In our efforts to attract the strongest applicants to our campuses, we typically tout the various services that will be available to them when they are enrolled. But sometimes, an honest conversation with prospective students and their parents about what services we don’t have is even more important in setting the stage for academic success. In particular, we need to be very careful in managing the expectations they may have about the extent of the counseling and mental health services that we can provide.

In my role as dean of students at a large university, I talk with many parents who are surprised to learn that a college environment is an incredibly unsupervised one, and that students can go days without coming out of their rooms for class or meals before this elicits concern.

I recently spoke with parents who were shocked to learn at the end of a semester that their student had not attended classes for six weeks, nor taken prescribed medication, nor sought assistance from anyone, and that this student’s behavior had not risen to the level of concern that might have prompted staff to respond.

These conversations have led me to talk more frankly with parents during orientation.

The difference between “wraparound care” offered in secondary schools and the care offered on higher education campuses

There are some significant differences, beyond the obvious ones, between high school and college, and it’s critical that we talk about these differences and what they mean for students’ well-being.

Many parents and students coming from public school systems are used to the idea of “wraparound care” and to the individualized educational programs (IEPs) that most school systems develop to help students succeed. Analogous services don’t exist on most campuses, with the exception of efforts required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), for which a student must disclose and document a disability.

Over the past 20 years, K-12 education has made significant improvements in its commitment and ability to educate students with special needs. Due in large part to the effective advocacy of parents, children with learning, physical, and emotional disabilities are now afforded more opportunities to learn and grow in our public school systems.

Those same parents are now sending their children off to college, and the skills they have learned as advocates are now being used with college administrators. This dynamic has benefited higher education as well, as we have been appropriately pushed to improve our own commitment to students with special needs. Disability services for college students is an area of tremendous growth, and our construction and renovation plans now routinely include reviews for access and accommodation.

But what services should we be expected to provide for students with emotional struggles, social awkwardness, and transitional challenges? In between the healthy, emotionally well-adjusted student and the student with a documented disability recognized by the ADA are thousands of students who desire, and perhaps are in need of, medication, counseling, and support in order to succeed in college. How far do their rights extend, and where do our obligations to serve them begin and end?

The tension between marketing services and delivering services

The tension that sometimes exists in our institutions between those who market our offerings and those who actually have to deliver them is rarely more pressing than in the area of counseling and health services. When we market our campuses to prospective students and their parents, we want to assure them that we have excellent services for academic support, for social opportunity, and for those needs that may be less likely to appear in an admissions brochure: health and counseling.

Most of our campuses do offer these services, though perhaps in limited ways. Typically, only the larger universities have fully staffed, full-service counseling and health centers where students can get 24-hour care, quick appointments, medication follow-up, and a wide range of other services. But even those universities are struggling to meet the needs of students seeking counseling and psychotropic medications.

Furthermore, many students who suffer from lesser forms of anxiety and mood disorders, stress-related ailments, eating disorders, and substance abuse problems do not disclose these, nor are they always covered under ADA. However, even these students and their parents may make assumptions about the services we provide.

They may hear, for example, that we have a counseling center and 24-hour on-call clinicians, but they don’t realize that many counseling centers are unable to accept students for regular (weekly or more often) ongoing care for significant emotional disorders.

Students and parents may hear that a campus employs a psychiatrist and other physicians, but they might not realize these are not always full-time staff. Practitioners may only see students for a few hours a week, and sometimes it may take weeks to get an appointment. Students and parents may hear that we have full-time, masters-level staff in our residence halls, along with trained resident assistants. They may not realize that this is quite different from an environment that monitors student behavior round-the-clock.

Managing expectations

In recent years, I have begun to make sure that I include the following topics when I talk with prospective students and parents:

Medication: Each year the number of students who take medication for behavioral or learning difficulties increases. Students need to be able to manage their own medication, which means remembering to take it, knowing when and how to get it refilled, and understanding the potential interactions of the medication with alcohol or whatever other substances they might choose to try.

I recommend letting students be responsible for their medication for at least six months prior to starting college. Maintaining a relationship with a prescribing physician at home also allows for better continuity of care.

Counseling: We have an excellent counseling center with committed and capable staff members. But we do not provide unlimited services. Like many campuses, we have limits on the number of sessions we can provide and on the level of severity we can treat. And no matter how well-funded and well-staffed a counseling center is, the available services are rarely enough for students who want it.

Students who need ongoing, long-term counseling should stay connected to a therapist at home (even if only by phone or email) or find one locally (our staff will help provide names). Both of these options can be difficult in rural areas or on campuses where freshmen are not permitted to have cars.

Residence life: Like most institutions with residential campuses, we believe in the importance of the residential experience as part of a student’s education. But our residence halls can be noisy, high-energy places. Other students can be distracting. Cliques and petty annoyances can be just as bothersome and hurtful as they were in high school but are magnified by the lack of an easy escape to one’s own family and home.

Students with eating disorders or substance abuse issues face exactly the lack of structure that therapeutic environments are designed to mitigate. Parents who believe their students might outgrow these disorders upon entering college are often in for heartbreak and frustration when they realize how the college environment can exacerbate, rather than improve, these conditions.

Conclusion

Parents and student affairs administrators are united by a shared desire to see students succeed, both academically and socially. Honest conversation prior to enrollment is a critical component of that success. When we are honest with parents and students about our expectations and our limitations, and when they are honest with us about those same things, we then stand our best chance of becoming the kind of community that prepares students for academic achievement as well as for life beyond college.

Lee Burdette Williams is the dean of students at the University of Connecticut.

Send your comments to partingshot@magnapubs.com.

 

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