the absence of sufficient mental health care in the USA, I think audience members are best served by taking extra care in choosing which performances they should see. Call the theater ahead of time and ask about what you consider to be triggering to you. Do the research and make the choice in advance.” Many talk about the pressure parents put on their children to succeed, but — perhaps as an extension of their parents’ beliefs or some conviction of their own — other students apply this pressure to each other, too. This competitive culture creates a space in which it’s fine for students to brag about how late they stay up doing homework, lie about their test scores or humble brag about their summers abroad — creating a never-ending cycle of stress. While a lot can be said to the importance of creating a home environment in which students don’t feel this enormous pressure to succeed from their parents, the onus ultimately falls on all institutions to meaningfully improve the mental state of college applicants across America. Competitive high schools need to internally examine the types of behavior they promote and award — namely, asking students to stay up all night studying and working on college-level assignments starting at age 14 while simultaneously being star athletes and artists. And colleges need to stop demanding this profile from applicants to even get their name on the table. In the rush to label themselves as “prestigious,” “highly selective” and “nationally ranked,” these institutions have failed to actually uplift the population that relies on them the most: students.
6 N Friday, April 22, 2022
The Stanford Daily
CULTURE MUSIC
Revisiting a wellness classic Rashad’s “Cilvia Demo” is timeless, important By NICK SLIGH COLUMNIST
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Courtesy of the Walt Disney Corporation
From “tick, tick...BOOM!” to “Inside Out,” Bo Burnham’s “Inside” to “Encanto,” writer Kristofer Nino highlights movies and television shows that successfully explore issues of mental health. Nino’s picks range from heartbreaking to hilarious.
SCREEN
Mental health movies The Daily’s recommendations for Mental Health Awareness Month in May By KRISTOFER NINO
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ome movies dare to dive into the human mind, in all its intricate layers. Besides being entertainment, cinema sparks conversations about real-world issues, including mental health.
Films can give us intimate views of the human psyche and help us reimagine our own journeys toward improving our emotional well-being. Here are a few movies and series that touch on mental health in worthwhile ways. “tick, tick ... BOOM!” (2021). Directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Watch on Netflix. Amid its dazzling musical numbers and show-stopping cast, “tick, tick ... BOOM!” manages to tell a gripping and honest story about the mental struggles that often accompany “following your dreams.” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s film adaptation of the original musical by Jonathan Larson draws from Larson’s own life as an aspiring composer frantically trying to make his way to theater stardom. Andrew Garfield’s performance as Larson is breathtaking, fully capturing the anxiety, obsession and grief Larson faced throughout his creative journey. The film’s treatment of mental health is refreshingly truthful: we see Larson’s obsessions shatter his relationships and everyday life. The film frames the process of improving one’s mental health as a lifelong journey, strengthened by community. Despite the over-the-top (and incredibly catchy) soundtrack, at its core, “tick, tick ... BOOM!” is a story of resilience and the harsh reality artists face when pursuing their passions. “A Silent Voice” (2016). Directed by Naoko Yamada. Watch on Netflix.
“A Silent Voice” is a stunning Japanese animated film that follows Shoya Ishida, a teen outcast who tries to reconcile and befriend a deaf girl whom he bullied many years ago. It portrays difficult topics such as isolation and suicide but addresses them with empathy. This delicate but honest handling of mental health is brought to life by the film’s art style: graceful animation mixed with an intimate use of bright colors. It effectively depicts the overwhelming loneliness and catastrophizing mindsets that can emerge from bullying and childhood trauma. Outside of its dark subject matter, “A Silent Voice” is a movie that focuses on a positive journey and portrays all its characters with emotional complexity. As the movie goes on, it unfolds as a beautifully animated slice-of-life, with Ishida gradually growing in friendship and hope. The relationship that blossoms between outcast Ishida and his deaf friend Nishimiya is heartwarming. It becomes an amazing example of how people can reconnect and support each other after facing mental health struggles. “Bo Burnham: Inside” (2021). Directed by Bo Burnham. Watch on Netflix. Bo Burnham’s Netflix special “Inside” goes beyond the comedian’s typical repertoire, becoming an anthem of the modern generation’s mental state. Dark, hilarious and heartbreaking, this is Burnham at his best — a work written, shot and performed by him alone, yet perfectly encapsulating the loneliness and neuroticism that has haunted so many people during the pandemic. In Burnham’s isolated stand-up and comedic songs, he depicts the effects of the internet and quarantine on mental health with incredible humor and showmanship. While at times morbid, “Inside” is honest and deeply moving. Unforgettable songs like “Welcome to the Internet” expose the chaos of having the “whole
world at your fingertips,” while songs like “All Eyes on Me” blur the worlds of parasocial and genuine human empathy. Half a comic fever dream and half a beautiful contemplation on mental health, “Inside” is a must-watch special that touches on deeply human experiences. It reveals the darkness of the modern world, forcing us to reconsider our own understanding of mental health and the dangers of the emotional isolation we can trap ourselves in. “Inside Out” (2015). Directed by Pete Docter. Watch on Disney+. Pixar’s “Inside Out” is a whimsical adventure into the psyche, following Joy, Sadness and other personified emotions who live inside Riley’s young mind. While this movie is not an accurate depiction of the actual internal processes of the mind — sadly, our brains do not have a bunch of colorful humanoid emotions running them — the mental health journeys of the characters feel real. Riley’s turbulent experiences of missing her hometown and facing her strange new environment are portrayed realistically, and her story is both heartbreaking and inspiring. Joy’s and Sadness’ character dynamics are delightfully entertaining and equally inspiring. The two emotions get lost in Riley’s brain and try to save her while realizing that every emotion matters and is valid. “Inside Out” is an incredibly uplifting movie that is sure to make any viewer grow in care for their own emotional well-being. “Encanto” (2021). Directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard. Watch on Disney+. While “Encanto” is a colorful Pixar film about a mystical family household, it also manages to share some complex messages
listened to “Cilvia Demo” as soon as it came out in 2014, and I will never forget how quickly and potently the album impacted me. To this day, it remains a work to which I frequently return, and it’s an album that I will absolutely never give up listening to. For May’s upcoming Mental Health Awareness month, I thought it was only right to take a look at “Cilvia Demo,” Isaiah Rashad’s debut studio album. The album taught me so much and helped me verbalize so many issues I was dealing with at the time. It didn’t just uplift me on my first listen, but provided a long-term source of inspiration and a piece of art that has helped me cope at many different times in my life. As dark and depressing as the album gets at times, it provides hope and comfort overall, reminding the listener that they are not alone in what they are going through. “Hereditary,” the album’s intro, starts with Isaiah remembering some of the most blunt and straightforward issues that he’s faced in his life. It’s easy to see famous artists as invincible and untouchable figures who only experience and express life’s positives, but Rashad so clearly shows the juxtaposition that exists between reality and perception. “My daddy taught me how to drink my pain away / My daddy taught me how to leave somebody / My daddy taught me how to smoke my load and go / My daddy taught me you don’t need nobody.” - “Hereditary” Despite being an emerging star — with massive potential as Top Dawg Entertainment’s new signee — Rashad opened his debut album with an open admission that he just can’t escape his traumas. He helps to remind everybody that trauma does not simply disappear with accolades, and that pain can compound and persist no matter what else is going on in somebody’s life. From the very first lines of the album, Isaiah takes a unique route for a hip-hop project by normalizing vulnerable mental health expression. “Cilvia Demo” is much more than Rashad wallowing in his depression, though. It’s him navigating becoming both a young man and an emerging figure in hip-hop, consistently reminding the listener that their struggles with mental health don’t define them. Rashad authentically tells his stories of growing up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, trying to make it in the industry while still coping and struggling with all of his internal and external conflicts. He tells every story through a lens of pain and recovery, but in a way that isn’t overbearing. The parts of the album without direct references to Isaiah’s mental health strug-
Please see LIST, page 7
Please see MUSIC, page 7
SCREEN
How to defy film expectation By MALIA MENDEZ COLUMNIST
Welcome to Combing the 100% Club. In this column, I’ll be reviewing and recommending lesser known members of Rotten Tomatoes’ 100% Club — the site’s trove of films with per fect Tomatometer scores. Follow along to find out why critics love these films, and why you might love them, too.
“P
aper Spiders” premiered at the 2020 Boston Film Festival, earning top prizes for Best Film, Best Actress (Lili Taylor), Best Screenplay and Best Ensemble Cast. It was subsequently released to the public in May 2021, a date coscreenwriters Inon and Natalie Shampanier hand-picked to commemorate Mother’s Day and Mental Health Awareness Month. Not only is “Paper Spiders” an exceptionally deserving member of the
100% Club, exploring the complexity of motherhood and the brutal everyday realities of mental illness, but it is also featured on the Rotten Tomatoes Top 10 Best Films of 2021 list. The film begins as a standard coming-of-age film anchored by a tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, reminiscent of Greta Gerwig’s 2017 smash hit “Lady Bird.” High-school senior and valedictorian-elect Melanie (Stefania LaVie Owen) dreams of attending the University of Southern California (USC), her late father’s alma mater, while her mother Dawn (Lili Taylor) grows increasingly anxious about having an empty nest. Like many mothers and daughters, these two are built-in best friends who banter at the dining table and finish each other’s sentences; Dawn is amusingly eccentric, and Melanie is endearingly gentle. The film significantly departs from convention, though, when Dawn’s eccentricity is revealed as a product of her hitherto dormant
persecutory delusional disorder — an illness that screenwriter Natalie watched her own mother battle. Those who are afflicted with this disorder are disconnected from the real world, plagued with the debilitating paranoia that others seek to harm them. Dawn’s particular paranoia, exacerbated by her enduring grief over her husband — who died unexpectedly after suffering a heart attack in the family pool — manifests as a deep conviction that her innocuous next-door neighbor Brody is out to get her. Her ill will toward him begins when he accidentally drives into her late husband’s front-yard tree. Though the damage to the tree is minimal, this accident effectively splinters Dawn’s sense of reality and, as a consequence, her relationship with Melanie. When a pine cone falls onto the roof, Dawn insists it is Brody walking atop it; when she loses her job, she claims he sabotaged her; when Melanie frustratedly tries to convince her that Brody’s meddling is a figment of her
Graphic: KIRSTEN METTLER / The Stanford Daily
“Paper Spiders” explores persecutory delusional disorder by destablizing the boundary between the imagination and reality. It was featured as one of Rotten Tomatoes’ top picks in 2021. imagination, she yells hysterically, “See, he’s turning us against each other!” Poignant moments like these represent the malignant nature of Dawn’s mental illness — left untreated, it eats away at her and her emotional support systems. Dawn is obviously paranoid — in a physical and emotional state of
frenzy for most of the film — but the Shampaniers’ screenplay and Taylor’s performance also destabilize the boundary between Dawn’s imagination and the film’s diegetic reality, leaving room for her paranoia to instead be seen as valid fear.
Please see SPIDER, page 9
Friday, April 22, 2022 N 7
The Stanford Daily
CULTURE
Skating with
style
By CHLOE MENDOZA
STAFF WRITER
FashionX and Skate Club collab on Arguello Field basketball courts LIST
MUSIC
Continued from page 6
Continued from page 6
about self-worth and improving one’s mental health through community. “Encanto” explores the mental strain that comes with living up to your family’s expectations through the story of Mirabel, a teenage girl trying to find her place in a family where everyone has a supernatural ability, except her. Mirabel is charming and relatable, and I found myself sympathizing with her struggles to not disappoint her family legacy. Her portrayal is earnest and entertaining, an accurate example of how mental health can be challenged by the expectations placed on us. On top of a poignant storyline that addresses complex themes of generational trauma, “Encanto” also has gorgeous animation, stellar performances, whimsical musical numbers and an aesthetic rooted in Colombian culture and literature. It is a delightful film that imparts lessons about acceptance and family that viewers of any age can appreciate.
gles tell a complete story of a broken young man who is trying to heal. Waves of confidence resurge without invalidating the struggle and the agony of the bad times. When dealing with depression, we sometimes get so comfortable that we even develop fear towards or an uncomfortability with happiness. It’s easy to accept the feeling that something bad is always imminent, especially when things finally start to go right for once. When happiness is so rare, its brief presence can feel so odd that it makes us uncomfortable. Isaiah’s broad exploration beyond his suicidal thoughts and depression brings nuance to the story and a reminder of the complexity and depth of all people; it’s an encouragement to never define and label people by the issues that they struggle with. “West Savannah” gives a nod to legendary rap duo Outkast, as well as Rashad’s Southern roots. One of the most beautiful and uplifting songs on the album, it’s a soulful story of Isaiah’s romantic tragedies amidst his healing and pain. The track’s simplicity and elegance make it one of the best of Rashad’s career. Isaiah finally sees his suicidal thoughts subside, and his willingness to live slowly returns to him through the feeling of newfound love. No matter how dark things had become for Isaiah, the affection and care from a significant other did wonders for him, slowly bringing him back to feeling whole. Beyond the depth and potency of the chorus, the song is musically terrific, featuring some of the most alluring love-themed hip-hop music you can find. “Now can we fall in love / While Southernplayalistic banging through the night? / And I ain’t ever felt no type of way / About this living, do or die / At least we fell in love / With something greater than debating suicide.” - “West Savannah” The magnum opus of the album (and Isaiah’s career) comes on the eleventh track. “Heavenly Father” is a perfect song with a beauty that words could never do justice. It’s one of, if not the most, heartbreaking but authentic and comforting songs I have ever heard. It’s a forward and honest breakdown of Isaiah’s daily struggles, his past traumas, his doubts and his fears. He addresses his suicidal thoughts, his lack of hope and his coping: just trying to survive everyday and keep living.
“The Queen’s Gambit” (2021). Directed by Scott Frank. Watch on Netflix. More than just a show about chess, “The Queen’s Gambit” is a provocative character study that explores a character who is locked in a match with inner demons: loneliness, obsession and addiction. Based on a book of the same title, this Netflix miniseries won 11 Emmy Awards and is celebrated for vivid period storytelling and intelligent writing. The show’s nuance is evident in how it tackles its protagonist’s relationship with drugs and alcohol. In the show, we watch Beth Harmon, an orphan, rise through the ranks of the chess world. We get an intimate view of her inner life, including her struggles with trauma and substance abuse that begin at a young age. “The Queen’s Gambit” shows the brutal hold that addiction has on Harmon throughout her life and how it affects her career, relationships and self-confidence. Yet, the series does not turn Harmon into a one-dimensional character but instead acknowledges the pressures she is under as a woman pushing past sexism in a male-dominated sport. Overall, it is an incredible show that doesn’t hold back from venturing into the mind of a troubled but brilliant character. Editor’s Note: This article is a review and contains subjective opinions, thoughts and critiques.
