{"id":153,"date":"2017-05-03T22:56:58","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T22:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/inclusive-excellence\/?page_id=153"},"modified":"2022-10-14T08:39:23","modified_gmt":"2022-10-14T15:39:23","slug":"notes-from-student-dinner-to-present-cabinet-proposal","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/inclusive-excellence\/notes-from-student-dinner-to-present-cabinet-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes from Student Dinner to Present Cabinet Proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cabinet Dinner with Students to Present Proposal for Health, Wellness and Inclusivity<\/strong><\/h2>\n

April 20, 2017
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nGives overview of who is on cabinet. No one on cabinet, including Maria, makes major decision without discussing with full cabinet.\u00a0Would like for dinner to be one where lots of people, legitimately have different opinions; like to listen to everyone\u2019s opinion without denigrating someone if you disagree. Introduces people in the room who are on cabinet. Asks if students are okay with reading email from last night and says there are a few things she wants to add. Everyone agrees.<\/p>\n

President Klawe\u00a0read a copy of the email sent to students last evening (Mentions DSA budget will be shared tomorrow.).<\/p>\n

As president, she has funds that come from endowment available each year for her to allocate for discretionary items; Total amount is around $655K each year – makes multiyear commitments when there is something we want to address more quickly than we can get into the operating budget. Have several commitments until 2021. All except one are for DSA (other is for SWE).<\/p>\n

Seventy-eight percent of the president\u2019s discretionary budget for next academic year is already committed including the commitments made in the email message last night. This is as far as she feels like she can go because she needs to leave some money available for things that might come up next year. She is proposing to fund additional needs in health, wellness and institutional diversity because we think it\u2019s the right thing to do. From her discretionary budget, 92 percent of current commitments will be to the Division of Student Affairs.<\/p>\n

Dean Jacobsen:<\/strong>
\nStepped into this role and the funding for DSA from the president\u2019s discretionary budget was already established. As an example, two years ago Gabriela (Ast. Dean, Office of Community Engagement) was funded by grants. If the grants ran out, she wouldn\u2019t have a job. She has built Office of Community Engagement. Money from the president\u2019s discretionary budget has helped bridge her salary so we can incrementally build permanent funding for this position into the budget. Same is true for Michelle Harrison (Ast. Dean, OHW)\u2014the president\u2019s discretionary budget has been used to fund bridges to make this a full-time position. Discretionary budget also supports graduate assistants in OHW and OID.<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nIn earlier years when doing the original Core revision and starting to fund strategic planning initiatives, virtually all of her discretionary funds were going to that. Those funds are typically used to fund the top priorities of the College or to provide emergency funding for unforeseen expenses.<\/p>\n

When we did Core revisions about seven years ago, it was to address concerns about workload, stress, mental health and diversity. It was an enormous effort. We increased faculty by 10 percent to support that, although those additions happened over time as money was raised through the College\u2019s fundraising campaign. We really thought that the Core revision was going to address the workload and stress issues, and it didn\u2019t. It didn\u2019t because we thought that by adding electives, we would add more freedom and make things less stressful for students. However, the vast majority of students have used those elective slots to take extra courses to get ahead in their major. Math\u2014don\u2019t think we took out a full semester of mathematical content\u2014 it feels like those three semesters are now more stressful than before.<\/p>\n

Dean Jacobsen:<\/strong>
\nI disagree a little about the math \u2013 there has been a downstream affect. You are having to do more learning of the math at the time when you really need those skills\u2014this makes it more difficult for students. Maybe there is also some compression because of the use of half courses.<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nWe did all this work; really believed we were going to make this better; College has had issues with workload since founding. We have tried to address this in various ways and will try again next year. We will be involving students and recent alumni. I expect 2017-2018 is a transition year. There still will be stress, but in addition to reviewing the Core, every department is looking at how to reduce workload for next year given the need to participate in the work to assess the Core. The goal is not to change number of units, etc. The commitments Cabinet is proposing are also one-time budget commitments because want to see if they make a difference. We also want to see what we get done and look at other kinds of changes we will need to make.<\/p>\n

