By Gil Perez, LPCC, CST, NCC, CCMHC, BC-TMH, Personal Counselor & AFT Chapter Chair, College of San Mateo

Active Minds is the mental health student organization at Cañada College, College of San Mateo, and Skyline College. Active Minds is not just a student organization. For more than a decade it has supported our prevention and early intervention efforts at each college by offering a safe space for students to openly talk about their struggles, helping students see that they are not alone in their struggle, and connecting them to mental health resources. Our District was first among our nation’s community colleges to establish Active Minds chapters.

As a district, we have a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent foreseeable harm, including student suicides. Suicide is a leading cause of death for college students. Every semester, SMCCCD students attempt or die by suicide. If any of our colleges are aware of a student’s distress we are responsible to provide, or assist in finding, adequate mental health services. 

Active Minds has successfully expanded mental health care outside of 1:1 counseling services. 1:1 counseling services can’t sustain an entire student body. Active Minds helps us reach more students outside of the Personal Counseling Center and close equity gaps among students who are reluctant to seek therapy. The program also connects marginalized students including BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and neurodivergent students to mental health support, in other words, students who wouldn’t otherwise access 1:1 services due to stigma and other access barriers. 

Gil Perez speaks to the Board of Trustees, Jan. 2026

Peer support such as Active Minds is increasingly recognized as a vital part of the standard of care to provide accessible mental health support and is crucial to sustain at our colleges to reduce risk.

Unfortunately, advising student organizations is a voluntary activity for faculty. This contradicts the job description for Personal Counselors which include advising Active Minds as part of their job description. I have been volunteering my time to advise Active Minds since 2016. However, voluntary duties can’t sustain these life saving efforts. If advising Active Minds is voluntary and not allowed to be considered part of Personal Counselors’ workload, we risk losing a vital resource on campus. 

In January of this year, more than 30 Active Minds student club members and two advisors including myself (College of San Mateo) and Perry Chen (Skyline College) spoke at the  Board of Trustees meeting to urge the District to agree to include “advising mental health student organizations” as a duty of Personal Counselors in the next faculty contract in order to more accurately reflect the job description of Personal Counselors across the district. The students emphasized that, if we don’t, we fail to meet the “duty of care” owed to our students; they made it very clear that Active Minds matters to our students. 

At the January 28th  Board meeting, our district praised the CSM football team for securing their third 3C2A state championship and held a reception in their honor.  However, when it was Active Minds’ turn to speak there was an overt disregard for students’ mental health. The Board of Trustees appeared disinterested and distracted, looking at  their phones and laptops, and even having side conversations while one by one, students courageously voiced their struggles and support for the program.

Distracted Trustees ignore student testimonials. Watch the recording of the January 28 Board Meeting.

This show of rude behavior left the students feeling frustrated, upset, and with a sense that the Board of Trustees was not student-centered. Their message was clear: the mental health of our students does not matter, nor does ensuring that our students experience livable lives.