JHU SGAThe 114th Session
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Questions for SHWB

Unknown · 111th session · created October 12, 2023 · updated October 20, 2023

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This document is from a previous session and is kept for the record. It may have been amended or replaced since.

Counseling Center:

Statistics & surveying Rationale: We are interested in knowing if, since the publication of the final report of the Task Force on Student Mental Health and Well-Being in February 2018 (which was initiated by the presentation of concerns by SGA in 2016 to President Daniels and the Provost) there has been any major efforts to collect data post-COVID on the following topics.

Questions:

  • Does SHWB have the number of professional counselors employed in the Counseling Center, and the approximate number of students-to-counselor (i.e. the average number of unique students each counselor sees in a year)?
  • Has the Counseling Center done any surveying post-COVID to understand for what primary reasons students are seeking counseling resources at JHU?
  • Has SHWB done any surveying post-COVID to understand reported causes of stress amongst the entire student body?
  • What is the average number of counseling sessions per student who uses Counseling Center services?
  • Does the University collect follow-up data after students stop using counseling center services? If not, does the University follow up with students at all after they stop using counseling center services or miss an appointment?

Barriers to appointments Rationale: Students have expressed that the requirement for their first appointment with the counseling center to take place on the day they called creates a barrier for them to receive mental health support. It takes a lot of courage for students to call the counseling center in the first place, and this requirement discourages them from calling again. In addition, students with social anxiety have expressed that making a phone call to request an appointment creates an unnecessarily load of additional stress (another barrier to students seeking help)

The 2018 report stated that long wait times to schedule an initial appointment were a source of student frustration. The difficulty of scheduling an initial counseling appointment is still a common concern among current students.

Questions:

  • What steps has the University taken since 2018 to change the initial appointment process?
  • Is SHWB aware of any continued complaints from students and, if so, taking steps to address these concerns?
  • Would it be possible to change the current model for initial appointment scheduling to be less stringent than same-day?
  • Would it be possible to switch to an online scheduling model, as this would accommodate students for whom the current scheduling model creates an unnecessary source of anxiety?

Long term counseling support Rationale: The 2018 report states that ~60% of KSAS students and ~40% of WSE students desired long term counseling support. Students have stated in the past that there is/was a soft cap of ~10 counseling sessions that is not communicated in the University's policies.

Questions:

  • Can SHWB state what, if any, limit exists— and how it goes about recommending students who are seeking longer-term care "a resource in the community that better fits [their] needs"?
  • What changes would be necessary for the Counseling Center to increase its capacity to offer one-visit-a-week for all students who desire long-term counseling services?
  • Has there ever been a serious consideration or exploration of long term and weekly therapy options at JHU? If not, why not? If there was serious consideration, why did it not succeed?
  • How does the University accommodate students who cannot afford out of pocket costs for an external therapist once-a-week long term?

Student training Rationale: The 2018 report outlines crisis intervention/suicide intervention training for RAs but not for other individuals at the University even though it states that students overwhelmingly turn to friends/peers for support— which misses out on students who do not have strong relationships with their RAs and upperclassmen.

Questions:

  • Has there been a university effort to train students at-large in crisis intervention/suicide intervention and educate them about other mental health resources?

Group Therapy Questions:

  • How often is group therapy used?
  • Has there ever been an effort to have long-term therapy groups that meet each week at a certain time with a qualified counselor to offer a continued commitment to students as a group?
  • Why can you not join short term group therapy sessions like EMDR at any time (current policy observed to be that students can only join at the beginning of the semester)? If the counseling center is supposed to help students navigate crises and short term problems, what happens when students have to wait half a semester or more to get their problems addressed?

Student Disability Services:

Accommodated testing agreements Rationale: Students are concerned that the current accommodation system penalizes students for having professors that do not fill out an accommodated testing agreement. Professors at JHU can be unresponsive to emails and difficult to push to fill out the accommodated testing agreement in a timely fashion. One student shared that professors in upper-level classes tend to be worse at setting up accommodated testing agreements, and they did not realize that the testing agreement had not been set up until they tried to sign up to test with SDS and could not. In addition, this system requires students to essential out themselves as disabled or using an accommodation to a figure who is above them in the academic power structure (as they may want to ask their professor for research/recommendation/etc in the future), which is antithetical to support for disability culture at Hopkins and can cause students to not seek out accommodations. In addition, these experiences can serve as triggers for anxiety/depressive/other mental health conditions.

Questions:

  • What communication does a faculty member receive at the beginning of the semester regarding setting up an accommodated testing agreement?
    • Are faculty sent the testing agreement when a student files for testing accommodations for their class, or automatically?
  • Does a faculty member have to show proof of having set up an alternative accommodated testing system (such as TA supervision and administration of accommodations) if they choose not to set up a testing agreement with SDS and have students receiving accommodations in their class?
  • For present use, how does SDS recommend that students navigate unresponsive faculty members?

Testing space Rationale: One student reported that, during finals, the testing room further away from the main entrance to Shaffer Hall is utilized more. They felt that the testing experience in that room is significantly worse during finals because there is an increased noise level. In addition, students are concerned that there is not enough space at SDS to accommodate all testing requests, especially with the aforementioned issues with accommodated testing agreements.

Questions:

  • Is there any way to mitigate the increased noise level during finals?
  • Are there any plans to increase SDS testing center space?

AHEAD external review Rationale: In November 2022, a survey developed by AHEAD was sent out to learn about current student experiences with SDS, and in March 2023, meetings were held between students and outside reviewers from AHEAD (Association of Higher Education and Disability). Since then, to the best knowledge of SGA, neither SDS nor Student Health and Well-Being has followed up on what was learned from these meetings. In an email response following a meeting with former Provost Sunil Kumar in May 2022, the Provost stated that the Office of the Provost would provide information on review findings and recommendations in Spring 2023.

