LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – Less than three months after a deadly shooting took place on UNLV’s campus; Students, faculty, and staff came together Tuesday for a mental health discussion.

“If you want people to be vulnerable, you have to be vulnerable yourself,” UNLV president, Keith Whitfield shared.

President Whitfield led the mental health discussion. In its second year, Whitfield said it looks a lot different now after the campus shooting in December that left three staff members dead and another person critically wounded.

“Last year was interesting as we had more of a panel discussion and not as much interaction,” he shared. “We wanted a space where students could talk about what was going on and talk to their peers and have some normalization.”

Topics at the town hall included flight or fight responses to stress and how people cope with trauma.

Adriana Carrillo, who is in her third year at UNLV recalled the difficult time she and her fellow students had amid the shooting chaos.

“It was really heavy, you hear about all the different times this has happened across the nation, so it made me upset and angry,” she expressed.

Since then, Carrillo has been able to utilize the resources around her and is grateful that the university has provided them.

“To have a space to decompress your mental health and express yourself is a privilege,” Carrillo added. “I feel so lucky to not only be involved in a generation where we are talking about mental health, but advocating for it.”

President Whitfield also added that UNLV had the highest number of returning students from the fall to spring semester they’d ever seen before.