Student:\u00a0<\/strong>
\nCabinet is diverse in the types of people on it. One thing cabinet does not have is someone who has experience specifically related to mental health issues for people in their age range. This would be close to a clinical perspective\u2014does not intend her comment to be perceived as a shortcoming of cabinet. Hearing things about $20K funding for additional counseling support\u2014that\u2019s really great\u2014but I don\u2019t think necessarily that this money will be used more effectively unless someone is brought in who knows more about what types of strategies can be brought in or what can be done. Her mother was throwing out some ideas from a social work context\u2026outside partnership with external provider. Bringing in people who have expertise in providing mental health support might be helpful. We as students might think your solutions sound excellent.<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nWe have done this a bit through talking with Denise Hayes and staff at MCAPS. We do understand there has been cultural attitude towards MCAPS that isn\u2019t particularly positive. I have heard from students that the sense is that MCAPS has recently hired some counselors who are pretty good. The Council of Presidents (comprised of the presidents from each of the seven Claremont College member institutions) has been talking to specialists in mental health very explicitly. Each campus has also been doing a survey with JED Foundation<\/a>\u2014they are doing that consulting right now\u2014so we will have opportunities to get feedback from that. If we don\u2019t feel like we are getting something useful\u2014it\u2019s possible the Council could invite additional specialists to give advice.<\/p>\n

Dean Pendakur:<\/strong>
\nBuilding capacity, working with faculty to help them understand working with students with mental health issues; knowing best practices is the \u00a0role of Ast. Dean for OHW.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nConcerned about attitudes toward MCAPS and wants to make sure we hear students\u2019 perspectives. Does Cabinet or President Council believe in MCAPS and why?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nThe Council believes we will have better services overall for things like disability center, MCAPS, student health, library, if we pool our combined resources (from the five or seven institutions, depending on the service offered). It is not effective for each college to build up its own health and wellness program\u2026to have its own therapists.<\/p>\n

At Harvey Mudd, we have built more in terms of campus-based health and wellness support than other campuses because we felt that because our students weren\u2019t going to MCAPS enough or they weren\u2019t happy with MCAPS. We felt we were better off investing in some additional on-campus resources. The Council has been concerned with the length of the wait times at MCAPS. But these have improved, and more recently we\u2019ve seen that the number of students visiting from other colleges, particularly students of color, has risen dramatically. There is still work to do. I believe that students in emergency situations should be seen right away and that the wait for nonemergency visits should be five days. We\u2019ve seen the numbers come down.<\/p>\n

There also was the feeling that the approach therapists were taking when student came in\u2014using all or most of the first visit toward diagnosis\u2014was not as helpful when you only have a one-hour meeting. Even though that is the typical thing to do, it can feel to the student like you aren\u2019t moving forward to treatment with initial meeting. The feedback we\u2019ve been providing is that even though that assessment is typical, by the time someone gets there they probably want something more direct. Also, there is a limit of eight visits per year right now. There are many people who would benefit from more than eight appointments, but for that you have to connect with an off-campus counselor. Depending on a person\u2019s insurance, that may mean they have to pay copays, and the last thing we want is for students not to go because of that. So there are some issues: wait times, first visit not what students seeking, counselors who weren\u2019t a good match for students. We do now have someone who specializes in African American and Asian American students.<\/p>\n

Dean Hughes:<\/strong>
\nBecause a school of 800 can\u2019t afford to have a counseling center, sharing resources is useful. She has seen feedback in the two years since she\u2019s been here regarding staff understanding that a lot of times students need an urgent appointment. Strengthening our ability to have MCAPS provide urgent appointments would benefit students. There are therapists on call 24 hours a day, though. So if we do have student experiencing suicidal ideation, that is critical. We also have a liaison from MCAPS who sits on the Harvey Mudd DSA care team and who provides us with advising and support on ways to determine additional ways to reach out and advise and support students.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nIn the beginning, you mentioned that you think MCAPS is effective, and you listed all the ways MCAPS is ineffective. These problems would all be solved if we had more on-campus counselors.<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nI didn\u2019t say Council was happy with way MCAPS is functioning.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nCould crisis appointments be at Mudd and long term appointments be at MCAPS? Sounds like there is a mismatch in what MCAPS is trying to do.<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nI think MCAPS is supposed to provide those urgent appointments within 24 hours.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nMCAPS is off campus and far away. It seems like there is no one on campus from MCAPS. When thinking about people who might need counseling, it\u2019s hard to convince them to go there. Maybe bring MCAPS to campus more?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nI feel like I\u2019ve heard similar things from students that the counselor\u2019s at MCAPS don\u2019t understand them or don\u2019t understand Mudd, so if we explain it\u2019s a stressful situation they will say drop the class, and student will say I can\u2019t drop this class because it is part of Core. The kinds of responses they give are not effective.<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s on us. It\u2019s really our job to have an effective liaison with Monsour who educates them with the issues facing our students that are specific to our campus and to our academic program. It\u2019s not that they aren\u2019t interested.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nWhat are current plans on bringing that liaison? What is the responsibility of that liaison? Can they contact a professor?<\/p>\n