Questions:

  • Questions for SDS
  • 1) In November 2022, a survey developed by AHEAD was sent out to learn about current student experiences with SDS, and in March 2023, meetings were held between students and outside reviewers from AHEAD (Association of Higher Education and Disability). Since then, I have not heard anything from SDS nor Student Health and Well-Being regarding what was learned from these meetings. In an email response following a meeting with former Provost Sunil Kumar, the Provost stated that the Office of the Provost would provide information on review findings and recommendations in Spring 2023. Has there been progress on this matter?
  • 2) An important part of universal access at the college level is the ability for students to know the expectations that professors have for them ahead of course registration. This is helps students understand whether the anticipated coursework load is reasonable, as well as to anticipate any activities that will require significant accommodations to be made for the student. To my knowledge, course syllabi are not regularly offered before course registration and are most commonly only offered to students enrolled in the class and at earliest shortly before the class has started (1-2 weeks before the semester begins). While this issue falls outside of SDS' purview, would the Office of Student Health and Well-Being and SDS support the implementation of early-access syllabi to promote better access standards and benefit all students?
  • 3) Students are concerned that the current accommodation system penalizes students for having professors that do not fill out an accommodated testing agreement. Professors at JHU can be unresponsive to emails and difficult to push to fill out the accommodated testing agreement in a timely fashion. In addition, this system requires students to essential out themselves as disabled or using an accommodation to a figure who is above them in the academic power structure (as they may want to ask them for research/recommendation/etc in the future), which is antithetical to support for disability culture at Hopkins and can cause students to not seek out accommodations. In addition, it can serve as a trigger for anxiety/depressive/other mental health conditions. Is there another way for students to navigate these situations?
  • 4) Are there any plans to increase SDS testing center space?
  • 5) Are there any plans to offer psychiatric diagnosis so that students who have had barriers to access can receive professional diagnosis services & receive treatments for mental health disorders? Specifically, students from low-income backgrounds without the resources to access professional diagnosis, students from rural areas and international students who may not have access to the necessary physicians/diagnosis, and students with families who do not support them receiving treatment or consultation for mental health (or believe that disability is incompatible with their academic success) have all been acknowledged as having increased difficulty with accessing SDS' resources.Is there a timeline for the release of the findings and recommendations made by AHEAD?
  • 6) What is the timeline on when the JHU Accessibility App will be released?
  • 7) While MSE and its surrounding pathways are under construction, what steps will SDS and JHU as a whole take to prevent the construction from causing increased accessibility issues, particularly for students with mobility needs who’s class pathways were affected?

Syllabus access Rationale: An important part of universal access at the college level is the ability for students to know the expectations that professors have for them ahead of course registration. This helps students understand whether the anticipated coursework load is reasonable, as well as to anticipate any activities that will require significant accommodations to be made for the student. To our knowledge, course syllabi are not regularly offered before course registration and are most commonly only offered to students enrolled in the class and at earliest shortly before the class has started (1-2 weeks before the semester begins).

Questions:

  • While this issue falls outside of SDS' purview, would the Office of Student Health and Well-Being and SDS support the implementation of early-access syllabi to promote better access standards and benefit all students?

Access to diagnostic services Rationale: Students from low-income backgrounds without the resources to access professional diagnosis, students from rural areas and international students who may not have access to the necessary physicians/diagnosis, and students with families who do not support them receiving treatment or consultation for mental health (or believe that disability is incompatible with their academic success) have all been acknowledged as having increased difficulty with accessing SDS' resources and receiving professional diagnoses and treatments for mental health disorders.

Questions:

  • Are there any plans to offer free psychiatric diagnosis so that students who have had barriers to access can receive professional diagnosis services & receive treatments?

Student Health and Wellness Center:

Paperwork Rationale: At a visit to SHWC, a member of SGA was informed that the current system for storing the medical data that incoming students submit over the summer is as follows:

  • Students submit a scan of a written document with their answers to each question
  • The scan is received by SHWC and someone has to transcribe each of the written documents into entries on a digital spreadsheet for each patient.

Questions:

  • Are there any reasons why Hopkins needs the written and scanned documentation that prevents this laborious and error-susceptible step from being removed in favor of an all-digital approach?

Gender-affirming care Rationale: A member of SGA stated that they noticed zero providers on the SHWC staff have prior experience providing gender-affirming care, and that the last provider with experience on SHWC staff left recently. They stated that direct work with students should not be the first time that providers get experience, and that the current model of communicating with the Center for Transgender Health for each decision and lack of knowledge amongst individual providers has led to transgender students expressing grievance over the quality of care received.

Questions: Is SHWC planning to hire a provider with direct gender-affirming care experience in the immediate future?

How does SHWC plan to improve retention of LGBTQI+ staff members?

Has SHWC ever reached out to/been contacted by the JHU Office of Diversity and Inclusion or Office of Multicultural Affairs regarding training to better retain LGBTQI+ staff members and provide for LGBTQI+ students?

Student Health and Well-Being Leadership:

Behavioral Health Crisis Support Team Rationale: A member of SGA who is an RA reported that they are instructed that, if a student is having a mental health crisis, they should call Public Safety (and BHCST will come too). However, they have had experiences where they called Public Safety and the BHCST did not arrive or the public safety officers showed up with lights and cars (which could make the student’s mental health crisis worse). While this issue is under the purview of Public Safety, we wanted to bring it to the attention of SHWB.

Questions:

  • Under what circumstances is BHCST called by public safety?
  • Does SHWB or the Counseling Center have recommendations for Public Safety when handling a mental health crisis?