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he sound of scraping wood fills the air. Wheels turn, methodically and unconstrained, whirling the rider balancing on the deck around a full 360 degrees. The skateboarders seem to defy gravity, as they twist and bank along Arguello Field’s basketball courts. Adaptation and failure are key to their learning, as the skateboarders must fall and pick themselves up daily. The result is a singularly laid back, yet defiant fashion culture.
ANANYA NAVALE / The Stanford Daily
One skater performs a flip trick while another crouches on their board, filming on their phone. The event attracted everyone from curious Stanford bystanders to the Berkeley Skate Club.
Please see SKATERS, page 9
The song’s title and chorus (“Heavenly father, why are you so far away (Oh, I feel like I’m fallin’)) serves a double meaning: first to his perceived absence of a God looking out for him and second to the realized absence of his own biological father. The song also deals with his fears of sharing these stories and the impact that it will have on his career as a hip-hop artist: “And if I give my story to the world / I wonder if they’d book me for a show ... The story’s storyteller tell it wrong / And glorify the horror and the wealth.” Isaiah was clearly troubled and fearful of the juxtaposition of his music against mainstream rap. Despite the progress that society has made, mental health issues are still stigmatized and not universally respected and understood. The very real fear of rejection after coming forth with mental health struggles is relevant for anybody, but perhaps most acutely for a young male rapper coming out of the deep South. The first verse ends with a longing for understanding and a call of comfort to listeners: “I know I’m not the only one alone / I know I’m not the only one that felt”. “Now, I’m prayin’ that I make it 25 / Baby call a doctor for my health / And ‘no’ is kinda hard to say to drugs / ‘Cause I been havin’ problems with myself.” - “Heavenly Father” The second verse dives into his substance abuse issues, his longing for a father figure and the added pressures of the music industry that compound his personal problems. Isaiah has been open about his struggles with addiction and how they compounded his prior issues. The industry hasn’t given him the support that he needs, only a demand to go make money: “And I been askin’ questions, where the love? And they don’t give me answers, just a check”. Our struggles don’t exist in a vacuum. Trauma isn’t isolated. Pain compounds. As much as we like to isolate incidents or look at specific effects stemming from an exact circumstance, the truth is that our lives are extremely intricate and complicated. Every event’s influence is dependent on the complex web of events that led up to it and the sum of experiences that an individual has faced. We might not ever be able to understand the precise mental outcomes for anybody in any situation, but we can always empathize and be cognizant of shortcomings in understanding. Every song on “Cilvia Demo” is a reminder of this. Isaiah’s “Cilvia Demo” helped me realize and forever remember
these lessons. It has helped me to cope with my own pain at many different points in life. It also always serves as a reminder to the deep suffering that others can be facing at any point. Dealing with personal struggles can often build empathy and wisdom, and with critical thought, it can build a perspective and a heart that can change other people’s lives. The power of Isaiah
Rashad’s soul and heart were immortalized with “Cilvia Demo,” an album that will always mean the world to me. I hope the album can mean the world to other people out there looking for ways to manage their personal problems and cope with life’s negatives. Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective opinions, thoughts and critiques.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Isaiah Rashad’s debut album “Cilvia Demo” is a beautiful and raw exploration into the artist’s struggles with mental health and the lessons that came from those struggles, writes Nick Sligh.
8 N Friday, April 22, 2022
The Stanford Daily
CULTURE
Dance Marathon returns to campus By SOFIA GONZALEZRODRIGUEZ COLUMNIST
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ast Saturday saw the return of the Stanford University Dance Marathon (SUDM), a student-organized fundraising event benefiting the Lucile Packard Children’s Fund. The charity helps cover the cost of healthcare for under-resourced patients at Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. Dance marathons first came about in the 1920s and 1930s as competitions of endurance, presenting an opportunity to earn cash during the Great Depression. Historically, contestants were required to dance for hours on end to avoid disqualification, with only brief and infrequent breaks. Last weekend’s event was decidedly less intense — participants were free to come and go as they pleased. Every hour, organizers engaged the crowd with 30 seconds of choreography to “High Hopes” by Panic! At The Disco. Set up in a fenced-in area next to the Claw, the marathon took place over the span of 12 hours, running from noon to midnight. Participants paid a fee of $15 — 100% of which went to the Children’s Fund — to gain access to the poker-themed space. Inside, tables were set up with poker, roulette and board games. The real attraction, though, was the event’s lineup, which kept participants moving with performanc-
es by various student groups. An instructor from the Arrillaga Outdoor Education and Recreation center even taught a high-energy, hour-long Zumba lesson. From Fleet Street to the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band, campus favorites dropped by throughout the afternoon. Along with takeout from Chipotle, Salt & Straw and more, these appearances helped draw curious passersby to participate in the event. The fundraiser gained momentum over the course of the day, reaching its peak at 9 p.m. with student indie music group Banana Bred. Lead singer Elliot Dauber ’23 kept a modest crowd entertained with a mix of original songs and covers of well-known favorites like Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar” and Declan McKenna’s “Brazil.” Keeping with the purpose of the Dance Marathon, Dauber urged his audience to dance, jump and move their hands throughout the performance; his call to “dance extra hard” was met with enthusiastic head-shaking and jumping. At the end of the band’s set, cheers of “encore!” pierced the night. Guitarist Matt Reed ’23 took the lead in suggesting a rendition of “Tommy’s Party” by Peach Pit. “We’re gonna learn a song right now,” Dauber said laughingly to an elated crowd as he pulled up the lyrics on his phone. Attendee Sofia Vera ’25 said the band “did an amazing job of setting the mood and making people
dance.” She added that overall, the marathon felt “very well-organized.” “It was really nice to see how the group managed to make a service event that was for a really good cause super fun,” Vera said. Another highlight of the fundraiser was the “Patient Hero Hour” at 5 p.m., when two patients of Lucile Packard spoke about the hospital’s awe-inspiring impact. They shared stories of their medical trials and tribulations, emphasizing the generous support they had received from Stanford medical professionals throughout their treatment. Paul Fisher, a human biology professor and chief of the hospital’s Division of Child Neurology, spoke about the wide range of patients the hospital serves. Its nationally-recognized quality of medical care draws patients from outside of Palo Alto and even beyond California — Fisher told the crowd about a Honduran asylum seeker who sought treatment for her child’s brain tumor. Over one-third of Lucile Packard’s patients are on public insurance, leaving them with significant gaps in coverage. The Children’s Fund helps take the financial burden off families, broadening the capacity of the hospital. According to the 2021 Children’s Fund Impact Report, 40% of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital patients benefited from this financial assistance. Dance Marathon Co-Director Elyse Lowet ’24 said that her in-
Courtesy of Stanford University Dance Marathon
Round-the-clock performances from Stanford music groups and students kept participants busy all day. Proceeds went to the Lucile Packard Children’s Fund, which benefits families in need. volvement with the club stems from “a general desire to increase accessibility and affordability of healthcare.” She felt that the event was an opportunity to pursue this goal while having fun and building community. Co-Director Jack Christian ’23 echoed Lowet’s sentiments, saying that “there are often lots of cracks when it comes to socioeconomic status in the healthcare system, so I think it’s a very important cause to be involved with, even as an undergraduate.” Twelve members of the broader SUDM club staffed the event, most of whom were from the organization’s event committee. Those who weren’t overseeing the entry booth had to be on their feet for the majority of the event. Both co-directors felt that the excitement of the event outweighed the exhaustion. “We meet every week starting at the beginning of fall
quarter, and everything that we do kind of leads up to this one day, so I think that we have a lot of adrenaline going in,” Lowet said. They also had fond memories of the pre-pandemic fundraiser in 2020, which was held just before COVID-19 sent students home. “It was kind of like a last hurrah,” Lowet said. Though SUDM still held a modified three-hour virtual event last year, Lowet characterized 2022 as “a rebuilding year.” For one, younger members have stepped up to fill leadership roles after older students graduated. The co-directors also saw this year’s marathon as an opportunity to regain the momentum lost during the virtual year. “We are really proud of the event that we did put on,” said Christian. “We really focused more on raising awareness for the hospital, for the cause, and we had a really strong showing at the event.”
THE GRIND
A growing bookshelf When did reading lose its luster? FROM THE COMMUNITY Content warning: this article contains reference to suicidal thoughts. The author has requested anonymity to protect the identity of a family member undergoing a mental health struggle. If you or someone you know is in need of support, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255.
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sundoku (Japanese: Ji nDu ) is defined as acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them. I go to the Package Lockers once again, too many times to count on one hand this week. This time it’s Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit from the Goon Squad” greeting me (retail therapy has become my new coping mechanism). I tear the blue and white packaging along the perforated line. When I go back to my dorm room, rather than opening the cover and delving into the story in front of me, I stack it on my bookshelf. It joins a growing family. “The Fire Next Time” from yesterday, “We the Animals” from the day before, Ocean Vuong poetry from the day before that and “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” from winter quarter. They all sit next to a Borrow Direct book from Johns Hopkins University and several books from City Lights Bookstore. All have one thing in common — none have been finished, their spines yet to be broken in. The stacks that sit on my shelf and desk serve as a constant reminder for a particular failure, failure that I ponder as I continue to gravitate towards hours of scrolling — why can’t I read books anymore? What happened? Is it the fact that I am a busy college student — that socializing, classes and clubs have gotten in the way of old hobbies? New interests have taken the forefront, I guess. But even then, the hours I sit on my bed and do nothing could be spent with a book in my hand, especially with the plenty that just sit there and collect dust. After all, reading can be used as a form of relaxation. Yet when I get the chance, even on mundane summer days, I always end up doing something else, like a walk in the sun or a chat with friends. I do want to read, though —
it’s not as if it’s a looming, undesirable task. Is it a gifted kid burnout? I used to be able to read 100 pages an hour from “Percy Jackson” novels and other Young Adult fiction. Even if the texts have gotten harder in school, I still can’t seem to begin reading books that are raved about across BookTok. Even if I do read, it’s short stories that are able to hold my attention. I avoid classics and books that use words such as “visage,” “clamor” and “undulate.” Is it because I am such a bad English major, duck syndrome be damned? My tote bag is full of books to give the perception that I’m inching my way through a story among classes, when in reality they’re there to fill space. My peers’ Goodreads profiles are continuously updated with new books and are far more knowledgeable about texts and authors. I pretend to do the reading if it’s too difficult to understand and fake it in class discussions. To my peers, I laugh at their references to literature I don’t understand. I have yet to read a single line of Joan Didion. Is it the fact that my reading comprehension has gone downhill? Is it due to the fact that I have had less time to practice reading and pages can take hours to get through, that I read as fast as a video on 0.5 speed? Or that the quirks I’ve always had when I read — such as not being able to retain information and forcing myself to reread parts over and over — have gotten worse by the day. Is it a sign of an attention disorder? Maybe I should make that Vaden appointment ... Am I just sick of escapism? Stories are the opportunity to live through the eyes of others. Given the fact that I haven’t lived my life normally for the past two years, I want an actual taste of reality. And beyond that, how can I just ignore the problems in my life and pretend everything is fine when things are falling apart around me? That I just can’t be this aesthetically perfect English major, who can read all the time and bask in literature and walk around in Doc Martens and tote bags and gawk about authors I have no idea about. That I can’t even think of using the energy to transport me into another world because sometimes I don’t want to drag myself out of bed. That someone I’ve had a rocky relationship with, my brother, an asymptomatic failure in my life, is depressed out of their mind, and that I have learned that they no longer want a life at all. That, while multiple things in my life crumble
Please see BOOKSHELF, page 9
Graphic: CAMERON DURAN / The Stanford Daily
THE GRIND
How to set wellness goals that actually work By VERED LEV
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t’s been four months since we set our New Year’s resolutions. If you’re having a hard time sticking to your wellness goals, despite having the best intentions, you’re not alone. It can be extremely hard. But spring quarter is here — it’s the perfect time to set new wellness goals. From my experience and studies as a certified health coach, personal trainer and M.S. candidate in community health and prevention research, I cover the groundwork for the goal-setting process and the mindset needed for the journey to help you achieve tangible and sustainable results. Ditch the all-or-nothing approach All-or-nothing mentality refers to thinking in extremes, seeing outcomes as a success or a failure. This approach not only leads to harsh and unjustified self-judgment, but also can prevent you from achieving your goals. Imagine missing a workout one day. Since you missed it, you shouldn’t even bother with eating healthy or working out at all this week, because this week is already a failure, right? I used to feel this way after starting my day with a breakfast that wasn’t aligned with my healthy eating plan. Thinking that since I’m already not on track with my daily
plan, today is unsuccessful, and I should just try again tomorrow. As I was studying for my health coaching certification a few years ago, I realized that rather than trying to perfect the plan, knowing how to manage setbacks and unexpected changes to the plan is what will truly make the diet last. Understanding that perfectionism is impossible and one meal isn’t defining the trajectory of my day, I shifted from this all-or-nothing mentality to working with the circumstances and focusing on the victories. Now, if I have to run to my morning class and eat a breakfast that is less healthy than my usual breakfast, I am more intentional and determined to eat healthier at lunch and dinner. Thus, success depends on long-term consistency, achieved by resiliency. It’s all about how you react to the setbacks, your ability to bounce back and move forward. One missed workout won’t take away all of your achievements from prior workouts, just as one workout won’t make all your fitness dreams come true. So, what can you do to shift away from this all-or-nothing mentality? Practice self-compassion Focus on your successes and accomplishments this week, and recognize that this journey will not go exactly according to plan. That’s okay. Kristin Neff, an expert on self-
compassion and co-founder of the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion, illustrates self-compassion in three elements: self-kindness, humanity and mindfulness. With selfkindness, we give ourselves understanding, rather than self-criticism, when we fail. Recognizing that personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience, mindfulness helps us create “a non-judgmental mind state in which one observes thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them.” Not sure where to start? Here are Kristin Neff ’s self-compassion practices and exercises. Make the best out of the situation and remember that even small efforts add up Even if you didn’t make it to your planned one-hour workout today, a 10-minute workout is better than nothing. During the winter quarter’s final week, I had to invest more time in schoolwork and give up my usual workouts. With no specific time dedicated, I planned to walk at every opportunity I could. I walked while speaking on the phone, listening to lectures, even during breaks to clear my mind between studies. While those short walking breaks seemed pointless at first, they added up quickly — my steps resulting in an average of 3.5 miles a
Please see GOALS, page 9
Friday, April 22, 2022 N 9
The Stanford Daily
GOALS Continued from page 8 day, and a total of 24.5 miles for the week (according to my Fitbit). While calories aren’t all that matter, those small efforts helped me burn an extra 1,850 calories for the week.
your goal can help ignite motivation to stick to the schedule and help you track your progress toward the goal’s completion. Worried that you might forget or won’t commit to the timeline? Create a visual map of your timeframe or share it with a friend or a family member and ask them to hold you accountable.
