Isaac Owodunni ’27 (left) and Hanna Lisauskas ’28 (right) will serve as the
Founding Co-Presidents of the Student Wellness Council.
Following a round of applications and interviews earlier this April, Isaac Owodunni ’27 and Hanna Lisauskas ’28 were named the Founding Co-Presidents of the Student Wellness Council (SWC). The announcement of the co-presidents prefaced a discussion with Josh Steiner ’83 during last week’s All-School Meeting (ASM).
Guided by founders Evan DeMayo ’26 and Anny Wang ’26, the pair will begin to transition into their roles and define the council’s direction beginning this spring term. DeMayo spoke on the motivation for founding the SWC.
“[Gracie Aziabor ’26], our [2025-2026 Student Body] Co-President and a dedicated founding partner of the SWC, and I had talked many times about forming some kind of wellness task force. But the more I reflected on that framing, the more I realized that a ‘task force’ implies something temporary… a short-term fix for a long-term challenge. Wellness shouldn’t be treated as a passing institutional focus. What we needed was something permanent. A council embedded directly into the school’s organizational structure with lasting influence. That distinction became the foundation of what the SWC is today,” wrote DeMayo in an email to The Phillipian.
Susan Esty, Dean of Students and Residential Life, recalled the conversations she had with students, including DeMayo, about the installation of netting in Gelb Science Center (Gelb) this Fall. She explained how they were a starting point for student and faculty collaboration towards improving student wellness.
“We met with a group of students to have what was, really, beautifully open dialogue about what was happening. That was a moment where certainly [Caroline Odden, Dean of Studies] and I felt like, ‘wow, that was great.’ The students said, ‘We have some concerns, and we want to talk with you and have you answer some questions.’ We were happy to do that. In fact, both of us said, ‘Gosh, we should do this more often,’ because everybody gets busy and we tend to communicate often through email… having that face-to-face was a pretty defining moment,” said Esty.
After drafting an initial concept for the council, DeMayo collaborated with Wang to gather support from student leaders and present their proposal to the administration. DeMayo detailed the challenges faced in advocating for their initiative.
“One of the most significant challenges was simply finding the confidence to believe in our idea enough to propose it to prominent adults at a school as large and well-established as Andover. As students, it can be difficult to feel that your voice carries weight in institutional conversations, and there were moments where that self-doubt was real. That said, once we brought the proposal forward, the support we received from adults on campus was nothing short of extraordinary. Faculty and administrators embraced the idea with an enthusiasm that exceeded anything we could have hoped for,” wrote DeMayo.
Owodunni described his previous experiences advocating for student wellness, explaining how they motivated him to apply for SWC Founding Co-President.
“Its mission of fighting stigma around mental health at our school was really the deciding factor for me. I did similar work at my previous school in Houston[, Texas], where I founded an organization called Students Stopping Stigma that united several private schools in the Houston area to work together to combat stigma around mental health in their respective communities. So when I saw this, it was like, this is what I’m familiar with. I really respected Evan and Anny for taking the time to make this initiative. Even though they won’t be here to benefit or see it through, I thought it was really admirable, and I wanted to be a part of it,” said Owodunni.
Owodunni elaborated on his vision for the SWC as an opportunity to normalize conversations around mental health on campus and improve the accessibility of Andover’s wellness-related resources.
“Our goal is to facilitate more discussions happening around mental health. It’s something that we can talk about here. I hope that through my initiatives, Sykes will feel more accessible and less [so as if] mental health counseling or treatment is a foreign thing. Mental health is part of one’s health, and I want Andover students to know that… We’re going to encourage student leaders to be open and have discussions around mental health so that when people see that the people they look up to, their prefects, their proctors, their cluster presidents, being open and talking about mental health, they will feel more comfortable doing so, so that we can have a more open and supportive campus for students,” said Owodunni.
Building on Owodunni’s points, Lisauskas shared her experiences with mental health at Andover. She explained how the SWC aims to incorporate them into future initiatives, including mental health response training for student leaders.
“As someone who has seen her best friends struggle with mental health and been there herself sometimes, it’s really important to feel like you have other students who are there to support you. It can be really hard to take it upon yourself to go to an adult and be like, I need help… Being part of something that helps people, reduces stigma around mental health first, and then also helps people know how to respond in those situations so that everybody stays safe, is really important,” said Lisauskas.
Devin O’Reilly, Director of Athletic Training and advisor for the SWC, expressed appreciation for the council’s initiatives. He encouraged students to actively find ways to contribute to the goals the SWC is working towards.
“Evan and Anny are tremendous, and they’re doing a lot of work in their last few months at Andover. A lot of it is adults with hands-off. It’s all student-run. As adults, we’re there to support the ideas and shape them to try to get them into fruition. [It’s] mostly an advisory role, and inspired by how much strength and willpower the student body, especially Evan and Anny, have to bring this to life, which is really cool to see,” said O’Reilly.
O’Reilly continued, “Students should feel encouraged to be part of something run by their peers and continue breaking down the stigma around mental health. Supporting each other and talking about it openly is important. It would be great to see more students get involved.”
