It’s On Us and Psychology Club on the Quad handing our ribbons in honor of suicide prevention.
ELIZABETH KALAJ/COURTESY
By Mary Haley, Marketing Chair/Asst. Features Editor
September is suicide prevention month, and Manhattan University’s It’s On Us chapter made it their priority to discuss the topic at their event on the campus quad on Monday Sept. 30.
It’s On Us is a national club that is “dedicated to college sexual assault prevention, training a national network of student-led campus chapters to become peer-educators; developing suites of prevention education programs; and conducting and publishing research to expand the field of knowledge on violence prevention,” according to itsonus.org.
The university’s chapter of It’s On Us decided to get involved with spreading awareness about suicide prevention because of the tie between suicide rates and sexual assault survivors. Those who have been assaulted are more likely to have suicidal ideation, and It’s On Us highlighted that while also recognizing all who have struggled with suicide.
The group wanted to hold an event that was simple but able to host a comfortable conversation.
Ari Flores, underclassman president of It’s On Us, explained the bigger reason behind this event and what it meant to her.
“As a survivor of sexual assault, it’s really important that we know we are not alone in this world,” Flores said. “If I put my story out there, people will come and open up more. If we all share stories, it shows a lot of support towards the community and the school in general. It makes us seem more connected in ways we did not think we could be.”
To lead to this campus-wide support, the group gave away ribbons of many different colors, each representing a different reason for supporting suicide prevention. Students were able to choose their color based on what it represented. Red was to represent a person dealing with the loss of their partner to suicide, teal represented a loss to suicide, green represented attempted suicide, along with many other colors.
The table also had a mirror to write positive notes on to reflect back on whoever looked into it.
When Justin Atwater, the chapter’s LGBTQ+ chair, got to the table, almost all of the ribbons were gone and the mirrors had no more room on them to write messages. Atwater explained to The Quadrangle that seeing this showed just how much this event resonated with the campus, and why these sometimes “taboo” topics need to be talked about more.
“I stayed for the last hour and when I got there, there was already no space left on the mirrors, you could not even look at yourself through them,” Atwater said. “There were also only two blue ribbons left, and the blue ones are showing allyship for the month of suicide prevention. That was our quickest ran out ribbon, so it really showed that we have a lot of support on campus wanting to advocate for suicide prevention, which I thought was amazing.”
Genevieve Keelen, social media coordinator of It’s On Us, is one of many students who experienced a suicide on campus in the spring of 2021. She explained to The Quadrangle the importance of making this topic more normalized to discuss on campus.
“[Manhattan University] has had a suicide on campus while I have been here and in the same building that I lived in,” Keelen said. “I just remember it being very grim on campus, and everybody knew about it, but no one was talking about it or doing anything about it. From my knowledge, there was not much done through the school to address the issue and to make sure the students were taken care of after that. They did offer counseling services, but they did not bring in anyone to speak about it to the community, they did not host events to talk about it, they did do Jasper Day of Wellness, which was a step forward, but then again, how much is that doing?”
With all of the success It’s On Us found from the event, the club is planning on introducing even more opportunities for sexual assault prevention and suicide prevention with fundraisers and more interactive events.
“Our events are usually just tied down to one table at our quad tables or in the spring we usually have events in Smith [Auditorium] or in Kelly [Commons],” Atwater said. “We want to make it more widespread instead of just one area on campus.”