Set SMART goals I learned about the SMART goal framework in my health coaching studies. Since then, I used it for my personal wellness goals as well as with my clients. Using the SMART tool helped many of my clients gain clarity around their goals and plan the right strategy to achieve their goals. Using the SMART acronym framework, you can create processoriented objectives, making it easier to be successful in achieving your goal. SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. 1. Specific: What exactly do you want to achieve and how? Break down your big goal into daily or weekly goals. “Who?” “What?” “Where?” “When?” and “Why?” 2. Measurable: How will you track your progress toward achieving your goal? 3. Attainable: How realistic is your goal? Do you have the set-up, space and time needed to accomplish this goal? 4. Relevant: What is the purpose of achieving this goal for you? How will it help you in your everyday life? 5. Time-bound: What is the right timeframe in accomplishing this goal? For many goals, the timeframe can be determined with recommendations and guidance from experts in your goal’s field. For example, if your goal is to run a half marathon, some professional runners say the ideal plan for beginners is three to four months. You can also set a timeframe that’s aligned with certain events in your life, such as the end of the spring semester, your graduation ceremony or even a special vacation. Even if you aren’t 100% sure what the right timeframe is, start with your best guess. Setting one for
Monitor progress For you readers, at the end of each week, check in to get a sense of where you are in your journey with your goal and how you’re feeling. To monitor your progress beyond measuring it, write down what worked well that week, what skills you might have to pay extra attention to next week, what triggered an unwanted behavior and how you coped with setbacks. Make adjustments to the plan as necessary, and occasionally remind yourself of why you originally set this goal. I would recommend keeping track of your progress using your computer or a notebook dedicated only to that goal and tracking its progress. Lifetick is a great app that can help you manage your progress. It allows you to write out your SMART goal, journal and track your progress. (There are many other online tools out there as well.) Otherwise, grab a notebook, write down your SMART goal on the first page and use this notebook for the journal entries, plan modifications and track progress.
BOOKSHELF
toxic productivity culture mixed with the desire to appear put together is something everyone is sick of living in. I don’t know how to solve it. All I can offer — sometimes it’s okay to not be the best. Sometimes it’s okay to take a break and not do anything. Sometimes it’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling, lie around and just breathe. Sometimes it’s okay to engage in a story to clear the mind ... but sometimes it’s okay to put down the book, or, in some cases, never start.
Continued from page 8 around me, the stacks of books in my room gets taller and taller with each new online order. Coping. Stanford Spring is this time of happiness and joy, something I’ve even raved about. I cannot sit around in the sunshine and act like everything is fine all the time. I can certainly believe that the school’s
SKATERS Continued from page 7
Last Saturday, FashionX — Stanford’s only preprofessional fashion organization — and Stanford’s unoffical Skate Club hosted a Spring Kickback at Arguello Field. Skateboarders of all skill levels were invited to socialize and try out a few tricks on the quarter pipe and rails, among other obstacles. Halfway through the event, almost twenty members of the Berkeley Skate club came to join the festivities, bonding with their rival school. Students enjoyed the chill, judgment-free environment, and the first four-hundred attendees were treated to free tacos and Red Bull. As part of their joint effort to foster community and highlight skater fashion, the Stanford clubs also featured two pop-up stations of students’ fashion brands. Racks of clothing from two student-owned brands, Crenshaw Skate Club (Tobey McIntosh ’25) and FORTYTWO (Milo Rivas ’24), stood tall at the edge of the half-line, inviting event attendees to explore and support the unique phenomenon that is skateboarding fashion. Invented in California during the 1950s, skateboarding rose to popularity in the ’60s and ’70s. Later in the ’80s, a unique subculture associated with the activity blossomed, taking elements from the grunge, punk and anti-authoritarian cultures popular at the time. With the success of skater-rock inspired bands like Blink 182 and Avril Lavigne’s pop hit “Sk8ter Boi,” the 2000s launched skater fashion into a frenzy. As the sport rose in success, skater fashion emerged from the need for functional, practical and semi-protective clothing as means to combat the scrapes and bruises that accompany the activity. Versatile items like graphic tees, cargo pants, baggy jeans and Vans endure as staples to the skater brand. Today’s skater fashion remains unapologetically casual and continues
Celebrate small wins You should always acknowledge your hard work and celebrate all success, even the small wins. As examples, small wins can be achieving the weekly goals set in the SMART framework or different milestones on the way to the big goal. Decide what those milestones are and how you plan to celebrate them. These celebrations could be anything — a self-care activity, treating yourself with your favorite food, listening to a music playlist you created for celebrations. The road to accomplishing your goal can be long, and celebration along the way can help keep your motivation high, boost your confidence and help you recognize how far you’ve already come.
to favor a baggy silhouette, while also paving the way for brighter colorways and the occasional tighter fit. Nostalgic influences of ’80s suede kicks, voluminous pants and XXXL tees remain core elements of the subculture. Milo Rivas founded FORTYTWO in 2020 as a skater, street-wearinspired brand with a mission to tell a story with every piece of clothing. At the kickback, Rivas displayed a “42 athletic collegiate design” on four different colored shirts: black, orange, navy blue and white. As both a skater and member of FashionX, Rivas found the event to be the perfect spring celebration of skating and fashion. He also saw it as a great opportunity to bring more attention to the skating community at Stanford. “Everyone sees us skating on the courts anyway. It’s like putting names to our faces. We’re people that skate, but we’re also part of other organizations, we’re not just skating around,” Rivas said. Opposite of the FORTYTWO racks of clothing were an array of designs from Crenshaw Skate Club, featuring cool-tone t-shirts and hoodies available for purchase. Founded in 2017, Crenshaw Skate Club is a dynamic project inspired by McIntosh’s passion for skating and his experiences growing up in South Central Los Angeles with a lack of Black, Indigenous and person of color (BIPOC) representation in the skate industry. “Whenever I would look at skate videos and magazines, I never saw people that looked like me and my friends, so I wanted to start this to represent people like us in the industry,” McIntosh said. Current UC Berkeley students Jon Napoles and Jesus Cubilla are Co-presidents of Berkeley Skate Club. According to Napoles, Berkeley Skate Club was in town for a skate retreat. This year the destination was Palo Alto, and the weekend of their retreat happened to be the same as the Spring Kickback. “I heard from one of my great friends that a skate event was going on at Stanford. Next thing you know, we mob here with the whole group, “ Napoles said.
HEALTH
COVID cases on the rise again Stanford discontinued mandatory testing last week Graphic: MHAR TENORIO / The Stanford Daily
By GRIFFIN CLARK STAFF WRITER
Stanford reported 144 new COVID-19 cases among students and 73 new cases among faculty, staff and postdoctoral scholars for the week of April 11, according to the COVID-19 dashboard. Case counts have increased by 20% among students and decreased by 1% among employees compared to the week before. According to the dashboard, 212 students are in isolation as of Monday, which is an increase from the 147 students reported last week. The rise in student cases comes after the University lifted the Color COVID-19 weekly testing requirement for vaccinated students on April 11. Stanford spokesperson E.J. Miranda did not comment on how these numbers compare with University expectations. “The dash-
board contains the most current information available,” Miranda wrote in a statement to The Daily. Stanford continues to provide students with Color COVID-19 tests and require biweekly tests for unvaccinated students. While vaccinated students no longer have to test through Stanford’s surveillance system, the University continues to emphasize that vaccination, testing and masking can prevent serious illness, according to the dashboard. The University’s seven-day positivity rate rose from 2.61% last week to 4.73% this week for students and fell from 0.89% to 0.74% for employees. The number of tests administered to students dropped from 4,604 the prior week to 3,045, according to the dashboard. The seven-day positivity rate for students is greater than Santa Clara County’s 2.6% rate and
California’s 2.1% rate. Many peer institutions are experiencing increases in student positivity rates. Harvard reported an increase to 1.7% positivity rate, and the University of California, Berkeley reported an increase to a 4.2% positivity rate. Stanford’s 4.73% positivity rate remains above that of Harvard and Berkeley. Of the 73 new employee cases, 24 are included in the University’s testing count. The remaining 49 individuals tested outside the University’s surveillance testing system through rapid antigen tests or tested positive earlier than last week but just reported it to the University, according to the dashboard. A total of 2,951 students and 1,977 faculty, staff and postdocs have tested positive through Stanford’s surveillance testing system since June 29, 2020, according to the dashboard.
HEALTH
BA.2 subvariant makes its way to campus New strain accounts for majority of cases at Stanford By SARAH RAZA BEAT REPORTER
The BA.2 subvariant is here — the omicron substrain accounts for nearly 80% of COVID-19 cases at the Stanford hospital, according to Benjamin Pinsky, the medical director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory for Stanford Health Care. Although Color Genomics does not genotype their Stanford samples, Pinsky said that the student cases on campus likely mirror what the lab is seeing in the surrounding community. The BA.2 subvariant makes up more than 72% of COVID-19 strains in the United States and is more transmissible than BA.1, the other subvariant of omicron, according to Monica Gandhi, the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Associate Chief of Infectious Diseases. BA.2 is more infectious than the previous BA.1 strain, but those in-
“Everyone sees us on the courts anyway. It’s like putting names to our faces” — MILO RIVAS, FORTYTWO For some like Napoles, skating has been instrumental in their personal style development. Moving forward, the skate club Co-president hopes to increase emphasis on the role of fashion in the Berkeley skate scene. “Through skating itself, I got into fashion and found my own personal style. I love the intersection between fashion and skateboarding, but we don’t really have that at Berkeley,” Napolis said. “What we really try to focus on is filming and skating. But we are thinking of exploring that more, we’re always open to new ideas.” President and co-founder of Stanford Skate Club Wen Zhang, a third-year Ph.D. student in materials science and engineering, recognized all the hard work put in by undergraduates in the club, including McIntosh and Rivas. To Zhang, this event was just the tip of the iceberg. With skateboarding joining the Olympic permanent event schedule starting in 2028, Zheng hopes to bring skateboarding to a new level at Stanford. This would mean the creation of a varsity team and maybe even University-supported access to facilities and equipment. Zhang and Napoles discussed the future of collegiate skating at the event and hope to bring together more university skate communities some day.
UJWAL SRIVASTAVA / The Stanford Daily
“This is a normal part of viral evolution, and we’ll continue to see more changes going forward,” George Rutherford said. fected with omicron early on will have good cross-immunity with BA.2, according to UCSF epidemiology professor George Rutherford M.D. ’75. While Pinsky estimates that BA.2 is 30% more transmissible than BA.1, Rutherford explained that it does not cause more severe disease symptoms than earlier iter-
SPIDER Continued from page 6 Once during the film, we even think we hear Brody’s feet on the roof. Because we never actually see Brody and Dawn interact, our estimations of Dawn’s credibility are only as good as Melanie’s. This harrowing instability is reflected sonically in composer Ariel Blumenthal’s score — which is burdened by minor piano chords — and visually in director Inon’s ever-shifting camera position. Ultimately, these cinematic techniques enable viewers to empathize with Dawn’s anxiety in an embodied way. Taylor’s and Owen’s captivating performances also allow us to simultaneously intuit Dawn’s hyperfixation and Melanie’s aggravation. Inspired by her work as a marriage and family therapist, Natalie sought to show the brutal realities of persecutory delusional disorder without dehumanizing Dawn as a character. Taylor’s heart-wrenching delivery of lines like, “Melanie, I don’t even know what you’re saying,” and, “You abandoned me,” support Natalie’s aim by showing just how vulnerable Dawn is — despite her tendency to lashing out at Melanie and others. Still, we are disappointed time and again by Dawn’s hostility toward Melanie, who only hopes to help her mother. When Dawn’s offenses evolve from leaving Melanie home alone to throwing out her computer and disrupting her graduation ceremony, we feel Melanie harden — her pity for her mother turns to ire. The film ultimately hinges upon this dysfunctional relationship between Dawn and Melanie. Dawn’s illness renders her incapable of taking care of herself or her daughter, so Melanie undergoes parentification: a child’s forced adoption of the role of an adult, and a phenomenon recently well-explored in the Netflix series “Maid.” Like the daughter-protagonist in “Maid,” Melanie parents her mother: she takes her dress shopping, cooks her food and seeks resources
ations of omicron. For those who are vaccinated and boosted, Gandhi says that the BA.2 is not a cause for additional concern compared to previous variants. According to her, the vaccines generate memory B cells that can recognize different variants as they emerge and trigger the production of T cells that amplify the body’s response to a virus and help recruit cells to attack the pathogen directly. “With hospitalizations at our lowest point since the early days of the pandemic, if you are vaccinated and boosted, there is no reason to take any extra precautions at this time,” Gandhi said. ICU admissions and deaths, as markers of the most severe disease symptoms, also continue to fall. “This is a normal part of viral evolution, and we’ll continue to see more changes going forward,” Rutherford said. The best defense against COVID-19, according to Gandhi, is hybrid immunity: vaccination after having been infected previously. Even one dose of the vaccine after infection is encouraged.
for her via a hilariously inept school counselor (delightfully portrayed by Michael Cyril Creighton). Melanie’s coming-of-age is suspended by her responsibility for her mother, which she holds without a shred of resentment, though it wreaks havoc on her personal ambitions. She also replicates her parentified role in her relationships with her long-time best friend Lacy (Peyton List), who speaks exclusively about her interest in the teenage trademark trio of sex, drugs and alcohol, and her short-lived boyfriend Daniel, who is the standard fresh-out-of-rehab, absent-father “bad boy.” With these two, Melanie often acts as therapist rather than best friend or girlfriend. Lacy and Daniel are irritatingly flat-sided characters, but they serve their purpose as reminders of Melanie’s relentless commitment to taking care of everyone except herself. While Melanie is eventually able to confront Daniel, telling him, “You need help. I can’t fix you. I can’t fix anyone,” she cannot create the same boundaries with her mother. Instead, Melanie gives up USC to stay at home with Dawn, and the film ends with the two of them reclining by their house pool, able to reclaim this site of deep trauma together. The screenplay delivers a happy ending enabled by Melanie’s sacrifice, arguing that this is what being family means: unconditional devotion, even when it can be self-destructive, even when those you love cannot and do not love you back. Though Dawn repeatedly disowns, rejects and humiliates Melanie in defense of her delusions, making it easy to detest her, “Paper Spiders” challenges us to remember that Dawn did not choose her mental illness any more than Melanie’s father chose to have a heart attack. It asks us to extend grace to those who do not choose to suffer, even when they make their loved ones suffer in turn, and that is its beautifully broken truth. Editor’s Note: This article is a review and contains subjective opinions, thoughts and critiques.
