Carlson School Students Launching New Mental Health-Based Student Organization

College should be a time of growth, learning, and exploration. But frequently, mental health issues can stand in the way of students reaching their full potential.

A group of Carlson School students want to address these issues through a new student organization. A new Lost&Found chapter is starting at the University of Minnesota with help from two students on the Carlson School’s Business Board. 

Lost&Found is a South Dakota-based not-for-profit organization, co-founded by a Carlson School MBA graduate, that aims to do more to eliminate suicide among young adults in the United States. The organization connects young adults (ages 14-35) with the skills and community for lifelong resilience by facilitating proactive, data-driven, public health approaches to suicide prevention. Currently, Lost&Found operates several university chapters at colleges across the Midwest.

“We are so excited to bring this organization to campus,” says Sebastian Haugen, ‘23 BSB, who is helping lead the initiative. “We think opening a chapter here will be helpful for all kinds of students and help expand resources.”

Haugen, a senior, and Zach Soule, ‘25 BSB are two of the students leading the effort to bring the organization to campus. They were both driven to do so after having their own mental health struggles and seeing many of their friends and fellow students do the same.

“Our main purpose is to create a community where people can be vulnerable and comfortable with what they’re going through,” says Soule. “We hope this is a place where people can take a break from the constant competition and be comfortable sharing what they’re going through with each other.”

The goal is for the student organization to open in the spring.

The opening of the Lost&Found chapter is the latest mental health initiative at the Carlson School. In 2018, the Carlson School became one of the first business schools in the country to add an in-house mental health resource for students. That position is currently held by Maureen Maslinski.

Erik Muckey, ’20 MBA, who serves as Lost&Found’s executive director and CEO, says he was inspired to join the startup 12 years ago when a friend died by suicide. Today, he hopes Lost&Found can make a meaningful change and save young people’s lives.

“We are in dire need for services when it comes to mental health,” explains Muckey. “Today, suicide rates for ages 14-35 are reaching 20-to-30-year highs around the country and counseling services providing support to this population—particularly college students—are being overrun with demand. Lost&Found actively defragments an ecosystem that can be extremely time-consuming to navigate. Our solution involves applying a resilience framework that strengthens individual coping skills, makes peer support training accessible and applicable to multiple career paths, and increases collective understanding of mental health needs, language, and trends.”

For more information about Lost&Found, visit www.resilienttoday.org.