As Student Health Services inches ever closer to hiring a new director, it will host an open listening session in Danforth University Center room 276 at 9:00 a.m. Monday, April 2, 2018. A new director, however, should be more than just a new face in charge of Student Health Services. Whoever the new head of the institution is, they must change the direction and address some serious downfalls of the current system. A new director is an important chance to make some much-needed substantial changes from the top.

You don’t need us to tell you that Student Health Services (SHS) is more than occasionally poorly-equipped to meet the health needs of Washington University students. It feels like almost everyone on campus has some anecdotal complaint about their experiences with SHS, ranging from minor problems to very serious structural issues.

One such example of a minor problem is the current policy against sick notes. The official SHS policy is that it “does not provide written notes for missed classes, examinations, extracurricular activities or employment.” This is a small detail that can turn into a huge problem for some students. Considering that sick students likely do not have the ability to go to any healthcare providers aside from SHS given the costs of keeping a car on campus or an Uber/Lyft ride and that many professors require a doctor’s note for an excused absence, this policy is deeply counterproductive. SHS refusing to give written doctor’s notes only incentivizes students to go to class even when it is detrimental to their own health, undermining its whole mission to provide for the wellness of the campus community.

Quite simply, the disconnect between academic policy and SHS policy here does not accomplish anything. Even before the new director is chosen, SHS should coordinate with academic administrators to develop a policy that works for everyone. Either SHS needs to become less stingy with its excusal notes, or more professors need to take their students’ word for it when they call in sick to class. This is a pretty simple administrative fix and developing a better medical absence policy could be one of the first and easiest steps that the new director could take.

On the more serious end of spectrum is SHS’ shortcomings in their treatment of mental health. Within the space of a week in October 2017, three separate students published their own personal dissatisfactions with the Habif Health and Wellness Center’s capacity to help students with mental health issues in Student Life. One of these students was so frustrated with his inability to schedule an appointment at SHS that he began seeking help off campus, something that SHS usually only encourages for students who require more extensive therapy that cannot be provided on campus.

This is a systemic issue and will require some serious thought on the part of the SHS administrators. One step is, of course, to hire more permanent mental health professionals. This would be a perhaps expensive investment but seeing as but seeing as several students have publicly come forward due to their continual frustrations with the lack of mental health options on campus, it is a necessary one.

SHS has taken steps in the past year, including the introduction of the Let’s Talk program and Therapy Assisted Online, to help remediate some of these issues. These are great changes, but are not substitutes for making real therapy available to students. There are students on campus who need and are asking for help, and it is the responsibility of the University to help them get it.

SHS has a necessary presence on campus and has seriously helped students in the past. However, it is plagued by counterproductive policies and structural issues that sometimes prevent it from meeting all the needs of all Washington University students.

Therefore, we urge SHS to take on not only a new director, but a new direction. SHS, so often the cause of extra stress in students’ lives, needs only to implement a few serious changes to take the place it should on campus as a useful resource. With any luck, the new director might be the first step to allowing SHS to truly address the needs of the student body.