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CAPS Continued from page 1 dent discontent in recent years. After describing to CAPS the extent of his mental health crisis, Fernandes was still told he had to wait over a month to speak to a CAPS counselor and psychiatrist. Experiences like Fernandes’s have been a wake-up call to CAPS administrators, who have accelerated work to address student concerns. For CAPS to regain the trust of Stanford students, leadership will have to overcome some significant barriers. Long wait times have been just one of many student concerns, exacerbated by worsening mental health struggles during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to data obtained from the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) CAPS Survey & Questionnaire, led by undergraduate senator Marion Santo ’23 in February, only 41% of students who reached out to CAPS were able to see a therapist within the timeframe they needed. Moreover, only half of the students surveyed felt that CAPS was at least somewhat accessible. Students also voiced concerns about accessibility to off-campus healthcare referrals and transitioning to long-term care, alternative treatment for students located outside California and a lack of diversi-
PRESSURE Continued from page 1 write about what you are seeing. Change that addresses the true root and scope of this issue needs to be guided by a diversity of perspectives. Last month, President Biden announced his strategies to address our “national mental health crisis.” He particularly emphasized the alarming data concerning young people’s mental health. This distress has only been compounded by the pandemic. Stanford’s recent student mental health survey is an appropriate first step for assessing student needs, but it is not a reason to delay immediate, concrete action. There are clear steps that the University can take now to address the stark mental health needs of its student body. For one, student mental health services struggle to receive adequate funding and are unable to meet student demand, which is further addressed in Part Two. After witnessing widespread student distress as an RA, I asked senior Stanford staff members why more money was not going towards supporting student mental health. I was told that Stanford, like many universities, has historically seen the mental health issues affecting students as a product of larger societal forces or as individual problems, and thus somewhat outside the University’s scope and responsibility. Recent events and trends require us to revisit the question with a greater sense of urgency: given the state of youth mental health, what is a modern university’s responsibility to its students’ wellbeing and, at this point, safety? And the natural follow-up: is the University fulfilling this responsibility? The line of responsibility can be blurry. There is no standardized approach, and the climate surrounding mental health needs and care is changing rapidly. I acknowledge that it is not possible for universities to mitigate all forms of pressure that students face today. But some pressures that affect student mental health fall firmly within a university’s scope. For example, universities are uniquely responsible for the pressures of a campus culture they create and the effects of those pressures on student mental health. An important contributing factor to the state of student mental health at Stanford is distinctly within the University’s scope: highachieving culture. Stanford perpetuates high-achieving culture as an elite school that admits only the very top high-achievers. This comes with a responsibility to equip its students with resources to manage the less-publicized, darker sides of high achieving. College admissions, and specifically admissions at Stanford, have become markedly more competitive over the past few decades. This is not simply a case of more applications — the caliber of applicants has skyrocketed too. Students face intense pressure to excel across multiple disciplines to even have a chance at being accepted into a school like Stanford. As one of the most selective universities in the country, Stanford has become a gleaming symbol of high-achieving culture. It exemplifies the grueling grind that pushes kids to extraordinary limits and then selects for the very top of the
ty and cultural competence among CAPS staff. Informed by student feedback, CAPS has implemented and reformed numerous initiatives. Most recently, CAPS launched a new pilot program known as Work Place Options (WPO) to facilitate sameday appointments and up to five free therapy sessions with off-campus partners. With the goal of serving as many students as possible, CAPS has long utilized a short-term care model, according to CAPS representatives. “Feedback from students was that the priority was more about upfront access, as opposed to longer-term treatment options,” CAPS clinical director Amy Wilkinson said. “So we designed our access model accordingly.” For students with longer-term needs, CAPS helps them locate treatment resources beyond itself for ongoing care. One platform CAPS recommends students use to locate longer-term treatment is The Shrink Space. Funded by Vaden, this online database can help students find local, non-CAPS therapists. It also allows students to view therapist availability and request appointments directly through the site. Numerous groups and outreach spaces provide mutual support and solidarity for students with specific demographic backgrounds or challenges, including groups for international students, women of color, eating-disorder survivors, students applicant pool, the students who drove themselves the hardest within this system. The highest of highachievers. Hyper-achievers. Currently, Stanford only addresses the upside of high-achieving. Stanford highlights its high achievers’ successes readily, fortifying its brand as an elite institution with groundbreaking innovators and leaders. All brands do this. That is the easy part. What is harder, but perhaps more important, is to formally acknowledge and address the darker side of highachieving. After all, the same factors that fuel high-achieving, such as perfectionism, make students more vulnerable to mental health issues, as they entail having unrealistically high expectations for themselves and being hypercritical of themselves when they do not meet these expectations. The causality can go both ways; high-achieving behaviors are also common coping mechanisms for underlying mental health issues such as anxiety. In the Journal of Clinical Psychology, Limburg et al.’s 2016 meta-analysis of 284 studies found that high perfectionism correlated with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, self-harm and suicidal ideation. In a 2020 study from the journal American Psychologist, Luthar et al. showed that at high-achieving high schools, teenagers’ rates of clinical depression and anxiety symptoms were three to seven times higher than national norms for their peers. Excellence does not happen without enormous amounts of pressure. What we see highlighted in Stanford’s social media profiles on students is the shiny end product of achievement. We see only the “perfect diamond” at the end of the process. Not the many years of high pressure that created it, nor the lasting effects of that pressure on a young person’s psyche. These issues start long before students reach Stanford and go deep, all the way down to students’ senses of identity and worth. These core beliefs began forming based on what they were given love and validation for as children and have been reinforced ever since. Stanford’s hyper-achieving students have been so conditioned to conflate their self-worth and value with achievement and “being the best” that it makes them particularly dependent on external validation and vulnerable to intense psychological distress when they fall short of perfection. Often lurking beneath highachieving is the belief: “In order to be lovable or worthy, I need to be perfect/achieve.” I chose to stay at Stanford after graduating to work in student wellness, in large part due to the emotional distress I saw among my friends and residents as an undergraduate. While working as an RA, I would often see students who were “high-functioning,” in the sense that they could maintain good grades and were skilled at hiding that they were not doing well emotionally. But when they entered my room and sat down on the couch, the masks would drop. I learned that being “high-functioning” can conceal high distress, especially given that for high-achievers, getting good grades and performing well is a coping mechanism in itself. (If you’re not doing well, just study harder. Be busier.) I witnessed multiple residents who were suicidal for most of the year, and one never would have known from the outside.
The Stanford Daily with disabilities and the newly formed group for male-identifying sexual assault survivors. CAPS also offers a range of workshops, such as “Meditation and Self-Compassion” and “Yoga Skills for Stress Reduction.” “Sometimes students may find it more helpful and supportive to be among other students to be able to share some of these challenges,” Associate Director of Communications for Student Health and Wellbeing Christine Mineta said. “So these facilitated spaces allow you to be with community and validate the challenges and experiences that you’re going through.” Before the pandemic, CAPS care providers held regular hours in community centers, such as at the Asian American Activities Center, Graduate School of Business and the Law School to provide inperson support. Although these hours became virtual during the pandemic, CAPS is working to transition these hours to in-person again. Improving the quality of CAPS care and resources is just half the battle, though. For these improvements to achieve their fullest impact, CAPS will need to spread awareness among the student body. According to the ASSU CAPS Survey & Questionnaire, 73% of respondents said they were unaware of the WPO program, and nearly 75% were unaware of The Shrink Space. “It seems as though more needs to be done in terms of publicizing
“Stanford has become a gleaming symbol of high-achieving culture” — EMMA MASTER What especially disturbed me about this high level of distress was that it was largely invisible. It remained for the most part between RAs and students, sometimes RFs. RAs and RFs knew anecdotally that severe mental distress was a problem, but there was a lack of aggregate, publicly accessible data about it. So there was a disconnect between the reality of high-frequency/high-severity mental health crises and formal data reporting its existence to the administration and larger Stanford community. Because so much of this information remains siloed in individual dormitories, most people on campus cannot see the magnitude of distress that is happening, so they are unable to hold the University accountable for making changes to address it. One formal measure that can reflect a subset of this distress is the data on 5150 holds (5150 is a section number from the California Welfare and Institutions Code). A 5150 is issued when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis severe enough that they are evaluated to be an imminent danger to themselves or others, “or gravely disabled.” They are then placed on a 72hour hold by a clinician or a deputy and transported to a hospital. Most often this call is made when someone is experiencing acute suicidality, not just experiencing suicidal ideation. These numbers are not publicized. Furthermore, they only represent cases in which someone received formal institutional help. These numbers do not account for the much larger number of students who were experiencing the same levels of distress but were supported privately by friends and student staff, or the number of students who kept their distress to themselves. They do not capture voluntary hospitalizations, where students checked themselves into the hospital, or cases in which a student was off-campus when a 5150 was issued. SUDPS did not respond to requests for data going back decades to track these numbers over time. Part Two of this article addresses concrete steps that the University can take to better support its students’ mental health. The cultural narrative around young people’s mental health is shifting rapidly. I invite Stanford to take this opportunity to become a university leader in prioritizing student mental healthcare. EMMA MASTER is a staff member in student mental health and well-being. She serves as the Program Coordinator for “Meeting the Moment,” run by the Office for Religious and Spiritual Life, the Stanford Storytelling Project, LifeWorks Program for Integrative Learning, Health and Human Performance and Wellness Education.
the various mental wellness resources available via CAPS to the student body,” Santo wrote. Student representatives are taking on the awareness problem. In February, the Undergraduate Senate passed a resolution outlining a CAPS liaison program, which would designate a student in each dorm to work closely with CAPS and communicate mental health resources to their peers. Senator Darryl Thompson ’23 said that increasing knowledge of mental health resources on campus is important because “if that is not happening, then it’s no surprise that we’re seeing some of the things we see.” Aside from the liaison program, CAPS also recently overhauled their website to enhance accessibility, resource navigation and visual coherence. Still, Fernandes said, obstacles remain for students trying to reach CAPS. Phone calls — which are required for referrals with CAPS — can prove especially challenging. In 2019, CAPS transitioned to an access-focused service model in direct response to student feedback. Students are asked to reach out by phone, instead of independently scheduling an online appointment, “so that we can better assess their needs and help them connect as soon as possible to the appropriate services,” CAPS representatives told The Daily. They added that students are also welcome to enter CAPS’s physical offices for immediate support from Monday
through Friday from 8:30 a.m to 5 p.m. Another disconnect between CAPS and the student body is the center’s readiness to respond to first-generation and/or low income (FLI) students facing crises, Fernandes said. As a low-income student, he felt the CAPS counselor he spoke to misunderstood his experiences. Facing such misunderstandings is not an uncommon experience for many FLI and queer students, Fernandes said, suggesting that CAPS focus on hiring more diverse cohort of clinicians. Part of the problem may lie in staffing shortages — throughout the pandemic, CAPS said they have especially struggled to hire and retain mental health providers during the pandemic. Even so, “CAPS staff seek out continuous learning to address racialized trauma, provide gender affirming care and decolonize mental health approaches,” the CAPS team wrote in an email. Despite the ongoing challenges, CAPS representatives reiterated their commitment to student mental health, in both the present and future. “Mental health is a community value, and involves the whole community,” Wilkinson wrote. “CAPS is building connections to a wide variety of student communities, where we work to destigmatize mental health on campus, and to connect students to long-term mental health care in the community as well.”
STUDENT
teaching courses that center mindfulness was inspired by seeing Stanford students like Odell grapple with mental health. “I wanted the classroom to be a place of collective learning and healing, integrating scholarship, creative expression and embodied learning,” he wrote. Talking openly about mental health is a priority, Murphy-Shigematsu explained, because stigma can decline “when people are more open about the struggles of being human in a violent, uncertain, and complex world.” Odell has found additional support and community through her internship at Health and Human Performance (HHP), a Stanford program that hosts wellness and outdoors classes. Erika Duncan, an administrative associate at HHP, lauded the enthusiasm Odell brings to her role and noted the importance of sharing profiles on mental health. “So often, only snippets of someone’s story are shared out in the world, and in HHP we believe in the power of seeing a human holistically,” Duncan wrote. “We want to bring attention to the pieces that are often invisible for not only individual learning but to also emphasize the need for Stanford to serve the whole student.” Odell, too, values a holistic view and hopes others can learn from her experiences and growth. One of her greatest realizations was that hard times are not permanent. “We all go through hard times, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t heal, or that it’s forever,” she said. Hoping to help others on their journey of healing, Odell began to host meditation and mindfulness streams on Twitch with the foundation that extended a helping hand during some of her greatest moments of struggle. Though originally meant to be a way for the organization to connect during the pandemic when they could no longer gather in-person, the platform ultimately grew to receiving nearly two million views in three months. “It was one of those things where it’s a very non-threatening space, because you’re behind the computer,” Odell said. “I felt that it took away a lot of walls and filters that people might put up or things that people are typically scared to share.” Odell stays connected with the Inspiring Children Foundation both on campus and when she returns home to Las Vegas during breaks. She and her mother used to serve as house parents in the Foundation’s transitional housing for those “that don’t have a safe space to stay, or are going through a hard time at home.” Today, Odell still stays in touch with many of those people back home, lending an ear whenever they may need it. While nurturing connections and helping others is a core part of Odell’s goals in life, she also wants others to keep in mind that looking out for yourself is essential. “Pursue learning and education, but that doesn’t mean throw your personal wellbeing and your personal growth out the window,” she said. Looking back on her more difficult times, Odell realizes the strength of her growth. “When I talk about my suicide attempts and depression and the depths of my suffering, I feel so far from that place,” she said. “I’ve just experienced so much healing and so much love.”