Dean Hughes:<\/strong>
\nIf a student is struggling, anyone can reach out to Dean Bassman and she will contact the student\u2019s professors to make sure extensions are given, but she also meets with students to help manage course load and schedule.<\/p>\n

Dean Jacobsen:<\/strong>
\nDean Michelle Harrison is serving in this MCAPS liaison role for now.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nDo you know how MCAPS on-call works (after-hours)?<\/p>\n

Dean Hughes:<\/strong>
\nThere is a phone number you call that transfers to an after-hours service, which connects you to live licensed therapist so you can speak about any urgent or life threatening situation. This has been very important to the DSA Care Team and to Deans On Call. The counselors via this phone line try to provide immediate care and there should be a follow up with MCAPS next day.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nHow late can people call? Has heard that not many people have called and one reason someone called was to find out hours of Monsour. Another student called for fun and didn\u2019t get anything out of it.<\/p>\n

Dean Hughes:
\n<\/strong>MCAPS does collect data about number of students who call and from which campus. At Mudd, we don\u2019t have a high number of users calling for (after-hours emergencies) because of proctors and deans on call on our campus (including Dean Michelle). A lot of times they have supported students after hours. It\u2019s an essential resource, and students have it in their care plan. Students experiencing severe depression, etc. say this is a resource they will use if they get to point where they need it.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nIt would be helpful to release a description for each of the deans at Mudd because there is confusion about what their roles are.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dean Pendakur:<\/strong>
\nThe goal (for OHW) is around building a proactive culture of wellness, educational work, educating faculty and staff, creating holistic and practical wellness; building life where these issues are responded to and people are changing attitudes around wellness.<\/p>\n

Dean Hughes:<\/strong>
\nThe role also serves to triage to connect to long-term care.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nIs that explicitly spelled out in duties? (response; Yes). An important part of the demand was more support for on-campus counseling. The college wants to direct counseling to Monsour, is that correct? (response: Yes)<\/p>\n

Dean Jacobsen:<\/strong>
\nI view the $20,000 as being for additional resources\u2014trying to use those for co-pays and access so you can effectively manage on campus counseling needs through connecting with community counselors and therapists.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nOver past two years has the\u00a0 college devoted resources to MCAPS to improving it?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nCouncil of Presidents increased funding two years ago, and this year it provided additional resources in order to reduce wait times and to get counselors we thought were a better match for students.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nHow many students were consulted and how were these decisions were made when students don\u2019t go to Monsour from Mudd?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nThe number of Mudd students using MCAPS has been increasing over time; at the same time, we have also been increasing resources for students at Mudd; it\u2019s not one over the other. We have steadily increased on campus resources and MCAPS resources.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nWhat do you mean about on campus resources?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:
\n<\/strong>Five years ago, we had one assistant dean for health and wellness; we added two part-time graduate assistants; then we added a full-time grad assist, and then added regular assistant dean (two years ago), and we kept one grad assistant. This year it was same level as last year, but the OHW chose not to hire a graduate assistant and use the funds for additional support for student programming.<\/span><\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nSo no students were consulted (In regard to MCAPS funding)?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nThe Council of Presidents makes decisions to increase resources to library without consulting faculty; to campus safety, etc. Council has a very complicated governance structure. Within the Council, recommendations related to MCAPS come from the Student Deans Committee (comprised of all the deans of students from the seven colleges). The student deans can choose to consult with students or not; in some cases, the Academic Deans Committee will consult faculty advisory committees before making recommendations to Council and in some cases they do not. There are committees for each of the vice presidents across the consortium. Council makes decisions based on recommendations from those committees. If there was consultation (with students) it would happen at the committee level with SDC.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019ve been saying we need more on-campus counseling, and what we\u2019re hearing is no, it\u2019s going to stay at Monsour. So the assumption is you know better than us; is that correct?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nThe overall belief among the presidents is that when we share resources across institutions, we can provide more than we can separately. That is what guides this. MCAPS is a four block walk from here.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nStudents who are struggling can\u2019t get out of bed; (Response) That\u2019s one of the reasons we have proctors, deans on call, etc.<\/p>\n

