By Kylee Hendrie
The soonest I can get you in is September. These bitter words added only more hopelessness in Rea Kondi’s neverending nightmare. She sank to the linoleum floor of the kitchen, the fine grains of uncooked quinoa from last week’s dinner imprinted into her knees. It would be months until she could even see a psychiatrist, let alone start therapy. She had called every renowned hospital in the Boston area and they either failed to return her calls or offered her appointments six months away.
Her dwindling optimism shattered further with every place. After three months, she’s been placed on five waitlists without one appointment officially marked on the calendar.
“I was scared for myself, because I said, what if this only gets worse? And I act on it? Yeah, then what's the worst part is that I knew that if I actually acted on it, I would get help more immediately than if I just waited. I felt de-humanized being on five waitlists, and at that point I’d rather get no help than shitty help,” said Kondi.
When Reagan Thompson tried during exam week to attain help for her worsening insomnia, it would be weeks until she received an appointment. Struggling to keep up with intensive school work and unable to get proper treatment from Northeastern’s University Health and Counseling Services (UHCS), she felt helpless.
“I was just really, really having a terrible time with UHCS. And they weren't being very accommodating, probably because they were short staffed. But it was exhausting to go through that and continue to have appointments pile up and needing to email professors and ask them if I can have extensions on things, emailing professors at five in the morning, asking if I could take the exam later in the afternoon. Because I hadn't slept. And it was just a cycle and it continued and I was exhausted all semester,” said Thompson.
Students already disproportionately suffer from mental health issues, and the lack of services to address their needs exacerbates the cyclical nature of poor mental health. A lack of connection from student to institution further drives feelings of isolation. When students feel as if they’re perceived as a ‘consumer’ or mere number at a university, the relationship between the two grows resentful.
When Pierce Rosen-Keith called the university services to try to get an appointment for his severe ADHD, no one was able to help. He tried for eight months to get treatment from any service in the greater Boston area and no one was able to address his issue. On a salad of antidepressants, prescribed by a nurse practitioner after talking to him for thirty minutes, his crippling attention disorder still isn’t resolved months later.
“UHCS hung up on me. Twice. I pay what? Tens of thousands of dollars a year and the university still can’t help me?” said Rosen-Keith.
But what exactly is a university’s role in providing accessible aid for their entire student body?
Historically, universities serve as “in loco parentis” for their students, fulfilling the shoes of parents in many ways: setting rules to ensure safety, providing academic oversight and advisors, and overall caring for the wellbeing of the student body.
But in terms of institutions actually providing sufficient aid to address the bitter mental health crises would admit two things: A, their student body needs more help than the university is willing to admit, and B, the resources already provided aren’t adequate enough.
The evolution of loco parentis is derived from a hyper-restricting old school usage of the term, back when deans of women and men existed, curfews, and long pleated skirts were in style. Now, the term refers to the role universities should fulfill for their students.
Laura Harrison, a graduate professor at the University of Ohio has researched this topic extensively. Her adaptation of a new model of loco parentis says universities should focus on more preventative measures so counseling services are not overrun and students retain good relationships with the institution.
“In order for students to be successful academically, they have to be mentally healthy and able to do their work, so I certainly think that a reasonable level of care needs to be provided in terms of counseling. But also more broadly, I think it can be dealt with better holistically, as well. So, I'm happy to see universities taking steps like having more breaks. Encouraging faculty to have more and lower stakes assignments throughout a quarter or semester, you know, those things that can be done that also have preventative effects,” said Harrison.
Harrison supports a modified version of the old school understanding of loco parentis that she thinks will help resolve tension between students and their respective university. Putting a heavy emphasis on interpersonal relationships, the sense of true parental and mentor relationship is found within student and faculty relationships. While counseling services should still be able to serve their student body well, many preventative measures can ensure students don’t feel isolated or even lessen the demand for mental health services.
“[Universities should strive for an] ethic of care, and being relational and really spending time with students, like low faculty to student ratios, and more opportunities for students to feel cared about outside of the counseling center. I think a lot of that was lost. And it wasn't just the shift to away from loco parentis, it was really the defunding of public universities and this rise of this consumer culture that again, it can look nice, but a company doesn't care about you, right? They care about your money, but they don't really care about you and your development. So I think, you know, [enlightened loco parentis is] aiming for something that achieves both goals.
Northeastern University’s institution has a long way to go. With high counselor to student ratios of 1 counselor to 1,751 students, this is far higher than the guidelines from the International Association of Counseling Services which recommends an average ratio of 1:1,250. But beyond their high ratio is an even worse reputation. Northeastern services remain an absolute mockery inside the student body.
“It was really just a shitty experience and that's why I just don't recommend UHCS to anybody, if they can avoid it. I tell them to ask for the better help thing that they do now. Because UHCS does not do well for anything unless it's [physical] and even then they're kind of terrible with that too,” said Thompson.
“We can't just keep hiring therapists indefinitely…most universities can't sustain that budgetarily…However, I think the way universities are looking at this is too far on the treatment, and not enough on the prevention end. I certainly acknowledge there are a lot of people with biologically driven mental health conditions and that's not going to be prevented through low teacher to student ratios, or good mentoring or good networking. But I am of the opinion—and I think a lot of people are—that if you had better support and connection and nurturing elsewhere in the university, you wouldn't have to have huge counseling centers,” said Harrison.
Though the pandemic hasn’t allowed for much interpersonal connection. During COVID, mental health issues spiked, with an increase in anxiety and depression by 25% worldwide. Now emerging from two years of hardship, demand for mental resources is higher than ever. This period of isolation both mentally and physically has resulted in students calling into question why universities simply aren’t doing more.
In Fenway park on the outskirts of Northeastern, one year after the pandemic started, Violet James* laid sprawled across an itchy picnic blanket, chainsmoking cigarettes while listening to the national suicide hotline’s ironically cheery lobby music. It was fifteen minutes until she got through to a person, but once she did, her case wasn’t deemed dire since she wasn’t actively in harm’s way. “No offense but, I have no personal investment in your life,” said the crisis counselor. That’s probably the worst thing to tell someone who feels insufferably alone, she thought. But it was humorous—enough so that she laughed loudly at the absurdity of it. This person is utterly useless and I’m hungry. She wished the worker a good day, hung up, threw the Marlboro Golds away, and left to eat lunch at the student center.
James didn’t bother attempting to go through the university for help. Knowing the abhorrent stories from friends and peers about their experiences with UHCS made pursuing the counseling service undesirable. Feeling disconnected from the university and severely socially restricted by COVID protocols, James felt like her first year of college was uninspiring and depressing.
“With COVID, if you put a ton of students and an online course, where it's high tech and low touch, you know, a lot of the market will feel alienated and lonely and disconnected. And that's going to show up at the counseling center. So I think people think, oh, that's where the funding needs to go but it's like again, if you had the support built in other places, I think that's an underappreciated dimension of universities responding to needs,” said Harrison.
*Name changed to protect identity
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