Dear UConn,

The mission of UConn’s Student Health and Wellness Mental Health office is to “provide the highest quality clinical services to promote the emotional, relational, and academic potential of all students.” However, the reality is that this mission is not being accomplished. The mental health services offered at UConn are just not enough to adequately serve the 32,000 students that attend this university, and we all know it.

As the president of the club Active Minds, an organization dedicated to providing an open space to break the stigma against mental health and emphasize suicide prevention, I am feeling deeply frustrated. I am angry. I’m disappointed. These words are not strong enough to describe what I am feeling, what we are all feeling. This school is much too large to have ONE floor of one building dedicated to serving the mental health needs of students. We need a new-gym-sized renovation of SHaW Mental Health to make sure everyone is taken care of, but that doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s radar. 

If mental health is just as important as physical health, then how is this not being talked about? The new recreation center cost $100 million and UConn is requiring every student to pay a $500 fee to cover the cost for the next 30 years. The new president’s house was $750,000. UConn paid a $17 million dollar fee to leave the AAC early. Our tuition is set to increase yet again each year for the next five years, making UConn even less affordable and accessible for today’s students. Why does there always seem to be money for the “important things”, but not for mental health?

It is important to understand that I truly believe SHaW Mental Health is doing the best they can with the resources and funding they have. There are in-person crisis services available with an on-call therapist during business hours and over the phone after hours. There are free consultation and support drop-in hours every day for those who need immediate support for non-emergent issues. There are meditation and yoga classes offered to ease stress and anxiety. However, these services have proven to fall short of meeting the needs of the student body. In my time leading this club, I have heard over and over again of the dissatisfaction with SHaW Mental Health from the UConn community. Members and students have expressed their frustration with the long waiting periods and short staffing. Students often have to wait 3 weeks in order to be seen from the time they decide they need help due to the limited amount of therapists available. The staff are spread so thin that often when students call, they are urged to find a therapist at home or off-campus. Issues arise even more with insurance and transportation. The number of students seeking help at SHaW Mental Health nearly doubled from 2015 to 2017. So why have the available services not doubled along with it?

College can be amazing and exciting and exhilarating. But it can also be draining, exhausting, and extremely stressful. Mental health care is and should be a human right, and at this moment in time, UConn is not doing enough to provide for its students. SHaW Mental Health needs more funding and resources to expand and improve in the ways it has the potential to. In light of UConn senior Justin Niezrecki’s recent passing due to suicide, it is evident now more than ever that the UConn community needs more than what is available. The truth is that Justin is not alone in how he was feeling. It could have been any one of us. Mental illness is treatable and suicide is preventable. But we need better resources and more funding to do so.

If you would like to support increased funding for SHaW Mental Health at UConn, I urge you to sign this petition.

Signed,

Alexandra Schaible, Active Minds, & UConn students