Continued from page 1 it was, How do I nurture this ability?” Seeking help After her suicide attempt, Odell embarked on a path toward healing aided by the Inspiring Children Foundation, a non-profit based in Odell’s home city of Las Vegas that empowers youth struggling with mental health and poverty. The organization provided Odell and her mother with transitional housing while her mother was working through sobriety and legal challenges. “I feel like we both are kind of healing together at the same time, which was really beautiful for me because I got to really grow that relationship with her,” Odell said. Odell also began to prioritize mental healing by improving her relationships with those around her. At the time, she was not speaking with her father, but she soon came to realize that “a really big part of my healing was actually running toward a lot of my pain and conflict, especially in my relationship with my dad.” The path toward healing is rarely linear. It takes twists and turns and can bring people to places they never thought would be part of their recovery. Odell recalls long phone calls in which her father verbally abused her, a painful reminder of “thoughts that I already had about myself and already believed.” These types of difficult conversations are not part of everyone’s process, but for Odell, talking with her dad “forced me to grow and find love on such a deep level.” Working with the Inspiring Children Foundation to repair her relationships and improve her mental health marked a turning point in Odell’s life. “I finally found a support system and a community that gave me the tools and the support and the wisdom to really heal,” Odell said. These tools included skills like meditating, journaling and developing personal agency. “I can separate myself from my thoughts,” Odell explained. “I can choose how I react and how I respond to these things.” Coming to the Farm When she arrived at Stanford a few years later, Odell was nervous to navigate a different environment so far from home. “I didn’t know if I would be able to find that same kind of community coming here.” Her transitional experience, as with many other students, has not been without loneliness. “Everything’s very new, but I’ve really enjoyed that challenge — I don’t feel that I’m suffering from it. It’s just something that’s challenging me to grow and find love,” Odell explained. She has been able to nurture a close-knit community through classes on mindfulness and compassion taught by Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, a professor of Asian American Studies and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. “We all just got together, and it was basically just going really deep into life and healing,” Odell said. For Murphy-Shigematsu,
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The Stanford Daily
BRIDGE Continued from page 1 The lyrics convey the role that Bridge counselors hope they can play on campus — a role of support and companionship. Home to the live-in counselors, The Bridge is almost always warmly lit and humming with conversation. When I walked into the room on a Tuesday evening, Yang was lounging on a couch with two friends, scrolling through her phone. Across from her, Wang was focused on work from a purple bean bag. Frimet was at the dining table, laptop propped open as she talked. Frimet, a political science major and sociology coterm, has been involved with The Bridge for three years now. “I tend to naturally fall into the caretaker role with friends and loved ones, and I wanted to learn structures of how to do it better,” she said. “I also just keep returning to the idea of community care — staffing The Bridge is a really phenomenal way to give back to our community and support our community.” Inside The Bridge A corkboard next to the dining table maps out The Bridge community in polaroids. At the top of the board are photos of the three liveins — Yang, Wang and Frimet. Every year, The Bridge houses three to four students who make The Bridge their home, fielding overnight calls between schoolwork and sleep. They serve as the administrative and peer counseling leadership. The executive team of coordinators comes next — they fix schedules, taking into consideration shift preference forms. According to The Bridge’s website, they directly “administer publicity, finances, workshops, and dorm outreach programs in addition to other activities.” Pictures of the rest of the staff, including a string of new members, line the bottom of the board. Staffers take over from 9 a.m. to 12 a.m. in three-hour shifts — some-
QUEER Continued from page 1 boundary anymore.” “All of the boundaries kind of collapsed” in the thick of what he described as a manic episode. Tanna called 911, and came out to his parents over FaceTime in front of police officers. A previous Daily article chronicled the struggles of queer students who, like Tanna, were out at Stanford, but hid their LGBTQ+ identity when the pandemic sent them back to their hometowns. Some students, reflecting back upon the pandemic today, said that it forced them into a state of reversion to old feelings and habits. “I think a lot of us regressed a lot when we went home because of the pandemic,” Thom Henri ’22 said. “Moving back into my parents’ home was really bad for my identity — I felt shame and resentment over being gay in a way that I hadn’t for years. I thought I’d left that behind when I graduated high school.” Today, months into a relatively “normal” school year, some queer students say that the return to school has allowed them to truly find themselves and feel supported. “I don’t know when exactly things got better for me — I moved back out, lived with friends and somewhere along the way picked back up the pieces of my identity,” Henri said. “I’m not sure I ever wholly processed the regression I felt or the ways my identity and pride feel more fragile than I thought they were.” Some queer students like Henri, however, face enduring mental health challenges in the pursuit of community and a sense of identity. In the United States, queer people are diagnosed with mental illnesses at higher rates than their non-queer counterparts. In fact, although 4.5% of the US population identifies as LGBTQ+, over 39% of people in this category reported having a mental illness in the past year. LGBTQ+ youth are also four times more likely to seriously consider suicide and attempt suicide than their peers. Interviewees similarly pointed to the fact that several of the students who have died at Stanford in the past few years have identified as queer. “We see queer students unfortunately face a range of challenges that may affect their mental health,” Weiland Health Initative Program Manager Marissa Floro told The Daily. According to Floro, Weiland Health Initiative seeks to “promote mental health and wellness across the spectrum of gender identities and attractions through education, training and clinical services.” Some of these challenges, Floro said, include “coming out to oneself
times, two people will be on call for three hours. Floaters fill in when a last-minute conflict arises. Altogether, The Bridge will have at least 35 staffers in any given year. Down a corridor is a door labeled “On Call Room.” Inside, Meghan Dontha ’24 is on her first shift as a Bridge staffer. She’s been interested in mental health and psychology since the beginning of high school, and is pursuing a major in psychology. “A lot of what The Bridge emphasizes is that you are not the one giving advice — it’s the person themselves who needs to figure out what they need to do for themselves,” Dontha said. “It’s our job to listen and guide a conversation that will allow for productive emotion regulation and problem solving.” Back outside, the live-ins and their friends are reminiscing about how they came to be roommates. All Bridge staffers are eligible to be live-ins — every year, interested staffers fill out an application and are chosen by a vote of the Bridge community. “We get along better than we all thought we would,” said Frimet. “Wow, okay,” responded Wang, feigning annoyance. The room lit up with laughter. Being prepared To staff at The Bridge, students must complete a two-course training sequence: EDUC 193A: “Listen Up! Core Peer Counseling Skills” and EDUC 193P: “Peer Counseling at the Bridge.” The sequence includes mentoring in issues such as sexual assault, relationship violence, LGBTQ+ issues, cultural competency and women’s issues. Staffers are also trained in QPR (question, persuade, and refer) — the suicide prevention protocol. “We hold our staffers to a very high standard of preparedness — we know that people will call in about all sorts of problems,” Wang said. “A lot of the most difficult calls come very late at night.” Lily Liu ’22 M.S. ’23 took the courses because she wanted to be a better friend and a better listener: “When my friends talked about serious issues or traumatic experiences, I didn’t always know how to and others, dealing with microaggressions, misgendering/deadnaming and hate from people and systems on and off campus.” Other challenges include understanding and managing the impact of hate on one’s body and mental health, and trying to find resources and assistance in a heteronormative, cisnormative, ableist and white supremacist world, according to Floro. These come, she said, in addition to the challenges that many college students face like depression and anxiety. A sophomore student who asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons has struggled with his mental health for several years, an issue which he says is intertwined with his queer identity. According to the student, his journey of grappling with his queer identity even led to some suicidal ideations. He was ultimately diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a label which he said added new challenges to his identity. “Having these two sort of identities, queer and disabled, I think gave me new insight into the barrier that I thought existed being queer,” the student said. “It’s a hard category to be in.” The student added that after the pandemic settled down and he was able to come to school in person for the first time, his mental health started to improve, which he attributes to reading the book “The Obstacle is the Way” and joining the Stanford Mental Health Outreach (SMHO) club. “Being involved in mental health conversations and being aware has really helped me interact with other Stanford students and find a community that’s friendly and open to discussion,” the anonymous student said. Interviewees stressed that being queer is an integral aspect of their identity that comes with a lot of joy. “I think I initially saw it as a barrier, but now it’s just an aspect of my identity that allows me to relate to a huge group of people,” the sophomore student said. “The queer aspect is inescapable at all times,” Tanna added. “Even when there’s a struggle, queer people can also feel a lot of joy, the kind of joy that comes from queer connections, from queer liberation. I think there’s a kind of deep satisfaction and possibility there. Being queer is not at all just a sob story.” The struggle to find a queer community at Stanford, however, has presented mental health challenges for some queer students, according to Tanna. “I don’t think there’s one centralized community at Stanford, although there are pockets of queerness all over the place that aren’t always visible,” Tanna said. “It can be very isolating for people.” Tanna partially attributed that this lack of a core community to
respond. I felt unprepared for being there for people.” Liu, a staffer, recommends the two training courses regardless of whether or not students are interested in staffing the Bridge. “I use the tools I learned in those classes every day: active listening, paraphrasing, asking open questions. How do you manage emotions and help someone process how they’re feeling? How do you ask guiding questions to help someone problem solve on their own?” The Bridge community Elsa Wilbur ’24 came to The Bridge in her frosh year searching for two units to fill up her fall schedule, but she stuck around because of the community. “The type of people attracted to peer counseling are just the nicest people on campus.” Most students find out about The Bridge through word of mouth — whether it is from peers who have gone to The Bridge before, or from students who also staff The Bridge. Wang recalls asking her frosh Resident Assistant how he built such strong listening skills. He credited his know-how to the Bridge’s training sequence, prompting Wang to enroll for herself. Once you’re in, it’s hard to leave the Bridge community, according to Andrew Shin ’23. “Everyone is so caring,” he said. “Everyone checks in on you when you meet them and are super welcoming and open, even when you’re a new staffer.” According to Liu, at The Bridge, none of the staffers are paid, making everyone a volunteer. “The hours really stack up — between three-hour shifts, outreach, section leading, meetings, cocounsels and responding to emails,” Liu said. “It’s demanding and loving work. It’s really moving to me that all these people come together to do it, out of nothing but care and love.” A bulletin board across the room from the dining table lays out simple rules for the staffers: 1. Be on time. And don’t leave until the next staffer arrives. Call ahead if you’re late. 2. Don’t forget to log. 3. Live-ins are here to help!
In case of an emergency, please text all three live-ins. “The Bridge self-selects for very empathetic people who feel responsible for making the people around them feel supported and better,” Frimet said. But the constant stream of conversations with struggling students can be taxing. “Sometimes it’s really hard — you get calls related to your own experiences at Stanford.” During the pandemic, many of the calls that Bridge staffers fielded were about loneliness, Wang said. It was especially difficult for her to listen to callers describe their loneliness, as she empathized deeply with their struggles and understood the unique persistence of the problem. As soon as a staffer finishes a counsel, they fill out a log of their call. After, it’s recommended they talk to any or all the live-ins. Not everyone takes up the offer, but new staffers often will. It’s part of live-ins’ responsibilities to help debrief after a particularly intense call. “After the beginning, there’s a transitional period during which you get better at compartmentalizing,” Wang explained. “You get better at reminding yourself that you did your best and that this is someone on campus you are never going to speak to again. Even if they get off the counsel still crying, you did your best, and it’s important not to take it personally or feel like you have failed.” “Sometimes there’s a lack of closure from some of the interactions,” Sid Dhawan ’22 M.S. ’23 said. “Sometimes the caller hangs up on you, and you get the feeling that you could’ve done more.”
get that.” Frimet emphasized the importance of knowing the difference between various mental health resources on campus. While a call to Stanford Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) begins with the caller sharing their name, enrollment status, and SUNet ID (CAPS keeps all information collected strictly confidential, consistent with applicable legal requirements), The Bridge is totally anonymous. “We don’t have caller ID. If you walk in and a staffer recognizes you they won’t take the counsel,” Frimet said. “If a staffer recognizes your voice over the phone, they won’t take the counsel. We are fully anonymous. We don’t take your name. We don’t ask for any identifying information. In no circumstances do we share anything about you.”
Serving mental health needs It is hard to know what to expect when the phone rings at The Bridge, Liu said. “A lot of people just want to be heard,” she explained. “We practice structuring the counsel, but sometimes callers just want to rant and fully share their feelings from that moment in time. The way we practice it in class is that people have a very specific problem they’re talking about, like a breakup — but in reality life is very complex, and we
Here and listening Kaya spoke to a Bridge staffer for over an hour that Friday night in winter 2021. In retrospect, she is immensely grateful for that call, knowing that it got her through her difficulties when no one else could. “I talked about the house issues, but I also ended up talking about other issues I was struggling with, like my relationship with a friend from back home,” Kaya said. “It was just really nice to talk to someone.” She headed back into the house feeling relieved and less alone. The next day, she and her housemates had a house meeting that finally progressed towards solutions, reconciliation and healthy communication. The Bridge listens to and supports many people like Kaya — sometimes even receiving calls from people not affiliated with Stanford. As I put on my shoes to leave, Wang called out. “Take a duck!” she said, pointing to the shelf of Bridge merch in the entryway. There were stickers, pens, posters, badges and little yellow rubber ducks with “The Bridge” printed on them. A speech bubble on one of the posters read, “Actually? I’m not okay.” The poster made a clear promise back — “I’m here, and I’m listening.”
