Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Penny Rue was the guest
of honor at last night’s A.S. Council meeting. Despite some initial liveliness
on Rue’s part, the soggy weather outside foreshadowed the serious conversation
between Rue and councilmembers about new budgetary concerns and the state of
UCSD’s mental health services.
Rue joined the meeting in a fashion uncharacteristic of most
administrators, wearing a bejeweled crown seemingly drawn straight from the
props bin of a Disney movie set.
“I come to you today as the very recent winner of the office
spirit contest for Spirit Week,” she said to applause, before setting the crown
aside for the rest of the meeting.
She first courted a question from Associate Vice President
of Academic Affairs Long Pham about UCSD’s plan to respond to a proposed
$400-million funding cut to the UC system.
Pham raised the regents’ suggestion to cap enrollment as a
means of preventing an increase in expenditures. Rue played down the impact of
a cap on undergraduates, saying that UCSD was already approaching its growth
potential in that area and would instead focus on growing its higher-paying
graduate student population.
Earl Warren College Senator Kenneth Wong asked about how the
budget cuts could affect student life, and Rue seemed confident in allaying
fears about a downturn in state funding.
“If we’re adept, it will really not be that obvious to
students,” she said. “We can delay filling vacancies … there can be a lot of
savings that way.”
Sixth College Senator John Cressey changed the subject to
improving on-campus mental health services.
Rue prefaced her response by observing that, unlike the
situation at most other college campuses, students here are diagnosed with anxiety
more frequently than with depression. According to Rue, anxiety responds well
to a “mind-body approach,” so UCSD would benefit from the creation of a
wellness center that is currently in the early planning stages.
Rue explained her theory of a “triage plan” for treating
students in which they begin at the peer advisor and guidance counselor level
before meeting with psychologists, based on severity of their mental health
afflictions.
All Campus Senator Meghan Clair was the first to challenge
Rue’s mental health philosophy, saying that a month long waiting list to see a
psychologist was unacceptable. Rue considered Clair’s suggestion of an “open
door” psychologist in earnest but said that funding constraints would prevent
it from becoming a reality.
Arts and Humanities Senator Samantha Peterson also
questioned Rue about the overwhelmed mental health services at UCSD. Peterson
recounted a personal experience about the difficulty of seeking help at UCSD, a
quest that ultimately resulted in a one-week hospital stay.
“There’s no reason that service shouldn’t be available to
us,” she said. “I spent an entire quarter trying to get an appointment, and it
got more and more urgent. It’s a ridiculous mess of bureaucracy over there.”
Amid this council’s most poignant moment so far, Rue offered
to speak with Peterson individually about solving UCSD’s deficiency in mental
health services.
