By Alexandra DeYoe / The Hubbard School

The University Baptist Church at the corner of University Avenue and 13th Avenue SE sits quaintly framed by a cherry tree and a cluster of black-eyed Susans, with gentle arches that invite passersby to enter. 

Those who do are likely to meet Pastor Doug Donley, 64, who has led the University Baptist Church since 2001 and has been on the front line of growing and critical conversations about mental health. 

Donley has not shied away. As the leader of a congregation that includes nearly a quarter of University of Minnesota students during the school year, he approaches those conversations with not only a faith perspective, but with a judgement-free spirit. Offering a sanctuary for people’s mental needs is just as important as their spiritual ones, he said. 

“I think that whenever somebody comes to you with a mental health crisis, they're honoring you with trust,” Donley said. “And I take that really, really seriously.”  

One in four of American adults (28%) received help from a mental health professional within the past year, according to data from the American Psychiatric Association. In 1992, data from the  National Institute of Mental Health reported around 18% of Americans sought help for a mental disorder within six months.

Over the past decade, the percentage of students who report having a mental health diagnosis in their lifetime has increased 74% — from 32.7% in 2015 to 57.2% in 2024.

When he was ordained in 1989, Donley said people struggled to find the help they needed and usually hid behind a “healthy” façade. Since then, he has seen more openness about mental health and witnessed the stigma decrease about obtaining psychiatric medication or talking to therapists.

“One of the things that's changed a lot in the last 36 years is the availability of medication and the reduction of stigma around mental health,” Donley said. “I think there was a good bit more stigma around mental health or even therapy.”

Donley said he learned early in his pastoral career to attend to those stigmatized or on the margins. Starting in a Baptist church in Hartford, Conn., and then moving to a church in San Francisco, Donley said he witnessed many friends and classmates suffering during the AIDS and HIV crises and the stigmas that followed. 

“I found myself dealing with a lot of that gender dysphoria and a lot of people that were really feeling persecuted by not only their gender identity and their sexual orientation, but also by their fear and possibly diagnosis with HIV,” Donley said. 

About 100,777 people died of AIDS between 1981 and 1990 according to the Centers of Disease Control. Donley said this crisis left many he knew traumatized, especially gay men, with stigmas and taboos surrounding the illness that left many isolated. By 1995, one in 15 gay men died who were diagnosed with AIDS.

A major turning point Donley noticed, following the trauma of the AIDS and HIV stigmas, was the successful combination of three drugs to treat HIV initially. Donley said conversations about mental health shifted from survival and guilt to grief and how to thrive during that era. 

“Some of my parishioners and friends who were living with HIV were some of my greatest teachers,” Donley said. “They taught me about compassion. They taught me about resilience. They taught me about being in a nonjudgmental place.”

Within the last 20 years, Donley said the language around mental health has changed to create less stigma and isolation for many, such as new vocabulary to refer to autism as a spectrum and not a disease. Donley remembers being at a conference about 20 years ago in River Falls, Minn. about how lack of sleep impacts students’ mental health. 

“I think the awareness of those kinds of factors and risk factors are much more acute now,” Donley said. “And they've probably been going on for a long time under the surface.”

When students approach Donley with their mental health concerns, he said he recognizes his limits as a theologian and will refer students to professionals. 

Donley said his job is simply to listen to students and encourage them to open up about their struggles. In this way, he said, his work emulates Jesus’ example as a healer and comfort to many.

“It's important when somebody's being vulnerable not to take advantage of them and to recognize that, celebrate that and help them to continue to live in a way that they can,” Donley said.