Stanford culture, saying, “Students are overcommitted, the quarter system moves so fast and Stanford flake culture is so big — it just does not lend itself well to a strong queer community.” Henri explained that questioning students may face additional mental health challenges by this lack of community. “I don’t think there is a good space for questioning students on campus — and so much of queerness is being in a state of questioning,” they said. “Every single queer person has spent time in a questioning state, so the way our queer communities cater more to those who are already ‘out and proud’ does a disservice to those who are still trying to figure things out and unsure where to go.” Floro encouraged students to access resources through the Weiland Health Initiative, whose mission is to “promote mental health and wellness across the spectrum of gender identities and attractions through education, training and clinical services.” “I have been honored to have been in multiple workshops, group spaces, and individual therapy sessions where I witness students feeling empowered, feel like they can be their whole selves, and feel like they’re not alone,” Floro said. “I have seen students cry in relief at being among other students that understand what they’re going
through. I have watched students blossom in their relationships and their time at Stanford as they connect to themselves and their own values.” Author’s note: If you or someone you know is in a similar situation, there are available resources both on and beyond campus. CAPS and Weiland offer a range of services, including individual therapy and hormone replacement therapy consultations for students in California. For students outside of California, they can also offer support for real-time needs and care management consultations to help arrange for local support if needed. CAPS also has a 24-7 support line for urgent needs: 650-723-3785. From Weiland Health Initiative Representatives: The Weiland Health Initiative provides a full range of services for students: Clinical services: Weiland provides brief individual therapy, group therapy (QTrees starting this quarter!), individual check-ins called Weiland connects sessions, hormone replacement therapy and gender-affirming surgery mental health support consultations. Advocacy services: In conjunction with QSR, Weiland provides financial support called the QT Fund (application opening next week!) to help students in their gender and attraction journeys. Weiland also has done various trainings and pro-
grams to help bring queer inclusivity to sports teams, academic departments, other clinicians, and staff groups. Learning and work opportunities: In addition to hiring student workers called Weiland Health Associates (apply now to join our team!), Weiland also teaches lectures throughout the academic year as well as classes that you can take for credit (Wellness 140: Wellness through Queerness & Wellness 191: Peer Education on Comprehensive Sexual Health Education). Programming: Weiland also provide different workshops and programs throughout the year to help cultivate queer community and wellness; for example, they hold Queer Yoga every Tuesday at 4:30, facilitate workshops for specific intersections of identity, collaborate with student groups and community centers like the WCC, and have held spaces to explore nutrition, nonWestern modes of healing, and selfcare in moments of high distress. Queer Student Resources continues to provides resources to connect students, including Trans& meetings, affinity groups, student staff and professional staff. Students can also join the listservs of various queer student groups like La Familia, BlaQs and Queer & Asian, as well as the the Vaden Flourishing Alliance listserv to be notified of events, new programming, and opportunities to connect.
SPACE
“We all have a timeline that gets uploaded the night before, and we each have all our activities outlined for the day,” Watkins said. “There’s a whole ground team of people that put in a lot of work to ensure that we’re maximizing our efficiency and getting everything we can out of every minute that we have the crew up there on getting the most fruitful science and maintenance done.” While the current mission has been years in the making, the preparation process has come at a whirlwind pace. Watkins was first assigned to the mission in November 2021, more than half a year later than some of the other team members. “It all happened very quickly,” she said. “Now that we’re in the ramp-up towards launching the mission, [I’m] excited about really making sure I fully appreciate the moment and everything that everyone in my life has contributed to help me get to this moment.” When she leaves the Earth’s atmosphere, Watkins will solidify her place among a historic list of Stanford female space pioneers that includes Sally Ride ’73 M.S. ’75 Ph.D. ’78, Mae Jemison ’77, Tammy Jernigan ’78 and Ellen Ochoa M.S. ’81 Ph.D. ’85. More recent alumni, Nicole Mann M.S. ’01 and Kate Rubins
Ph.D. ’06, are joining Watkins in the Artemis team that is preparing for humanity’s return to the moon in 2024. Until 1991, no Black American woman had traveled to space. Jemison was the first. For Stanford Student Space Initiative co-president Ahmed Abdalla ’22, trailblazers like Watkins and Jemison are sources of inspiration: “To be able to imagine yourself doing something, you have to be able to see examples,” he said. “The example that they set is going to lead a generation of people who are inspired to do things that they otherwise might not have been able to.” With Watkins’s launch date fast approaching, the significance of the moment has not left her mind. “When I think about legacy, I think about the legacy that I get to be a part of — the kind of legacy of astronauts that have come before me and laid the foundation and created a pathway for me to be here now,” she said. “I just hope to be able to contribute to that same pathway going forward,” Watkins said. “Our future is super exciting as they start to pave the way to the moon and Mars with the Artemis program. I’m definitely excited about that.” Nikolas Liepins contributed reporting to this article.
Continued from page 5 places,” he added. After Stanford, Watkins completed her Ph.D. in geology at UCLA before becoming a postdoctoral researcher in geological and planetary sciences at the California Institute of Technology. As a trained geologist and mission specialist, Watkins will be conducting research from the ISS. “We can use Earth as an analog or laboratory to explore and understand surfaces of other planets,” Watkins said. “We can look at features and landforms and processes that happen on the Earth and then be able to apply that to other planetary bodies. So to be able to do that from [the] ISS is really exciting.” Apart from planetary geology, Crew-4 will address broader scientific inquiries, such as investigating the way cells and tissues grow, looking into new techniques for plant root growth and monitoring the cognitive and physical effects of long-duration space flights on humans, Watkins said. To meet the mission’s objectives, the astronauts will have to follow a strict schedule.
12 N Friday, April 22, 2022
The Stanford Daily
SPORTS A PLACE TO CALL HOME JIMMY V’S SERVES THE STANFORD COMMUNITY BY ALEX TSAI CONTRIBUTING WRITER
A
breakfast sandwich with ham and cheddar on a ciabatta roll. That’s what seventime Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky ordered at Jimmy V’s Sports Cafe every day when she trained for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The cafe, affectionately known as Jimmy V’s, is Stanford’s sportsthemed campus eatery and a linchpin of Stanford athletics. Located on Campus Drive in the Arrillaga Family Sports Center, it has served as a gathering spot for the athletics community since 1999. Jimmy V’s is involved in every stage of the student-athlete lifecycle, from an athlete’s recruiting visit to their graduation. Natalie Bond, a senior on the women’s lacrosse team, recalls her first memory of Jimmy V’s during her official visit as a high school senior. “I remember feeling like I was in my little diner back home,” said Bond, who is from Westfield, N.J. “From the instant I walked in, Jimmy V’s felt familiar and comfortable.” Athletic memorabilia adorn Jimmy V’s walls, which are painted gray with cardinal accents that match the red pleather upholstery on its dining chairs. Football helmets from each school in the PAC12 conference rest on floating shelves above the soda fountain.
Two neon signs give the cafe a retro feel — one says “Stanford Athletics, Home of Champions,” the other says “Taqueria” with a baseball player mid-swing. Eighteen framed and autographed jerseys of former Stanford athletes decorate the back hallway. Candice Wiggins inscribed on her jersey in Sharpie: “To Jimmy — epic food, epic smoothies, epic times. You rock!” “Jimmy V’s is a place of stability,” said Louis Stenmark, a former member of the men’s track and field team who frequented the cafe every day as a sophomore. “I’ve eaten so many meals there to fuel up before or after practice.” As a dependable spot for a hearty meal, Jimmy V’s has a starstudded clientele, including Ledecky and other notable current and former members of Stanford Athletics. Kevin Santia, managing partner of Jimmy V’s, knows each of their orders by heart. “I have a weird thing for remembering people’s orders,” Santia says. Santia, 55, is recognizable by his soul patch and the rectangular glasses he wears when preparing orders or working on his computer. When he’s talking to customers, his glasses rest atop his buzzed hairline. Santia can rattle off his customers’ usuals like a second grader recites times tables. The NBA’s Lopez twins always got double cheeseburgers. Head football coach David Shaw loves his bacon cooked soft and chewy (“bendy, he calls it.”)
Athletic director Bernard Muir’s order is a Hawaiian roll breakfast sandwich with just chicken and cheese, because he doesn’t eat eggs. The men’s soccer team “goes crazy for chicken parmesan.” Santia honors some of his most loyal customers by adding their usual order to the menu. Nneka Ogwumike’s eponymous sandwich, for example, is the Nneka-Nator: chicken breast, Swiss cheese, bacon and buffalo sauce on a ciabatta roll with a side of ranch. Student-athletes don’t just dine at Jimmy V’s; they work there. When they were in school, World Cup champion soccer player Kelley O’Hara and Olympic diver Cassidy Krug worked the counter and took orders during the lunch rush. Typically, though, Santia is behind the counter. At any given time, he can be found ringing up customers, bussing tables or working from his office: a table in the cafe that he has co-opted as his desk. Santia arrives at work at 5:30 a.m. every day, often running into the soccer team heading to morning practice — they exchange sleepy “hellos” when they cross paths. Santia virtually lives at Jimmy V’s, which is unsurprising, because Santia grew up at Jimmy V’s. Jimmy V’s is Santia’s home. And Jimmy Viglizzo, the cafe’s founder and namesake, is Santia’s second father. Santia first met Viglizzo, 70, in 1982, when Viglizzo owned the deli and meat department at John’s Market in Palo Alto’s Town and
SYDNEY SHAW/The Stanford Daily
Jimmy Viglizzo, founder of Jimmy V’s sports cafe, stands in front of a signed Andre Luck ‘12 jersey. Viglizzo formerly owned the deli and meat department at John’s Market, before establishing Jimmy V’s in 1999. Country Village. Viglizzo hired 16year-old Santia as a dishwasher. Quickly, Viglizzo became a father figure to Santia. “I love Kevin. I don’t look at him as anything but my oldest son,” Viglizzo says. Ten years after Viglizzo hired Santia, he promoted Santia to head chef. Located just across the street from Stanford’s campus, John’s Market had always been associated with, and promoted, Stanford athletics. Its grocery aisles were named after each of the PAC-10
conference schools. Stanford affiliates — including one of the university’s top donors John Arrillaga — frequently shopped at the market and grabbed meals at the deli. So, when Arrillaga invited Viglizzo to take over the vacant restaurant spot where Jimmy V ’s stands now, Viglizzo said it felt right given his existing relationship with Stanford. “It felt like, ‘oh, I landed,’” Viglizzo said. “It felt like I had come home.”
Please see HOME, page 14
FOOTBALL
Baseball bests Bruins Stanford takes threegame series over UCLA By KAUSHIK SAMPATH CONTRIBUTING WRITER
No. 22 Stanford baseball (20-11, 11-7 Pac-12) won its weekend series against the No. 12 UCLA Bruins (24-11, 9-6 Pac-12) in Los Angeles, Calif. over the weekend, marking the Cardinal’s fourth consecutive
Pac-12 series win. In the first game of the series, UCLA got off to a quick 1-0 lead after third baseman Kyle Karros hit a sacrifice fly to score first baseman Jake Palmer from third. However, that was the only run the Bruins would score all night, and the Cardinal began their offensive torrent as sophomore infielder Carter Graham hit a three-run home run in the third inning to put the Cardinal up 3-1. In the fourth inning, Graham hit into a fielder’s choice, which scored junior shortstop Adam Crampton
from third base. In the sixth inning, sophomore outfielder Eddie Park doubled to left field, scoring third baseman Drew Bowser from first base. In the seventh inning, do-it-all freshman outfielder Braden Montgomery hit a three-run home run to extend Stanford’s lead to 8-1. After an extra insurance run at the top of the ninth inning from the Cardinal, redshirt junior relief pitcher Cody Jensen closed the game and the Cardinal won 9-1. The pitching performance from
Please see BASEBALL, page 13
CARDINAL TIKTOKERS GYMNASTS ENGAGE FANS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA KAREN HICKEY/isiphotos.com
Junior outside hitter Will Rottman (above, left) rises above the net to hit in a game against USC earlier in the regular season. On Saturday, Rottman led the Cardinal with 21 kills on a .375 hitting percentage.
MEN’S VOLLEYBALL
Cardinal fall in five to Waves By MADELINE GRABB CONTRIBUTING WRITER
No. 12 Stanford men’s volleyball (12-13, 4-8 MPSF) entered its regular season finale against No. 8 Pepperdine (16-9, 7-5 MPSF) in pursuit of an away victory that eluded them all season. After the Waves’ comfortable sweep in the doubleheader’s first match on Thursday, Stanford forced a fiery five-set battle on Saturday. Even so, the Cardinal came up just short of a reverse sweep, as errors, challenges and timeouts abounded in their dramatic finale of MPSF conference play.
