Today at 5:30p.m. Morgan State University’s student counseling center will host its second annual Suicide Awareness Prevention Campus Walk.

Morgan students, faculty and members of the Baltimore community will walk around Morgan’s campus and through the surrounding neighborhood to spread awareness about suicide. Many will walk in memory of loved ones who took their own lives.

Morgan’s suicide walk has also partnered with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, a non-profit organization that seeks to raised awareness about suicide and its warning signs, aid people who struggle with thoughts of suicide, and help the surviving friends and family of people who died by suicide.

“The reason that we partnered with the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention is because we want more information out there,” said Clinical Psychologist Dr. Sonya Clyburn. “We have students nationwide 18 to 24 that [have] increased suicide rates. We wanted our students aware of what’s going on not only for themselves, but if [they] see someone who is struggling. We want [them] to be prepared and know what to do — and know where the resources are.”

According to the CDC, suicide is one of the two leading causes of death in the United States. Between 2021 and 2022, the CDC estimated that approximately 16,724 young people committed suicide between the ages of 25 and 44. Suicide rates among African Americans specifically have increased significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The reality is that suicides are happening more often and I believe that it’s 1 in 4 or 1 in 7, and that 25 people per minute are completing suicides,” said Clyburn. “Within the African American community, between the ages of 16 and 14, those rates have increased. They have always been at a lower amount but since COVID they have increased.”

According to New York State’s Office of Mental Health, there are several risk factors that can lead up to college students feeling anxious, depressed and suicidal. Some of them include isolation, aggression or genetic predispositions to mental illness — especially if those people do not seek treatment. These factors can lead to negative coping mechanisms such as self-harm, aggressive behavior or self-medicating via drugs or alcohol.

“We’re seeing an increase of students here at Morgan particularly who are suicidal and I know that many of our students use cannabis as a coping strategy, not just for recreation — but it impacts them,” said Clyburn.

The Alcohol and Drug Foundation wrote, “Some people might self-medicate with cannabis to deal with emotional pain or other symptoms of depression. However, cannabis is more likely to make these feelings worse in the long term.”

Morgan’s counseling center works to destigmatize mental health by offering multiple avenues for counseling and by including wellness days in each semester. This can give students a brief respite from their course loads. 

According to Clyburn, the counseling center offers both virtual and in-person appointments. “We have a satellite office in Thurgood Marshall … we are actually in the forefront of college institutions in higher education to have wellness days,” said Clyburn. 

Morgan has also partnered with Uwill, a 24-hour virtual counseling support service available to students. Clyburn also said that it’s important to remove stigmas associated with mental health so people know when to ask for help and use available resources.

“We have to talk about it,” Clyburn said. “We have to normalize that people of color have mental health issues — [and] in our community we don’t do that often. But it’s okay to not be ok — and it’s okay, when you’re not okay, to ask for help. We have been conditioned to believe that if we ask for help, it’s the wrong thing or we have to suffer in silence … We have to recondition ourselves so that we can elevate to where we need to be.”