Alumna Returns to CRSM to Talk About “Taboo” Mental Health Issues with Students

Alumna Returns to CRSM to Talk About “Taboo” Mental Health Issues with Students

At one point in the pandemic, CRSM alumna Marilu Bueno, 22, a college psychology and theater major, realized that high school students at her alma mater had spent a significant chunk of the last two school years isolated from friends and in a fractured learning environment. She wondered if it made them feel sad, anxious, lonely, or stressed-out.

Her musings prompted the Class of ’19 grad to focus her senior-year qualitative research project at Kalamazoo College on CRSM juniors and seniors. She was interested in exploring mental health issues and how they impact minorities and other vulnerable populations. The effects of the pandemic brought them to the forefront, making her research very timely.

“My goal with the project was in many ways to let the CRSM students know they are not alone if they are struggling with anxiety, depression or feeling overwhelmed,” says Marilu, 22. She is on the Dean’s list at Kalamazoo and is a Schuler Scholar and voted “Most Outstanding Student,” while at CRSM.

Marilu returned to Waukegan this summer to spend two months interviewing, observing, and working with a focus group of about 20 CRSM juniors and seniors. Now back at college, she is compiling her findings to be presented to CRSM social workers and leadership later this fall, and of course her professors.

Despite the grace and resilience CRSM students demonstrated as they dealt with the challenges of COVID-19, they, like many other teens, have difficulty seeking treatment for depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues, she says. As children of immigrants, CRSM students also face some generational challenges in trying to get their parents on board, says Marilu.

“There is a culture stigma,” she says. “I know this myself that students are worried that they are letting their parents or guardian down because our parents are very proud of us being in school. As first generation students, we feel it is our role to uphold the legacy of the family and that we must succeed. Students feel like if they say they are depressed or anxious, they are letting their parents down. One of my goals most likely will be educating the older generation and the community that it’s okay to seek help from a counselor.”

An aspiring psychologist, Marilu wants to work with vulnerable populations such as immigrants and plans to go on to graduate school to further her education.

Her advice for CRSM students: “Understand that especially as upper classmen, there is a lot of stress as you’re trying to figure out what college you want to go to and what you want to major in. Take one step at a time, but don’t be afraid to reach out for help. Cristo Rey has caring teachers and counselors who are there to help you.”

Students Explore Threats to Democracy, and the Future of America

Students Explore Threats to Democracy, and the Future of America

On Saturday, Sept. 10th, 19 members of the Art Club traveled to the Weinberg/Newton Gallery in Chicago to experience and reflect upon a diverse range of democracy issues presented through the arts, videos, and sculpture.

The Weinberg/Newton Museum is a non-commercial gallery with a mission to collaborate with nonprofit organizations and artists to educate and engage the public on social justice issues. Through artwork and programming, the gallery provides a vital space for open discourse on critical contemporary issues facing our communities.

The All that Glows in the Dark of Democracy exhibit is part of the museum’s “Engagement Series on Democracy: We the People.” It is designed to push beyond the rhetoric and the elusive definition of democracy by closely examining fundamental rights including the rights of immigrants. The exhibit encourages museum goers to shift their lens. Instead of asking what they are against, students were encouraged to explore what they support in our nation’s democracy.

“We learned more about other people’s perspectives on democracy and had the chance to listen to and share our opinions,” said CRSM student Miley. “I enjoyed playing the game ‘Which one is better?’ and arguing to understand why the other group and our group felt the way we did about democracy issues.”

Students also were able to cast their votes in real-life-like voting booths for global changes they would like to see.

“I personally enjoyed doing this because our voices were able to be heard about issues we felt are important, including immigration and health care,” said Brenda G.

The exhibit is co-sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) with the goal to drive change and cultivate a culture of consciousness through artwork and programming.

The purpose of this field trip was to enable students to explore, through the arts, what it is like when fundamental rights – the right to vote, the rights of immigrants, etc. – are threatened.

“Like the nation’s founders, the high school students– the citizens of tomorrow –need to practice disagreeing, debating, and then moving forward together, whether their views won or lost”, said Brian Weinberg, director of the Corporate Work Study Program who accompanied the students along with John Geis, art teacher.

September President’s Pen with Preston Kendall: On being people for others

One table in our cafeteria was particularly busy this week. It wasn’t a bake sale or some special food offering. It was students signing up with our Campus Ministry staff for regular volunteer opportunities throughout the school year. Every Tuesday, CRSM sends students to local PADS (Public Action to Deliver Shelter) locations to set up beds and then prepare and serve an evening meal for local people experiencing homelessness. Also on Tuesdays, separate groups go to Roberti Community House to provide mentoring and tutoring to younger children in the area. On Wednesday nights, students go to the Northern Illinois Food Bank to pack food that is then distributed throughout northern Illinois for our neighbors who are experiencing food insecurity, including monthly distribution events in CRSM’s parking lot. Thursdays, students assemble individualized nutritious meal packs from bulk ingredients at Feed My Starving Children that are then shipped to domestic and international locations in urgent need of food – refugee camps, natural disaster relief sites, and agencies fighting chronic hunger and poverty – mostly in Africa, South America, and the Caribbean.

Unlike many other public and private schools, CRSM intentionally does not require a certain number of volunteer hours for graduation. We want students to freely choose to volunteer their time and effort. Requiring rather than inviting turns doing service into a transactional rather than transformational experience. This is an important distinction since we want students to come to know the grace inherent in selfless acts by choice, not coercion. Freedom to choose leaves open the possibility that service will transform our students’ sense of self and their ability to change the world.

Mahatma Gandhi observed, “the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Similarly, St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer includes the lines, “For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned…” Service benefits the servers as much or more than the recipients. At CRSM, we strive to be “people for others” or “persons for others.” This phrase is borrowed from Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ who is often considered the second founder of the Society of Jesus. His full quote from 1973 is as poignant today as it was then: “Today our prime educational objective must be to form men-and-women-for-others; men and women who will live not for themselves but for God… men and women who cannot even conceive of love of God which does not include love for the least of their neighbors…”

Ultimately, service is elemental to our faith: God made us. God loves us. God only wants to be loved back. We love God back by loving one another.

All of us are on a journey of self-discovery. To accompany others on their journeys, especially when they are suffering and in need, is to realize that we are truly connected to one another and co-dependent. To separate ourselves from one another is to separate ourselves from God. Jesus teaches this same concept of connection in Matthew’s gospel about judgement day: “‘When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we ever see you a stranger and welcome you in our homes, or naked and clothe you? When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me!’”

Being a person-for-others is not about seeking reward or avoiding punishment; it is a mindset that leads to spiritual growth and discovery. By serving others we can become more fully ourselves in our dualistic state as both human and spiritual beings. Becoming an agent for positive change in the lives of others – even on a small scale – should embolden us to do even more and on an even larger scale. In service, we glimpse a part of ourselves in the other person and we realize that we truly do belong to one another. We see the world and ourselves differently. “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1 John 4:12)

How incredibly gratifying to see that line of students at the Campus Ministry table this week. It wasn’t a bake sale or some special food offering. It was students taking up the invitation to something that feeds a deeper hunger in each of us – an invitation to come to know God’s love by spreading God’s love