second yellow card in a week; he earned one last Saturday during the team’s victory over unranked Brigham Young University (8-15, 3-8 MPSF). While Rottman managed to use his emotions for the team’s offensive benefit by recording a kill, Pepperdine outside hitters Spencer Wickens and Alex Gettinger pushed back, each contributing a kill of their own to extend the Waves’ lead to 12-6. With things off to a tough start, Stanford called a timeout. Even after the timeout, nothing seemed to be going in the Cardinal’s favor, as they received a net violation. Head coach John Kosty challenged the call, but after review, the previous judgment stood, and the Waves retained their 13-7 lead. Just as in its sweep of Stanford two days before, Pepperdine appeared firmly in control of the set as the team held onto the early
Forcing five in season finale (2125, 21-25, 25-13, 25-23, 11-15) Pepperdine looked to have found their stride early, racing out to a 10-5 lead. With the match still in its infancy, the Cardinal’s junior outside hitter Will Rottman argued with an official over a call and received a yellow card. It was his Please see VOLLEYBALL, page 14
BY ZACH ZAFRAN DESK EDITOR
W
hen senior Ian Gunther first started posting TikToks in March 2020, his intent did not extend beyond making videos for fun. Like many others on the platform, the onset of the first COVID-19 quarantine period invited him to showcase his unique talents. For Gunther, who had just earned four NCAA All-American honors in all-around, parallel bars, pommel horse and still rings during a sophomore campaign cut short by the pandemic, this resulted in the posting of videos showcasing impressive gymnastic routines. Within days, his display of body control and physical capabilities had amassed him hundreds of thousands of views. Similarly, junior Riley Loos never had plans of going viral. While he originally viewed social media as a way to connect with family and friends, the junior now uses the platforms to build his brand, displaying his elite-level gymnast skills. Together, the pair combine for over 675 thousand followers and 58.5 million likes on TikTok, with numerous videos having reached more than 10 million views. While these statistics are nothing short of impressive, the levels of success the two have attained as collegiate gymnasts are perhaps even more impressive. Stanford men’s gymnastics has won back-to-back national championships. The first came in 2019, and the second was in 2021 after the 2020
LYNDSAY RADNEDGE/isiphotos.com
College men’s gymnastics has struggled to find the viewership and popularity other sports have enjoyed. Senior Ian Gunther (above) is one of Stanford’s gymnasts using their social media platform to change that. postseason’s cancellation. Although NCAA men’s gymnastics went without a national champion in 2020, the Cardinal finished the shortened season atop the national rankings. Now, the team is in a strong position to three-peat this weekend at the NCAA Championships, largely thanks to the efforts of Gunther and Loos. Gunther, now a senior with eight All-American honors under his belt, was a member of both national championship teams. Loos, who boasts five All-American awards, joined his teammate in bringing home an NCAA championship during the 2021 season. Despite the success the pair has had at the collegiate level, the following that the gymnasts have developed online drastically outshines the traction they’ve been able to gain
around campus or in major media outlets. But why is it that a sport capable of engaging so many viewers on TikTok doesn’t receive the same attention outside of these videos? “There’s not a lot of love,” said head coach Thom Glielmi. “I think part of it is the sport’s fault ... When it’s difficult to understand how the scores are calculated, it doesn’t make it nice for the viewer or spectator if they can’t follow what’s going on.” Indeed, men’s gymnastics is not a simple sport. A variety of events, a complex scoring system and nuance in routines only obvious to those well-versed in the sport can leave a novice viewer unsure of what’s happening. “[This challenge] is something that people within the gymnastics
Please see FANS, page 14
Friday, April 22, 2022 N 13
The Stanford Daily
MEN’S GYMNASTICS WINS IT ALL THREE-PEAT SEALS TEAM’S PLACE IN HISTORY By JORDAN JOHN LEE DESK EDITOR
No. 1 Stanford men’s gymnastics collected its third straight national championship on Saturday night in Norman, Okla. The Cardinal dominated the field with a 423.628, over nine points higher than runner-up No. 2 Oklahoma. The Sooners barely held off No. 3 Michigan by a score of 414.555 to 414.490. The other three teams in the meet — No. 4 Nebraska, No. 5 Ohio State and No. 6 Illinois — finished in fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively. As the highest qualifying team on day one of the NCAA Championships, the Cardinal began their campaign in the Lloyd Noble Center on the vault. CGA Specialist of the Year and senior Curran Phillips led off with a clean Yurchenko with two-and-a-half twists, registering a 14.700. Freshman Khoi Young earned the highest score out of all gymnasts with a 14.933, and junior Zach Martin wowed the audience with a stuck landing, finishing behind Young with a 14.900. Young, Martin and Phillips earned AllAmerican status on the vault for being in the top eight at the end of the competition. After the first rotation, Stanford had already opened a 3.500-point lead over Michigan. Stanford headed to the parallel bars next, where senior Ian Gunther kicked off the rotation with a 14.233. Sophomore Colt Walker followed Gunther with a 14.600. Phillips shined again on the parallel bars, where he scored the first 15.000+ routine of the entire competition with a 15.233 and claimed Stanford’s second individual title. Phillips, Walker and Gunther earned AllAmerican status for their efforts on the parallel bars. Despite some key mistakes from senior Brody Malone and graduate student Blake Sun, the Cardinal extended their lead over
Courtesy of Joshua Gateley
No. 1 Stanford men’s gymnastics stood atop the podium for the final time this season, clinching its third straight national championship. In a dominant performance, the Cardinal recorded a 423.628 final score and defeated runner-up No. 2 Oklahoma by over nine points. the Wolverines to over six points after the bars. “We know when we are pushing difficulty that there is risk with that,” said head coach Thom Glielmi. “However, it was a risk that the guys were willing to take.” Stanford then headed to its lowest nationally ranked event (5th), the high bar. Junior J.R. Chou and freshman Taylor Burkhart kicked off the third rotation with solid scores of 13.200 and 13.233, respectively. Nissen-Emery Award winner Malone recovered nicely from his previous event to register a 14.700 on the high bar to claim one of his two individual titles. The Cardinal finished the rotation with Phillips’ 12.700 and Gunther’s 13.533 to earn a team score of 67.366. A strong floor exercise rotation for the Wolverines cut Stanford’s lead in half to just over three points. With Stanford making more errors on the final day, the team opened the door slightly for Michigan and Oklahoma after the first half of the competition. The Cardinal started the second half of the
meet on the floor exercise. The memory of the first half of the rotation seemed to fade very quickly as Burkhart began with a career-best 14.233. The scores continued to rise. Walker posted a score of 14.300, and Malone put up a season-best 14.600. In the fourth spot, junior Riley Loos maintained the momentum with a 14.500. Senior Bryan Perla finished a lights-out rotation, tying a career-best 14.800 to give the Cardinal a season-high team score of 72.433. Perla claimed Stanford’s fifth individual title with this performance and earned All-American status with Malone and Loos. The team headed to the fifth rotation with a lead of over 9.500 points over the Wolverines. Stanford headed next to the always challenging pommel horse. Sun began where the Cardinal left off the previous rotation, putting up a strong 13.733 in the lead-off position. In the second spot, Burkhart almost matched Sun, scoring a 13.700. Malone tied the highest score on the pom-
mel horse with a 14.000, and Young closed out the rotation with a 13.800. Malone, Young, Sun and Burkhart all earned All-American status on the pommel horse. After clean performances on the pommel horse, Stanford maintained a hefty lead of over 8.500 points over Oklahoma and Michigan with one rotation left. And the Cardinal closed out the competition with a bang on the still rings. Loos opened the final rotation by tying his career-best score of 14.600. His stellar performance earned the individual title with freshman Mark Berlaga finishing right behind him with a 14.533. Senior Thomas Lee ended Stanford’s dominant performance with a 14.233. All five Stanford gymnasts earned AllAmerican status on the still rings. “We started off really strong on vault, but then we had hiccups on the parallel bars and high bar,” Malone said. “However, we did real-
Please see CHAMPS, page 14
WOMEN’S GOLF
Stanford ties for second at Pac-12s Cardinal battle the elements in Eugene By GAVIN MCDONELL MANAGING EDITOR
JOHN LOZANO/isiphotos.com
Senior pitcher Alex Williams (above) throws during a game at Sunken Diamond in April. The starting pitcher turned in a stellar game on Thursday night to give the Cardinal the win in the first game of the series.
BASEBALL Continued from page 12 senior starting pitcher Alex Williams and sophomore relief pitcher Joey Dixon was stellar, as both combined to give up one run and three hits over eight innings. The second game of the series was a nail-biter to the end. Once again, UCLA struck first in the second inning as left fielder Michael Curialle hit a two-run home run to left field to put the Bruins on top 20. In the fourth inning, the Bruins received another two-run home run off the bat of Palmer to extend the Bruins’ lead to 4-0. Stanford did not throw in the towel yet, though. In the fifth inning, Bowser hit a solo home run to close the lead to 4-1. In the sixth inning, Montgomery hit a two-run home run as the Cardinal inched closer, 4-3. At the top of the eighth inning, junior catcher Kody Huff hit a single to score Graham and tie the game up at 4-4. After surrendering its lead, UCLA responded in the bottom of the eighth inning, as catcher Darius Perry singled up the middle to score Curriale. After giving up a single and a walk at the top of the ninth inning with one out, the Bruins were able to retire two more batters to secure the 5-4 victory.
The series-deciding third game featured a shutout performance from the Cardinal’s pitchers. Junior pitcher Quinn Matthews went seven innings, giving up only four hits and zero runs. Sophomore Brandt Pancer pitched the remaining two innings, giving up zero runs while allowing only one hit. In addition to lights-out pitching, the Cardinal’s bats also came to play as the team turned in a solid game in all areas. Junior outfielder Brock Jones had two tworun home runs and Bowser, who hit 6-for-14 over the series, had three hits, including a home run and a double, as well as four runs batted in. The Cardinal took the last game in blowout fashion, 11-0, to win the series. With this series win, the Cardinal remain in the top four of the Pac12 standings, with a chance to move into a tie for first if both Oregon State (27-7, 10-5 Pac-12) and Oregon (24-11, 10-5 Pac-12) lose their next series. Looking ahead, the Cardinal have a five game non-conference slate against Cal Poly (22-13, 9-3 Big West), Grand Canyon (25-12, 15-3 WAC) and San Diego State (1025, 4-14 Mountain West) before resuming conference play against the Washington Huskies (16-18, 6-12 Pac-12) in Seattle, Wash. First pitch for the team’s next game, against Cal Poly, will occur at 6 p.m. PT in San Luis Obispo, Calif. on Tuesday.
To begin its postseason, No. 1 Stanford women’s golf competed in the Pac-12 Championships this week in Eugene, Ore. The Cardinal vied for their first conference title since 2014 but came up just short, finishing in a tie for second behind No. 2 Oregon. “We are proud of our finish and our fight,” said head coach Anne Walker after the final round on Wednesday. “It was a long, cold, wet day, and our players never once complained. They fought as hard as they could, showed tremendous resilience and played with heart.” As the top-ranked team in the country with five team victories this season, Stanford headed into the event as the favorite. However, tournament hosts Oregon proved to be a formidable opponent throughout the week. “Oregon is arguably the hottest team in the nation right now and we were on their heels for almost the entire tournament,” Walker said. “With the difficult conditions, home course advantage becomes even more of a factor. Knowing the angles and the slopes is a big advantage.” Indeed, as wind and rain derailed several teams in the field at Eugene Country Club, Oregon used its home course advantage to avoid posting big numbers. Additionally, Stanford had to overcome the absence of reigning Pac-12 champion and Annika Award winner sophomore Rachel Heck, who missed the tournament due to a nonCOVID-19 illness. “We did miss Rachel, but we had a terrific team performance from all our starters,” Walker said. “This team is strong top to bottom, and that was key for us in Rachel’s absence.” In the tournament’s opening round on Monday, the Cardinal proved that they could succeed without Heck, as they vaulted into first place with a score of two-overpar 290. No. 1 amateur in the world freshman Rose Zhang led the way with a one-under-par 71 in cold and wet conditions. Junior Brooke Seay and senior Aline Krauter posted rounds of 72 and 73, respectively, while sophomore Sadie Englemann shot 74. Before the Cardinal had a chance to build their lead on Tuesday, though, they had to wait out a fivehour rain delay. Stanford was originally scheduled to tee off at 10:30 a.m. but ultimately began at 3:39 p.m. after a storm rolled through Eugene. With the late start, the Cardinal
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Freshman Rose Zhang (above) posted Stanford’s lowest round each day of the Pac-12 Championships. After the tournament, she was named to the Pac-12 All-Conference team along with three other Stanford golfers. did not finish their round on Tuesday before play was suspended due to darkness. Over the course of the day, Stanford fell from first into a tie for fourth behind Oregon, No. 7 Arizona State and Washington. On Wednesday, the Cardinal completed their second round in the early morning before teeing off for their final round. Coming from behind, Stanford made a valiant push for the team title. On a day where the field scoring average was nearly four strokes over par, Seay posted a strong final-round 73. Krauter and Englemann followed with matching rounds of 75. Zhang, already a three-time individual champion this season, sought to chase down Oregon’s Hsin-Yu Lu in the final round. Teeing off on the sixth hole in a shotgun start, Zhang birdied the 10th and 13th holes and eagled the 16th en route to a four-under-par 33 on the back nine. With less than holes remaining, she was within three shots of the lead. Ultimately, Zhang shot a oneunder-par 71 in the final round. Her two-under-par total for the tournament was good for second place individually. “Rose played solid,” Walker said. “She is a world-class player, so of course she always wants to win, but she’s pleased to finish second behind an Oregon player with local knowl-
edge and advantage.” As a team, Stanford finished at 13over-par, seven strokes behind Oregon. The Cardinal also tied No 29 Oregon State, who posted a tournament-best three-under-par in the final round. Despite the team’s stellar track record this season, Walker knows how hard it is to win, especially in the postseason. “It is always difficult to win a golf tournament, regardless of what week it is. We have never taken any win for granted and never will,” Walker said. “What we can do is prepare, visualize and give our very best each day to get a little bit better; that’s the ultimate goal. If we have some wins along the way, then we will celebrate and enjoy because in the sport of golf, they are rare.” After the conclusion of the Pac-12 Championships, four Stanford golfers had a moment to enjoy some of their individual success. Heck, Krauter, Seay and Zhang were all named to the 12-person Pac-12 AllConference Team. Stanford will have over two weeks off to practice before the NCAA Regionals, which begin on May 9. The Cardinal will host the tournament at the Stanford Golf Course. Regional selections will be announced by the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Committee on April 27.
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HOME Continued from page 12 Jimmy V’s isn’t home for just Viglizzo and Santia, but also for the greater Stanford community. “It’s like my home base,” Bond says. “The people that work at Jimmy V’s all know my name. I feel a sense of comfort and welcome. I’m gravitated to it, and I go there every chance I get.” Jimmy V’s is where Arrillaga performed card tricks. It’s where student-athletes go to watch the presidential election results. It’s where students from the business school across the street go to grab a cheap meal (nothing on the menu costs more than 10 bucks.)
