#PolicyProfile: Mayu Takeuchi ’23
May 26 2023
By
Brittany N. Murray
Source
Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
“I'd never been in student government before Princeton, but Undergraduate Student Government has been a really defining part of my experience here. It's been a great chance to mentor younger students and empower them to be leaders. I served as sustainability chair for 2021 to be in this central role within the USG, where I could coordinate with groups across campus and work with administrators to advance real change in terms of sustainability on campus. From there, I felt like there was more to be done, and I decided to run to serve as student body president in December 2021. I ran with a focus on improving student well being — specifically mental health — and weaving sustainability into all aspects of the work of student government. During my term as student body president, we, unfortunately, lost three members of our undergraduate community, and some of these losses were to suicide. That was not something I had ever expected or wanted to experience in this role, but I think it showed how serious the role can be."
It's been a lot of amplifying student voices, bringing students directly to the table where mental health policy and resource decisions are made, and addressing any needs of disproportionately affected communities within the student body."Mayu Takeuchi ’23
One of our bigger projects involved assessing the current mental health resources that students don’t know about, as well as what resources exist that we're not adequately communicating to students. We developed over 30 recommendations, and a lot of them have been implemented as of now. Part of that effort has been transforming the crisis wellness check system at the university to shift reliance off the Department of Public Safety. We also launched a 24/7 telehealth call line that students can reach at any point whenever they need to talk to someone, and, more broadly, increasing the diversity of counselors across the board and addressing the root causes of the mental health crisis are ongoing priorities.”
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