Isabelle Aragon-Menzel ’21, a former CC student-athlete on the Women’s Volleyball Team, is now taking the lessons she’s learned, both on and off the court, and using them to focus on mental health at the community level.
Aragon-Menzel became passionate about mental health when she began playing varsity high school volleyball as an eighth grader, which she says was a difficult yet beyond-rewarding experience.
“Navigating life as a young female athlete proved difficult, especially in such a male-dominated sports world at a large high school,” she says. “This is where my own mental health became a bit of a struggle, and I realized that instead of keeping these struggles to myself, life became a whole lot easier, and I became a whole lot more connected to other female athletes, when I talked about it. Becoming a student-athlete at CC only further amplified this deep desire to better understand the collective student-athlete mental health experience and not only talk about it, but do something about it.”
Aragon-Menzel is currently in her final semester of her two-year program at the Colorado School of Public Health, located on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. She will graduate with a Master of Public Health (MPH) with a concentration on population mental health and wellbeing.
“I am deeply passionate about mental health research, prevention, treatment, and discourse,” Aragon-Menzel says. “This passion stems from personal experiences with mental health issues and is what led me to conduct my senior thesis at CC on student-athlete mental health. It is also what led me exactly to this program, where I have been able to learn so much more about mental health research, prevention, and promotion.”
In the mental health concentration, students research various mental health issues at the population level rather than the individual level. They examine community mental health experiences, such as substance use or depression and anxiety, and attempt to develop public health prevention interventions, programs, or research for addressing those issues.
“In terms of mental health resources, I do think CC was helpful to our team, especially given the support from within the Athletic Department, specifically CC’s sports medicine trainers, the unspoken heroes of CC’s athletic successes,” she says. “Holly Pechacek was the volleyball team’s trainer, and she helped me tremendously throughout my years as a student-athlete with both my physical and especially my mental health, and I know others would say the same.”
Aragon-Menzel’s thesis, “Tiger Strong: Mental Health and Varsity Student-Athlete Experience at Colorado College,” focused on the lived experiences of student-athletes at CC.
“My research highlighted how certain actors in a student-athlete’s life, such as coaches, professors, and trainers, can significantly influence their mental health, positively or negatively, so it is imperative that these actors and resources are equipped with proper mental health support tools,” Aragon-Menzel says. “Holly met my mental health struggles with compassion, knowledge, care, and empathy, and I will always be grateful for the way she was there for me when I needed it most.”
Aragon-Menzel has learned so many lessons from being a student-athlete but says the most important one she learned is that showing up for others matters.
“When you’re a member of a team, you have to show up for your teammates, your coaches, your trainers, and yourself. And when you do choose to show up and give everything you’ve got to someone or something, it really does matter, whether you realize it or not,” she says. “Whether they tell you or not, it matters to the people you’re showing up for, and it will continue to matter years after you’ve left a place. In my pursuit of an MPH in mental health, it matters when your research or practice impacts people, it matters when you show up and work toward mental health for all. My goal in continuing to pursue this work is ceaselessly showing up and providing mental health prevention, treatment, and support for those who need it most.”
Aragon-Menzel minored in Education and English and believes CC prepared her incredibly well for graduate school.
“The level of academic rigor at CC that I experienced helped prepare me for an even more elevated level of rigor at the graduate level, which I am grateful for,” says Aragon-Menzel. “Completing a senior thesis in the Sociology Department, which consisted of a small-scale sociological research project, gave me important and necessary firsthand experience in conducting research, which I brought with me to graduate school and will continue bringing with me in future academic or career pursuits. The CC Sociology Department and its faculty really helped me develop systems thinking and pushed me to critically analyze how things are interconnected in our society, which is tremendously helpful in my public health degree.”
During the first year of her MPH program, Aragon-Menzel worked as a student social media ambassador for the Colorado School of Public Health marketing team, where she worked to make fun public health content that’s accessible to a wide audience, since she says public health is not necessarily a glamorous topic at times. Aragon-Menzel hopes that by creating this content, she was able to raise awareness of mental health and give small tips to viewers.
Additionally, Aragon-Menzel and her classmates recently completed a group project for their Environmental and Occupational Health class, where they produced a PSA video related to the impact of the school environment on the mental health of students.
While mental health and wellbeing had been important to Aragon-Menzel, she hadn’t always been set on going to graduate school. It wasn’t until after she graduated from CC that she reached out to Dr. Gail Murphy-Geiss, Professor and Chair of the CC Sociology Department, and asked for her advice. Aragon-Menzel says Murphy-Geiss was extremely helpful and assisted her with picking the best program and school based on her interests and career goals.
Aragon-Menzel remains active in CC’s alumni community, as well as in contact with many of her former professors and mentors.
“I owe many thanks to Dr. Chantal Figueroa in the CC Sociology Department for her tremendous help and guidance throughout my time at CC, both inside and out of the classroom,” Aragon-Menzel says. “Dr. Figueroa is one of my most influential mentors and professors – she shared so much of her knowledge with her classes, passing along immeasurable lessons on how to treat one another, how to think critically, and how to bring one’s full humanity to everything they do. I cannot thank Dr. Figueroa enough for her guidance and support during my CC classes, as my thesis advisor, and in my pursuit of a graduate education. Her teaching changes lives, and it surely changed mine for the better.”
Aragon-Menzel occasionally returns to campus to support the Women’s Volleyball Team and participate in alumni scrimmages, as well as catch up with her former volleyball coach, Chad Koenegstein, who joined the volleyball team during her sophomore season.
“For three years I got to learn so much from Chad, both on and off the volleyball court,” Aragon-Menzel says. “Chad continuously supported me and encouraged me to not only be a better player, but a better teammate, friend, and person. I will always be grateful for everything CC volleyball gave me, including an unending passion for seeking joy in everything you do, and Chad is a major contributor to that passion.”
Beyond pursuing a PhD and working in the mental health field, Aragon-Menzel isn’t quite sure what her future entails. However, there is one thing she knows for certain.
“Regardless of these pockets of the unknown in terms of my future plans, one thing I have always known, and will always know, is that I want to help people, and I want to continue showing up.”
One response to “Tiger Alum Uses Lessons from CC to Show Up for Others”
Great job Bell!!!!❤️