VOLLEYBALL Continued from page 12 advantage. As the set progressed, Stanford junior outside hitter Kevin Lamp made crucial contributions which brought his team within striking distance. A kill from sophomore opposite Luke Turner brought the Cardinal even closer, diminishing Pepperdine’s lead to just 22-21. But just as Stanford seemed to be finding its footing in the first set, two kills from Pepperdine middle blocker Austin Wilmot quickly brought on set point for the Waves. An attack error cost the Cardinal the set, as it went to Pepperdine 25-21. The Waves were able to hold Rottman, the Cardinal’s top scorer and the sixth-ranked hitter in the NCAA for kills per set, to just two kills in the opening set. A tight second set followed, with the Cardinal and the Waves fighting for alternating points. Errors prevented either team from pulling ahead early on. Around the set’s midway point, however, Wickens and outside hitter Jaylen Jasper — a former Cardinal volleyball player — started to find holes in Stanford’s defense. The two landed several well-timed kills, allowing their team to hold a slight edge 15-13 going into a Stanford timeout. Kills from Turner and junior middle blocker Nathaniel Gates helped the Cardinal pull even with Pepperdine. But the Waves have proved dangerous, especially when they are behind, and they took the lead again. A marathon rally shortly thereafter ultimately went Pepperdine’s way, extending the Waves’ lead to 22-19. A pair of Cardinal errors then gave the Waves set point, which they converted to take the second set 25-21 and a 2-0 lead in the match. Rottman started the Cardinal off strong in the third set with back-toback kills. The team appeared energized, keeping Pepperdine’s attack at bay and finding an 11-7 lead. Rottman landed an ace — coupled with Pepperdine errors and kills
FEATURE Continued from page 2 actually impact your life. So no one really is hurt by being more open about it.” Fernandes added that Stanford’s culture, which he said prizes work and achievement over student well-being, can also contribute to a generalized stigma around mental health. “The culture here is very much based on getting to where you want to be as fast as you can,” Fernandes said.
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“We want to have relationships, and not just with athletics,” Viglizzo says. “I think that a lot of people think that Jimmy V’s only takes care of athletes — no. It’s everybody here.” In addition to serving Stanford, Viglizzo has dedicated himself to helping a larger community. “There’s nothing better in life than giving back to others,” Viglizzo said. His favorite event the cafe caters is a charity football clinic for children of incarcerated parents organized by the NFL Alumni Association of Northern California and the Prison Fellowship, a nonprofit organization supporting incarcerated people and their families. Viglizzo says it’s the only event he caters where there’s never a piece of food left.
“The kids take the leftovers and put it in their pockets,” Viglizzo said. “Because they’re going to go home and there’s no food in their house. So I say let everything go.” Viglizzo’s philosophy is encapsulated in a quote written on one of the cafe walls: “You’re never wrong to do the right thing — Mark Twain.” “It’s the best event I do of the year because I’m helping others,” Viglizzo said. What keeps people coming back to Jimmy V’s isn’t the food; it’s the feeling of being cared for. When you place an order at Jimmy V’s, you don’t get an order number. “Instead, we ask your name. We write it down. We call you by name,” Viglizzo said. “I want Jimmy V’s to be a place where everybody knows your name. You’re not a number, you’re a special person.”
from Turner and redshirt sophomore middle blocker Ethan Hill, the Cardinal’s lead increased to 15-8. The Cardinal held on, and kills from Rottman and Gates gave them a serious advantage at 20-11. Pepperdine looked discombobulated for perhaps the first time in the doubleheader. Stanford continued to persist on the attack, as errors by the Waves furthered Stanford’s lead, giving them set point at 24-12. The Cardinal converted it a couple points later, claiming the third set convincingly 25-13. As a team, they had posted an intimidating combined attack percentage of .632 in the set, compared to the Waves’ .043. The Waves still led 2-1, but the fight was on. The fourth set resembled the first two, as the score remained close throughout. The one difference, however, was the Cardinal’s increased confidence. After a slow start to the match, Rottman appeared to finally find his swing, hitting around Pepperdine blocks and collecting critical points for the Cardinal. The Waves showed once again that they are not to be taken lightly, fighting back from a 12-14 deficit to take the lead 15-14. Both sides continued to trade points, as an ace from Rottman gave the Cardinal a 19-18 advantage. He followed this with a back row attack for the 20-18 lead, and another kill shortly after to give Stanford the 22-20 advantage. He and Turner proved to be a lethal offensive pair, giving the Cardinal the set point at 24-22. Turner ultimately converted this opportunity to clinch the set 25-23 and force a deciding fifth set. “Even though we lost two sets early on, we knew there were things we could fix, do better and play more as a team,” said Kosty. “And that’s exactly what we did to get ourselves back in that match and have an opportunity to play the fifth set.” The tension was palpable, as both teams clawed for the 15 points necessary to claim the victory. While Pepperdine got off to the faster start, kills from Gates, Rottman and Turner kept the Cardinal within reach. But the team struggled with service errors and Pepperdine’s constant attacks, prompting Kosty
to call his second timeout of the young set with Stanford down 11-8. This pause did not stop Jasper and Wilmot from continuing their offensive campaign, and the Waves found several match points at 14-10. Wilmot blocked Turner to close out the set 15-11 and the match, 3-2. “There were great performances all the way,” Kosty said of the fiveset game. “I just wish we could have gotten those one or two points even early on to give us an opportunity at the end.” It was a hard-fought loss for the Cardinal, and the team still turned in solid performances across the board. Rottman led Stanford with 21 kills, Lamp had 12 and Turner recorded 10. Gates and Hill both hit well over .500 with six kills apiece. Junior setter Nathan Lietzke ran the team’s offense with 47 assists. He also had eight digs to complement redshirt junior libero Justin Lui’s nine. Hill managed five blocks, while Rottman had three.
“It’s cool if you can make friends on the way but you can dispose of them whenever, which I think really contributes to people not feeling comfortable enough to share their actual emotions.” Though Stanford has committed to reinvesting in CAPS, Fernandes emphasized that more funding will be necessary to tackle the mental health crisis. But by sharing their stories, some students also see an inkling of hope: they are fighting the stigma and advocating for more support and resources. “Sometimes [people] just want to feel heard, and to lis-
MPSF tournament preview The Cardinal will now move on to the postseason after closing out the regular season on Saturday. “As I told the team at the conclusion of the Pepperdine match,” Kosty said, “it is now championship time.” Entering the MPSF tournament as the fifth seed, Stanford will play No. 10 Grand Canyon University (16-11, 6-6 MPSF) in its first match of the knockout draw. “Pepperdine and Grand Canyon are similar in the respect that the tempo of offense that they run is pretty fast,” Kosty said, previewing the matchup. “I think we’re mentally tough enough to go out and do some damage in the tournament,” he added. Though the Cardinal hold a 4-8 conference record this season and lost both matches in their doubleheader against GCU a fortnight ago, Kosty feels his team can rise to the occasion. “This is what we’ve been training for the entire season,” he said. “To go play one match with everything on the line.” First serve against GCU is scheduled for April 20 at 8 p.m. PT at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles.
ten to what they have to say,” Vanessa Chen ’25 said. “And that’s literally all you need to do, just to sit there and be able to listen without feeling the need to react and respond to them.” Silver linings, and the path to recovery Elizabeth Schmidt ’25 last showed symptoms of depression in December. Dealing with “a complicated family situation,” Schmidt became estranged from certain family members at the beginning of fall quarter and grew heavily depressed as a result. Transitioning to Stanford,
FANS Continued from page 12 community have been trying to figure out for a long time,” said senior Curran Phillips. But despite the lack of understanding that many viewers have, gymnastics’ inherent entertainment value, as athletes contort their bodies and exhibit otherworldly strength, seems to grasp the attention of the fans that are willing to give it a chance. “I’ve never had someone go to the gymnastics meet and be unsatisfied with being there,” Phillips said. Senior Bryan Perla believes the lack of attention the sport receives boils down to the way in which it’s publicized. “It’s just the volume of publicity. If you promote it, there’s an audience for it. But when it’s selectively promoted a little bit or only for big competitions or for this and that ... I think that’s why we’re seeing [less interest].” This lack of publicity is nothing new for Stanford’s program. In years past, much of the attention the team had managed to garner was a product of internal efforts. “You would think, ‘Be successful and you’ll get a better following.’ But actually, when we were developing the program, the coaching staff did a lot, and we had our athletes do a lot to promote the sport just to get people to come out and see it,” Glielmi said. Glielmi, a five-time National Coach of the Year recipient now in his 20th season for the Cardinal, has seen a lot during his tenure regarding the program’s attempts to attract fans. “I used to have guys with sandwich boards walking around White Plaza advertising the competition that weekend,” he said. “We would send out our own press releases. We’d send out flyers.” On a college campus where spectatorship is traditionally dominated by the likes of football and basketball, men’s gymnastics hasn’t been and still isn’t covered by major media outlets in the same way as these other sports. “The coverage mirrors people’s interests,” Perla said. “Obviously the bigger sports get more mainstream media attention. When you compare it to the other sports, it’s obviously less and there’s no way around that.” But as the program has continued to develop and produce talented teams year in and year out — finishing in the top five at the NCAA Championships in each of the last 15 seasons it was held — the battle for coverage has reached a crossroads. Currently ranked the number one team in the country, fresh off their first MPSF Championship title in 10 years and in pursuit of a third consecutive NCAA Championship, the Cardinal have reached new heights. And with this unprecedented success, the time for proper recognition has come — the Cardinal are too good to ignore. This shift has been palpable on campus. Ahead of the MPSF cham-
pionships in early April, several large inch A-frame signs were placed around heavily-populated student areas to promote the team’s upcoming meet. Throughout the academic year, nearly every football game and many men’s basketball games had signs put out in a similar fashion, but this was the first time all year that a men’s gymnastics meet had been advertised in such a way. “Seeing those posters around was obviously awesome for the team,” Perla said. “People were taking pictures of them in White Plaza and sending it to our group message, and people were excited that it was prevalent on campus.” The signs were effective, and the crowd at Burnham Pavilion for the MPSF Championships created an electric environment. Following the event, the team’s success was no secret around campus. “Even post-meet, it seemed like the championship results got through to people,” Perla said. “I remember even walking around campus going to class, like, ‘Congrats on winning.’ So the message was heard as far as that competition.” While gymnastics may be gaining fans in the Stanford community, the sport’s issues persist outside of the campus bubble. Equity in coverage seems to be something that can improve with time, but the difficulty in understanding the sport still poses a barrier to developing a widespread popularity. Gunther and Loos are attempting to break down this barrier with their social media success. “When I look through the comments on our videos, [they’re] never from gymnasts,” Loos said. “It’s always new people seeing our videos for the first time and they’re like, ‘Wow, this is really cool.’” “I get so many comments that are like, ‘I didn’t even know men did gymnastics, this is so cool, I didn’t know humans could do this, I want to start trying to learn this.’” Gunther added. With videos of difficult routines creating heaps of engagement from viewers that are typically unfamiliar with gymnastics, social media has proven to be an effective medium of attracting new fans. “I [think] to myself, ‘What way can I frame this so that it’ll be the most interesting to someone who’s never seen gymnastics before,” Gunther explained. “How can I tell a story that’s easily digestible for someone who knows nothing about men’s gymnastics, which is the majority of people.’” And while these gymnasts have invested time and energy into generating greater spectatorship, their ultimate goal still lies ahead. This weekend, the team has a chance to earn its third consecutive NCAA Championship and eighth in program history when it competes in Norman, Okla. “Nobody likes to see a dynasty start coming into place,” Glielmi said. “And I’m not saying we’re a dynasty, but that’s definitely our goal — is to establish that we are here, and we’re going to be here for a while.”
Schmidt says, became a “downward spiral.” The combination of “rigorous academics, personal problems and my family all came and swooped in,” which affected her relationships and ability to connect with her peers. “I didn’t make many friends at Stanford at first.” Her grades suffered too — “it was consuming me,” Schmidt said. But things got better. Fast forward to winter quarter, and her family situation had “cleared up.” Schmidt began to delve deep into materials science research, which has brought her “so much joy.” “Exploring that passion, really finding where I belong, and finding that purpose is something that really motivated me and provides me happiness on a daily basis,” Schmidt said. Another key aspect that helped her mental health, she added, was community. Schmidt regularly enjoys hiking with her friends at the Dish, indulging in hobbies like singing and photography and going on trips with her dormmates to San Francisco. “Just having the ability to go and talk to someone that I really
care about is something that I love,” Schmidt said. Chen echoed this sentiment, emphasizing non-academic activities as a way for students to tackle mental health challenges. Chen staffed for the National Youth Leadership Training, which teaches leadership skills to youth in Boy Scouts of America. “I know that other people are looking up to me, so going to communities where I feel welcome and I’m serving a purpose makes me feel a lot better,” Chen said. “It helps me refocus and look at the bigger picture.” As a musician, Yuan said he frequently incorporates themes of mental health in his artistry as a way to spread awareness. “That’s an easier way for me to share about mental health because when you listen to a song, you don’t have to respond. But you can still hear what is being said and resonate with it.” Still, uncertainty abounds for some students. Schmidt says she worries about her financial status. Since she became financially independent, she has been in contact
with Stanford’s Financial Aid Office, as her previous household income did not qualify her for financial aid. “It’s very terrifying and extremely stressful,” Schmidt said, as she had to take out a loan to cover her winter quarter tuition. She’s currently working two jobs and is still figuring out her summer housing, but she stays hopeful amid the shadows. “It does weigh on me in the sense that I’m terrified I’ll slip back into [depression],” Schmidt said. “But at the same time, I know that deep down I won’t. So it’s kind of that false sense of anxiety looming over you.” For students like Schmidt, recovery isn’t easy. But with more institutional support and a more open culture toward mental health struggles, they say, we’ll see a brighter, healthier campus. “One day you’ll look back and love ... the struggles you’ve overcome,” concludes Yuan in “We Are.” The stories of students like Yuan highlight that no matter the adversities, the path towards healing remains visible — aglow with signs of hope.
CHAMPS
third-straight all-around national title for Malone. “I was kind of disappointed in my all-around performance today, especially on the parallel bars,” Malone said. “The other events were solid, and overall, I was pretty happy with what I did tonight.” “Everybody that competed played a huge part in this meet,” Glielmi said after the meet. “We had guys that did not make the lineup and could have been All-Ameri-
cans, but they pushed those who did make the line-up to get to where we were.” “Stanford is the most dominant team gymnastics has ever seen,” said commentator and accomplished gymnast Tim Daggett. This win marks Glielmi’s fifth national championship as the Stanford head coach and Stanford’s 129th NCAA championship overall. Stanford now extends its streak of having at least one NCAA team title to 46 years.
Continued from page 13 ly well in bringing it together and finishing strong.” Malone ended his allaround campaign with an overall score of 84.733, earning a solid 14.100 on the still rings. Michigan Junior Paul Juda edged out Malone for the all-around title with an 85.298. It would have been a