Student:
\n<\/strong>Why can\u2019t we have both on-campus counselors and MCAPS? Talking on phone is stressful for some\u2014that is not helpful therapeutic appointment.<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nInstead of adding a full-time person, we could take that same amount of money (roughly $76,000) and continue to have on campus counseling like we are doing now with two counselors. We could then have something like availability for up to 10 appointments per week. Would that be better?<\/p>\n

Dean Jacobsen:<\/strong>
\n(To students) Is there a preference that this money provide some sort of rotating schedule of counselors on campus?<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nIf we want as much diversity in counseling resources as possible and if that is well supported by outside experts who think that there is a strong argument to be made for having this be a resource shared between all the colleges, would it be reasonable to convince MCAPS to do office hours at Mudd sometimes?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nYou\u2019re talking about Monsour being better than on-campus in a philosophical way, but is there any evidence-based metric for that?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nThis is the recommendation we\u2019ve (Council of Presidents) gotten from every professional in this space we\u2019ve spoken with; there is evidence that having a range of therapists is better than having one single person. If we only have one person on campus, then we don\u2019t have that range.<\/p>\n

Student:
\n<\/strong>With Monsour you usually just get assigned to one person. If you could take feedback to them that we need to meet with more diverse counselors.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dean Jacobsen:<\/strong>
\nWhat if it was a rotating group of three people\u2014you would get on the same wavelength with one?<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nI understand that that would be the intent but scheduling is always difficult and in practical life it may be difficult to achieve that.<\/p>\n

Student:
\n<\/strong>Wondering how you could practically implement a system of rotating counselors? How could you make sure you could see the same person?<\/p>\n

Dean Jacobsen:<\/strong>
\nThey offer hours they are available and hours go out to students. In the fall we could set up something with consistent hours.<\/p>\n

Dean Pendakur:<\/strong>
\nIt could be set schedule\u2026.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nThe way the dialogues and demands were presented were unproductive and may be not representative of all students. I think we should have more opportunities for students to give input on policies and obligations before things blow up.<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m finding this discussion very useful, very helpful. One of the things we could think about doing is to have counselors from MCAPS come here plus get an additional staff person between OID and OHW.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nI want to ask a logistical question: Are we talking about three counselors or three doing different times on fixed schedule – ten per week per person?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nTen hours overall<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nIt strikes me that that number sounds low. If you\u2019re having trouble getting out of bed, going to academic end of campus can be hard, and you stop going to class. So, telling someone to go off campus and assigning that person to an ineffective counselor is really opaque. Yes, the proctors are amazing, and I love my proctors, but they are not counselors, and we don\u2019t pay them nearly enough for them to be counselors. And they\u2019re also Mudders so they have the Mudd workload. Comparing proctors to counselors of any kind is not the same thing, and to expect them to be counselors is not fair to them. That number sounds low; that\u2019s my perspective. In thinking about the amount of counseling that was happening on campus, ten hours sounds low.<\/p>\n

A lot of the tension that has been going on lately comes from feeling that decisions are being made about our health, and we are not being consulted. If we are, there isn\u2019t a lot of transparency about the metrics being used. We have experiential learning that MCAPS is getting lot of funding, etc., that can be disheartening. It can feel like the only way to get this conversation to happen is to have something happen like last week. Could we have an advisory group with faculty, students, staff and counselors from off campus? That would be helpful.<\/p>\n

Student:
\n<\/strong>Could we have weekly, biweekly or monthly meetings with Cabinet?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nI travel a lot, but when I\u2019m here, I wouldn\u2019t be bothered in the least to have weekly meetings with students. And I think I\u2019m speaking for many members of the cabinet. Faculty members and staff members are here because we like to interact with the students.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nI have question that is tangential: What are you or anyone else in room doing to abolish system of having students have to get reimbursed for money (used for student organization-sponsored activities)? It is annoying and taxing to have to get reimbursed or have to go through (ASHMC Treasurer) instead of having credit or debit card for each specific club? Student helps plan a lot of stuff in BLAM and has to have too many unnecessary and complicated interactions where he\u2019s had to get reimbursed.<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nWe will ask Andrew (VP for Business Affairs) or Scott (AVP) to talk to their counterparts at the other colleges to see what they are doing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nCan this start before end of semester?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nIf it\u2019s something we are able to do, we can do it so that it could be in place before fall semester begins. Right now is a busy time for Scott and Andrew\u2014as soon as we are out of next four weeks, we can start the conversation.<\/p>\n

