News, On campus

Breast cancer awareness embraced by students

White male with short beard and short pink hair poses for a photo.
Matt Beausoleil dyes his hair pink every October for Breast Caner Awareness.
Photo by Cassandra Pratt.

The pink ribbon is coming back on campus this October for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

In the past, Tech has held events to honor Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and they don’t have plans in the works for this year yet. In the meantime, students will be the ones celebrating this holiday month and bringing awareness to the holiday.

Most people know when they start seeing the pink ribbons around that it represents breast cancer awareness, but the sight of pink hair might make some stare. Matt Beausoleil, junior electrical engineering student has experienced this response many times. Beausoleil dyes his hair pink every year in honor of his grandma, who had breast cancer.

“I like bringing awareness to Breast Cancer Awareness Month… I’ve done a couple 5-Ks for it as well,” Beausoleil said.

He started dying his hair pink every year for seven years now, and said he plans to continue to do so as long as Breast Cancer Awareness Month is in motion. He keeps his pink hair until about December of every year.

Beausoleil explained, “I still get people that ask me about it well past October, so I feel like there is a good investment there in terms of, like, awareness.”

The first organized movement to bring attention to breast cancer started in 1985 after the women’s liberation movement. During this time, Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the pink ribbon that represents it came about.

Before this movement, the treatment for women who had breast cancer was a double mastectomy for every patient. Bringing awareness to this cancer helped scientists discover and look deeper into other, less-invasive ways to treat breast cancer.

SGA has not yet planned anything to honor Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but they do plan to.

Seth Jones, a senate member in SGA, said, “From my knowledge, I do not believe we have any events scheduled for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but I know there have been some in the past.”

Even though SGA doesn’t have anything planned yet, there will be events on campus to honor this holiday. So, if you don’t see the pink ribbon on campus yet, look out for pink hair.