The role of a university expands beyond that of just educating students academically. A university has the responsibility to foster a supportive community where students feel safe and have access to the resources they need to thrive.

Mental health resources are severely lacking and are made even more inaccessible by restrictions set in place by Washington University. The lack of understanding shown by the University toward the reality of available mental health resources on campus and their importance is unacceptable.   
“In order to offer services to as many students as possible, the [Mental Health Services] professional counseling staff provides short-term, time-limited counseling services,” according to Student Health Service’s (SHS) website.

Reaching all the students who want and need to use SHS’s mental health services is imperative, but we should not be forced to sacrifice quality of care for quantity.

By asking students with more severe mental health illness that cannot be solved “short-term” to seek counseling elsewhere, the University is further stigmatizing students who need more regular therapy, while also ignoring the issue that these students are also the ones who need the most accessible therapy. This issue is exacerbated by the lack of available transportation, especially for underclassmen, which makes off-campus therapy access that much more difficult. Students are presented with further obstacles, instead of being encouraged and commended for seeking out services.

Even with appointments being limited to 16 per student, the wait time to get an appointment is frustratingly long. This relatively small number of appointments can barely get a student through the year with appointments every other week. University officials overlook these significant limitations when tragedy strikes, and they recommend that students utilize the mental health services on campus to get help in coping.

SHS has expanded the variety of options students have to seek services through Let’s Talk and Therapy Assisted Online (TAO). However, these are not substitutes for regular therapy that some students need or prefer. In fact, TAO shows the University’s continued attempt to avoid committing resources to increasing staff at SHS.

While expanding the types of services offered should be encouraged, based on student input, it is irresponsible for the University to continue to increase the size of the student body but not expand the services it provides at the same rate. Efforts by the University and SHS to expand staff are not known to the student body and do not make a noticeable difference in wait times for therapists and psychiatrists, which can be weeks. The University needs to reevaluate the Mental Health Services budget and how it recruits new mental health staff members to speed up the process of making services more available while maintaining the quality of staff.

Ultimately, the University, SHS and mental health leadership and staff need to reevaluate their mission to decide whether they are truly serving students best.