Dean Pendakur:
\n<\/strong>It is a double burden on students who come from working class backgrounds. Any purchases you must make before the end of year\u2014one way to do it is to get an invoice from where you\u2019re ordering and then that invoice can be given to ASHMC or a DSA office to get a check cut. As a stop-gap measure that might work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nPeople have been talking about having someone who knows about Mudd and Mudders and that this is positive thing, but I feel like that leads to some of the issues we may have been seeing with confidentiality and manipulation. If you are having problem with someone else in DSA you can run into issues. While I understand importance of having someone on campus, I realize having someone off campus is also important.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nIn deciding between rotating system and the position, can you elaborate on the responsibilities of the new position? Would they bring anything new to OHW? I think we\u2019ve established OHW has lot of problems, and I don\u2019t want (the person hired for the proposed new position) to just do more of the already existing programming.<\/p>\n

Dean Jacobsen:<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019ve talked about if we do end up doing this position what the job description might include. Things like ability for evening and weekend office hours; working with student leaders; guidance and advising to student affinity groups; both deans have individual and group sessions to provide guidance and support; maintain flow of communication with assistant deans to better train faculty and staff. The description would be something we (DSA and students) would craft together.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nHow would the decision be made (decision of keeping that position or rotating among three counselors)?<\/p>\n

Dean Jacobsen:<\/strong>
\nPosition in on the order of $75,000. The proposal was to create this position. If you don\u2019t like this idea and if you want something different, we can explore that.<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nWe have about 30 students here and there are more than 800 students on campus. How do we get broader input on this question at a time when students are already very stressed and overworked? One possibility is to write up on what two options are and share with students.<\/p>\n

Dean Pendakur:<\/strong>
\nThe idea for the joint position emerged from some of the conversations with the organizers from the sit-in last week.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nI thought the idea was that we wanted another dean of OHW in addition to the joint OID\/OHW position?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nWe just don\u2019t have the resources. Right now we\u2019ve already committed 78% of discretionary funds for next year and not comfortable committing more than that because we need flexibility to address those issues; of all commitments made, 92% already going to DSA.<\/p>\n

Dean Pendakur:<\/strong>
\nYou never want a decision that is going to affect the long-term coming out of discretionary funds. This is why they are one-year proposals, so we can vet them with the community and if they are successful, we can work them into the long-term operating budget for the College. We want to pilot this and get into regular budget cycle if it is effective.<\/p>\n

Dean Jacobsen:<\/strong>
\nIf you thread position OHW with OID you would get the right candidate.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nDoes this mean that if we have joint OID\/OHW join position we wouldn\u2019t have on campus counseling?<\/p>\n

Dean Jacobsen:<\/strong>
\nThe $20,000 can be used to supplement with on-campus counseling. If people have insurance and a therapist that they like, that\u2019s the best. If you don\u2019t have insurance, we can help with that. The $20,000 is not just to Uber to Rancho Cucamonga but to bring resources here.<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nWill you be publishing notes?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nWe will share an anonymized summary<\/p>\n

Dean Jacobsen:
\n<\/strong>I am all for helping keep pressure on MCAPS \u2013 I think that\u2019s a role I need to be doing; they\u2019ve gotten wait times down and have gotten counselors who are effective.<\/span><\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nIt sounds like we have stats on how many Mudders are going?<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nYes.<\/p>\n

(On topic of regular meetings with students) If we would try to put together a regular schedule of meetings every couple of weeks\u2014clearly it wouldn\u2019t always be on mental health, but in addition, it could be on things we want student input on it\u2014could invite students to send suggestion for topics and try to cycle through those.\u00a0What do students think about that?<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nSeparate from this, you should have meetings with the leaders from diversity clubs. We could say we\u2019re going to do this every month and appoint a representative.<\/p>\n

President Klawe:<\/strong>
\nWe could afford to have the leaders over for dinner monthly. Could Invite Sumi, Zach or not\u2026<\/p>\n

Student:<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know. We would have to talk about it.<\/p>\n

Additional Suggestions\/Things to Follow Up On: <\/strong><\/p>\n