Harper College will be closed on Monday, January 20 in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Carol Trejo Kroeger’s passion for helping people has always been the engine behind her work – as a graduate student at Loyola University studying social work, as the recipient of a master’s degree in community counseling, and as a professional therapist with nearly 12 years of experience across various levels of care, including private practice therapy, PHP/IOP, and residential and inpatient detoxification treatment.
Now, as the counseling services manager at Harper College, Carol’s experience, skills and commitment to mental health are making a meaningful impact on the campus community. But when she’s not helping Harper students, you can find her kicking back on the beach in Door County. Here are ten questions with Carol Trejo Kroeger.
My perfect day is on a beach in Wisconsin with my family. Spending all day in the sunshine, going in the water and having lunch on the beach. We go to a beach in Door County and it’s so beautiful, calm and tranquil and has a wonderful small-town charm.
Feyre Archeron from the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Moss (shout-out to my fellow ACOTAR fans!). She starts out as this kind of regular person, but then goes through an evolution throughout the books to become this really powerful person, while being vulnerable and broken at the same time. I appreciate that about her, because I think it encompasses all of our journeys and the vulnerability and broken parts that we feel and hopefully we get to some part of our lives where we embrace the power that’s within us. I think her character would make an excellent best friend because the people you’re close to should hopefully reflect a strength in you or help you see positive things about yourself that you may have a blind spot for. And I think she would be able to reflect that back to me and help me change and grow and learn.
Comb in the back pocket, the collar pops, the big hair with the Aqua Net. I think those were the big three!
Embrace your uniqueness. Because I feel like, at that age, we’re so wanting to fit in and conform and not be us, right? We’re wanting to be anything else. But I’d just be like, you know what? Embrace your uniqueness because that’s what makes you you and that’s the contribution you’re making to the world.
I have a couple! First, I’ve gotta go with It’s a Wonderful Life because I love the message and Jimmy Stewart’s just unforgettable in it. But something more contemporary, I’m going to go with The Devil Wears Prada. It’s fun and I love the fashion, but it’s also about Andrea’s evolution. Also, the character of Miranda played by Meryl Streep is great because you think she’s one thing, but then she turns out to be something else, which reminds us not to judge a book by its cover.
Spain! My ancestors came from Spain down through Mexico and into the United States. And I just love learning about the culture and how they embrace life, so I think it would be a really beautiful place to live.
I love red because it represents a sort of fiery passion, which is definitely a personification of me. But I also love blue and green as kind of a balance to that because I’m also very mellow.
From my lens of mental health, I wonder if we’ll ever get to a point in our society and in our world where mental health is treated like physical health. When we have a sore throat, we go to the doctor. When we’re feeling very anxious, do we go seek resources? Do we go see a therapist? My hope is that we get there. And an even bigger hope is that we get there on this campus.
I am hopeful that we will choose daily to connect with each other through our shared humanity.
Our services are free to currently enrolled students! Also, with two new clinical mental health therapists on campus, we're going to be building out some pretty robust mental health offerings for the campus community, both on individual and group levels.