NAMI endorses Kayla Thompson for DSG EVP

After listening to all of the candidates’ platforms for Duke Student Government Executive Vice President (EVP), Duke’s National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has decided to endorse Kayla Thompson for EVP.*

We are grateful for all of the candidates who reached out to speak with us at our general body meeting this past Tuesday. Each of the presidential and EVP candidates that we met with expressed the necessity for prioritizing Duke students with unmet mental health needs, specifically regarding the accessibility to mental health resources on campus. 

However, we believe that Kayla’s commitment to collaborating with the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and student groups like us to improve mental health programming and push for policies that can turn NAMI’s focus on education and advocacy into concrete action would best represent our organization’s goals. Specifically, in mentioning her dedication for increasing accessibility of food options on campus for those who may be dealing with mental health crises and/or physical/mental disabilities, she displayed her intention for creating activism for a project that NAMI has attempted to execute in the past. We hope that her enthusiasm for improving access to mental health resources for Duke students and destigmatizing mental illness on campus would translate into the actions that she communicated. 

Thank you to all the candidates who spoke to Duke NAMI. We enjoyed hearing all of your hopes for this campus, and we look forward to the ways DSG will execute your goals for bridging student voices to the administration. 

Sincerely,

Tatyana Bidopia, NAMI President

*In compliance with the DSG Endorsement Policy, we are unable to endorse a presidential candidate because we did not speak to all of the candidates.