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For the Good of the Order:

• Spring outing Apr 27-29. You can go earlier Thursday night or Friday. The work day is Friday afternoon and Saturday Morning. Barbeque Saturday night. The student board will be arranging to carpool
• Final barbeque first week in June in Alumni center
• Nominations next quarter – start thinking about that!
• Go on our website and sign up for monthly donation plan.

For the Good of the University:

Topic: As the Order of Sword and Sandals, we take an active interest in the leadership and governance of our campus.  We charge ourselves to engage with our administration and community regarding the well being of University students.  As symbolized by the Eye on Mrak (Fatal Laff) Egghead, it is the duty of the students to hold accountable the administration and ensure that transparency, integrity and genuine care for students exist at all levels.  We routinely come together to discuss current campus issues and offer our opinions about the future of our University. In recent months, the issue of mental health and funding for mental health services on campus has come to light.

“In 2016, the UC Office of the President announced an $18 million UC-wide initiative for the hiring of 85 mental health clinicians including an additional 12 counseling psychologists at UC Davis. The audit found the usage of $250,000 of mental health funds at UC Davis to have been spent in a manner which “may not be consistent with the rationale for the fee increase.” (www.theaggie.org)

“Student Health and Counseling Services held a town hall on Tuesday, Feb. 13 to discuss mental health at UC Davis. The forum included Executive Director of Health and Wellness Margaret Walter, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Divisional Resources Cory Vu and Director of Multicultural Services for SHCS Paul Kim. Before a question-and-answer session and public comment session that ended in uproar when the panelists gave unsatisfactory answers to students’ questions and demands.” (www.theaggie.org)

In a recent town hall meeting organized by Student Health and Counseling Services, students confronted the administrator present about the lack of transparency in regards to funds and the promised 12 additional counselors.

How can the Administration act with more transparency?  How is the lack of counselors affecting UC Davis students?  What is the University currently doing to address mental health?  What other services can the University provide to promote a mentally healthy student body?

Discussion:

• Isn’t it illegal to fire someone once they file a whistleblower report
• – It prevents them from being fired for whistleblowing but not for other reasons
• Has there been any followup to the town hall meeting questions?
• Cory provided a written statement. A lot of the uncertainty was about miscommunication about how the $250000 was spent. It was used to backfill current positions and fill a lot of existing gaps but didn’t provide a lot of new services, it helped hire 2 additional councilors but they were case managers instead of counselors
• Does anyone know anyone with experiences in the UC Davis medical health system?
• Yes, several friends have tried to get help through the mental health system in campus and found it lacking in amount of time the counselor could give, number of times one could visit and the lack of resources. Symptom of 2 ongoing problems: state can not fund university adequately, university seems to be run like a business instead of a university. The town hall and the miscommunication on the university’s part stems from this attitude of being reluctant to say the truth when it would be harmful to the university’s brand. The university never owns up to a mistake, even when it is very obvious
• From the article: the counselors were having 2.2 clinical sessions a day, [speaker] doesn’t have a lot of experience in counselling but that sounds like a lack of work.
• None of the counselors were at capacity so the university used funds to find permanent positions for them or they would be lost, how can we hire very expensive clinicians when we have to cut people everywhere else? But they aren’t at capacity because it’s difficult to make an appointment.
• Wouldn’t the case managers solve problems?
• The case managers get students through referrals, the student does not call up the case manager directly, doesn’t seem to provide a greater access
• Limitations of counselling services- can only go 7 times (maybe per year) 30-45 minutes and then you are pushed out again. It’s difficult for students to find these resources for themselves. Adding more counsellors is not necessarily needed at the moment, it would have been a nice gesture but it wouldn’t have solved the problem.
• Employees come and go frequently, but it’s an access problem not a lack of staff problem
• Case managers are less preventative and more last minute, maybe it’s not effective to hire more counselors but they would be more preventative rather than waiting for crisis
• When you’re depressed you don’t want to do anything so finding a way to claw your way into north hall for counseling services and finding the energy to make an appointment and finding the time would be very difficult. There is a high barrier of entry. If there were some way to make a more proactive or preventive mode of getting people into the system, that would be immensely helpful, maybe an almost mandatory counseling session at the beginning of college to catch students before things get worse
• There should be more than one way to access services, phone calls are source of anxiety
• University of Georgia- Award winning mental health resources- with any interaction with faculty 1 on 1, there is training for faculty to recognize issues and send the students to the correct people
• Were there any accessibility changes talked about the town hall meeting?
• There are a lot of changes- you can text in to make an appointment, Crisis text line 24 hr. “Coming Soon” in MU will be Aggie Compass to fulfill basic needs, 24 hr line
• 24 hr line for basic needs is a great idea, same number as mental health line and then redirection would be awesome. This is a cultural issue, not just a UC Davis issue. We need services to be recommended. There’s a stigma against getting help and students don’t recognise when then they need help. We need to spend the same amount of time going through schedule builder and mental health appointments
• [Speaker] got no training on mental health issues with two advising jobs on campus, need more training on advisors referring people? Has there there any thought to putting counselors into the dorms?
• They have never thought about that. Would prefer to RA training. There are too many dorms.
• What about in service centers or DCs?
• North Hall is about as far away as you can get from any of the dorms, could be a huge barrier to entry to a student in crisis in the dorms, find some space, not even staffed 24/7 for visibility
• But we want the counselors available to all students, not just for residents of the dorms. This is not an insurmountable problem, but it is difficult.
• Student housing should address problem independently, RAs are also super busy and maybe going through these issues themselves
• Student housing gets no money from the campus, entirely self supported
• What if we give mental health professionals the option to make house calls?
• Is it possible to do interviews over skype/ online?
• Skype/online calling is an option mental health services have looked at
• The idea of a mobile clinician has been explored but the clinician needs a protected firewall access to see your medical records so they use wifi or other dorm wifi.