Today’s Staff Editorial
Students struggling with mental health, hoping to find someone to talk to, may not have a lot of luck on this campus. Even students on the verge of a mental breakdown and considered an emergency case likely can’t book an appointment right away. And those who do make it to the appointment can be told they have to wait another year before beginning weekly therapy sessions. For many students, it’s a dead end.
This year’s 12 percent increase in students seeking services has only exacerbated an already existing problem — the Counseling Center’s available appointments can’t keep up with student need.
Between academic loads, being away from home, social and family stresses and extracurriculars, students cannot be expected to cope or combat a potential emergency situation alone. Students who call and are categorized as emergency cases have to wait, and the situation is far worse for those who aren’t put in that group.
We don’t think the problem is due to the center’s lack of effort or desire to help — it ultimately falls on the lack of university funding.
The center has no additional staff members to account for the extra services, which include career counseling and services for emergencies, academics, disabilities, testing and research. Students are often left without answers, when every call should be taken seriously. After the initial “intake appointment,” which Counseling Center Director Sharon Kirkland said is given within two weeks, a follow-up appointment could take anywhere from one week to one month. Kirkland said wait times may fluctuate due to the time of year or a student’s availability or preference in therapist. Long-term treatment could even take a year to set up. This practice needs to be remedied.
Along with our support of the hike in student fees for the University Health Center to expand overall mental health services, this editorial board wants both centers to prioritize the expansion of counseling services. We have about 37,000 students at this university, and there’s no way of knowing how many just need to talk or seek help for whatever reason. There’s no way of knowing just how many students the university could help or even save by providing appointments in a timely matter and ensuring students have the opportunity to receive long-term counseling. The current lack of resources to help students is glaring, and could detrimentally affect students’ well-being. Slowly, mental health services are becoming less of a stigma; with this advance, the hope is that more and more students who need different services will want them. But this university needs to be able to provide those services.
So again, the burden will fall on the proper allocation of funds. Officials at this university need to understand the importance of counseling services and need to monetarily prioritize them above other areas. We’re not experts on this university’s budget, but considering how many students could benefit from a simple increase in support for counseling, it’s easy to see that some sort of reallocation needs to be implemented.
