Ready to respond to tragedy

Mesa College students who still were shaken by a string of tragic national events might have found some solace recently at a table at the far north end of campus.

There, outside the I-400 building that includes the offices for Student Services, students found a new banner that said “Mesa Cares” and a peace sign they could sign or mark with their thumbs.

“It’s very important for us to be able to have a safe space here,” said Ashanti Hands, vice president of Student Services at Mesa College. “With all the things that are happening in the world, we thought it was important to have a space for healthy dialogue, discussions and reflection.”

The school already had provided counselors to talk with students after traumatic events, with the last time after the Paris terrorist attack in November.

Then there were the shooting deaths of two black men by police officers in St. Paul, Minn., and Baton Rouge, La., and the killing of five police officers in Dallas by a black sniper. Hands said last week she and others in Student Services decided to brainstorm with staff members from Student Health Services about how to improve the way they help students in traumatic and tense times.

(This was before the three officers were killed in Baton Rouge.)

Suzanne Khambata, director of Student Health Services, said the idea is to make students feel that they are part of the solution.

Regarding racial tension in the country, she said one of the first steps of the initiative has been to direct students to www.joincampaignzero.org/#vision, where they can learn about campaigns that address the number of police-involved shootings each year.

Student Health Services also has distributed an NAACP-produced brochure called “The 411 on the Five-O,” which gives advice on what to do if stopped or arrested by a police officer. The brochure has information about Constitutional rights and advices people to cooperate with officers.

On Monday and Tuesday last week, hundreds of students stopped by the Mesa Cares table on the patio outside the I-400 building, and more than 360 signed the two Mesa Cares banners.

A banner with a peace song was covered with thumb prints, and one dog paw print, from people and pets stopping by.

“One love, one world,” “Live and Let Live” and “When you put down a group of people, you put all of us down” were among the comments written on the banner.

Khambata said similar banners and the table will appear on campus immediately after any tragedy. The display would have been set up last Friday following the attack in Nice, France, but no students were on campus that day, she said.

Raheem Habib, a 21-year-old public health student at Mesa, is the lead student peer educator for Mesa Cares and said the display last week got a powerful reaction.

“We had one guy who was upset about the racial tension in the country,” he said about one student who talked to a counselor.

“She talked to him, and he cried a little bit,” he said. “He was able to vent. He expressed himself, and she was able to calm him down and talk to him.”

Habib said the exchange was an example of how the college counselors care for students.

“We want them to know that we’re there for them and we care about their health,” he said. “This is something you really don’t see at a lot of community colleges.”

Other schools within the San Diego Community College District also have initiatives to address tension on campus.

City College has a social justice framework that includes mental health assistance to students. The school also emphasizes student leadership as a way of working for social justice, and it plans to have speakers on the subject this fall. City College also has planned a program about how men of color should interact with police.

Miramar College has behavioral intervention teams and a process to encourage civility and inclusivity for black, Latino and Asian students.

San Diego Continuing Education has a “Stop the Hate” campaign and is planning to implement other social justice programs this fall.

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