I’ve been coping with anxiety for so long, my anxieties have anxiety. Now that it’s the middle of the semester, let me share a small, accessible selection of issues I’m anxious about: Of course, I’m worried about my grades and whether I’ll have an internship this summer, but more personally, as a junior, I’m growing concerned about my loss of interest in academia. When I try to be realistic about these fears, I do think that they’re almost entirely commonplace in a collegiate setting. Here’s something, however, that I feel is unmerited within my anxieties: having to worry about whether I can actually receive help from the University’s counseling resources this semester.
I came to Binghamton University in 2015, when, if you wanted to see a therapist on campus, you had the opportunity to go into the University Counseling Center (UCC) once a week and receive private sessions at your prerogative. My second semester was when I had my first meeting with a counselor. By incident, this was the semester that the Center’s long-term counseling method was cut, and students were transitioned toward the current brief therapy model.
Despite the University contracting third-party resources like ProtoCall Services, Inc., a company that provides after-hours counseling to students at BU (among other colleges in the United States), the brief therapy model is restrictive in how frequently a student can schedule sessions with the UCC, and it places a cap on how long a student can receive help from the Center before they are referred to a counselor off campus. The clear positive to this model is that on paper, more students can pass through the Center’s doors.
In the spring of 2016, though, the change was met immediately with negative responses. For one, the promise of sparser sessions was looming in the distance, but more subtly, I believe the model inherently deters students from making the first appointment at UCC. Making the first move to reach out for help is hard. It’s even harder when you know there’s a limit on how much you can see a counselor whom you’ve already developed a relationship with.
Since the time that the UCC moved in this direction, I’ve received more encouragement to reach out to the Center for help than ever before. Each syllabus week per semester, professors pre-emptively encourage us to seek help, many going as far as to put the contact information for the Center in the course outline. University President Harvey Stenger makes his plan of expanding to 20,000 students by the year 2020 ostentatious; I’d like to be equally loud when I ask how the University intends on supporting the mental and emotional needs of the community it houses with the limited method of counseling that has been established.
Stenger’s State of the University address from last fall offers a clear picture of the direction in which the University is headed. Many of his interests for BU are aligned with our research opportunities, increasing graduate enrollment and the growth of our STEM and health programs; these initiatives are also a rough sketch of some of the greater consumers of the University’s funding. I don’t think these choices in funding allocation are inherently bad, and I recognize that projects of all sizes and intents at this school have funds that were decided and designated, or locked in, long ago. Yet as I continue through my four-year trajectory at this institution, I feel that we are constantly reminded that the UCC is not a top priority for the University at this time.
Personally, I’m perfectly happy with a twice-monthly meeting with my counselor, whom I adore, but I’ve been unlucky this semester. I was only able to get an appointment nearly a full month into classes. My next session got snowed out. Two weeks later, I learned that my upcoming appointment would fall over the March break. Each time, I ask if I can be seen another day, but she’s constantly booked. I hope that other students who are scheduled for every other Wednesday are faring better than I am.
There’s a lot of pride that comes along with studying at a growing university, a research university, a public ivy, “the premier public university of the Northeast.” But, with my anxiety, I worry about how the same students who are proud to carry BU’s name are going to continue to have access to one of its most important resources.
Shauna Bahssin is a junior double-majoring in art history and English.