“You got hit by a car?” I asked in shock. “Yeah,” he replied, “it’s how I got my fourth concussion.” Harrison Weber is a fourth-year history of public policy major at UCSB and a native of Falmouth, Maine. You probably know of him as our Associated Students President, but if you really knew him, you’d know that Harrison has sustained four concussions in his short life, his most recent during spring quarter finals in his sophomore year at UCSB. If you really knew Harrison, you’d know that his care and commitment for the student body runs deeper than the limitations of his injuries.

In elementary school, Harrison sustained his first concussion by falling out of a tree, in middle school, his second by face planting on ice and his third in his senior year of high school by flipping on a trampoline and landing on the edge of its circumference. “The thing about concussions is that they compound, there’s a cumulative effect,” Harrison told me, “each successive concussion, even if less severe than previous ones is that much more detrimental because the damage builds with each one.” After Harrison’s third concussion, his doctor recommended he take a cognitive leave — a break from doing anything mentally stimulating, including going to school, reading or writing.

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