Marion Nestle makes a good point in one of her books, possibly “What to Eat,” but I can’t fully remember. She notes (and I am paraphrasing) “people often complain that diet trends change too fast, when in fact the prevailing wisdom of the past 100 years has been to eat more fruits and vegetables.” I think your points are spot on in terms of people liking to relate to one another, but I also think people just like new stuff. New trends get press, new products get advertising and shelf space. “New” “superfoods” must work because they are new. For a lot of these problems, a little bit of sound education would go a long way.

Yes, I think it’s wild the infinite possibilities that wait for us in the future. …the mindfulness issue is so important to me because I feel like regardless of what might come, as long as we can think critically, we can make it through anything.

Yeah, it is a very difficult topic to talk about. It is important, I think, for us to have these discussions. It certainly is uncomfortable, and it is very sad. It should happen more often than the anniversary of the tragedy that happened that day in April, because mental health issues in higher education are much more prevalent than we are willing to recognize or admit sometimes.

My experience in higher education has not been without tragedy as well. During my master’s, one of my committee members committed suicide. Two years ago, my uncle, a faculty member at Delta State University, committed suicide after the deaths of two other people.

While I wasn’t a VT student when the incident took place, I am now, and so in some way, part of that story is part of my story now, too. My heart breaks for those families and I am so moved by the community that VT proved itself to be in response to the tragedy that happened here.

I don’t know that you should feel awkward or selfish for talking about April 16. I believe that it’s when we don’t talk about it that it becomes a worse issue. We have to talk about it so that we as a society don’t forget that it DOES happen and people need support. As a community, what happens when we don’t take care of ourselves, or care about each other? What happens when we purposefully forget the painful memories? We can’t forget those who died and we can’t act like it didn’t happen. Or that it couldn’t happen again, in some other community. I don’t know that it should be a politicized issue; but I do think it’s important to keep the discourse going.