The Town Hall that transpired on April 2nd stood out to me for many reasons. For the most part, the students that spoke about sexual assault, freedom of speech, (in)tolerance, and other issues on campus communicated clearly and effectively. My hat goes off to Student Assembly and to the students who organized, planned, facilitated, and made the event possible. Professors Durrani and Johnson stood out to me as captains aboard a rickety ship, doing their utmost to keep it afloat. In my tenure as Opinion Editor/staff writer for
The Spectator
, I oftentimes find myself taking viewpoints that people challenge or take issue with. Without exception, I welcome these dissenting opinions, as long as they come from a place of mutual respect and are based in reason and fact. What I take issue with, however, is derision of my opinions that lacks context or basis in reality.
The comments made by students about sexual assault on campus were poignant, powerful, and necessary. To those of you who stood up and spoke, I salute you. I want to give special attention to the student who pointed out the absurdity of the fact that women are taught to be “small targets” when going out and that our focus isn’t always on reminding men that no means no means no means no. My priorities in this article are the comments made about mental health.
Some students did not approach the Town Hall as a community coming together to find solutions, but as a space for them to voice outrage on what they perceived as failings of the administration. For the purposes of this article I will focus on specific points that students made rather than generalizations on the Town Hall as a whole.
There is an epidemic on this campus. Some students at Hamiton College failed, or refused, to accept basic facts and appear to be more interested in ignorance than the pursuit of truth.
As I alluded to earlier, I’ll be addressing specific statements made by students and how they contribute to a larger and imminent threat to this campus. The names of specifics students have been omitted but their quotes are as close to accurate as possible.
One of the loudest moments of concordance by students in the Town Hall was when a student thundered, “How does the administration think that two hours is enough time to cover all of these issues?” One of the moderators corrected the speaker, reminding the speaker that the Town Hall was organized by students on SA and from the College as a space where we could “check our pulses.” Not once on any of the posters, emails, or official Facebook posts about the event, was the administration included in the planning, organization, or implementation of the event. All that was stated is that they would be present to listen. This statement posited that the “administration” (an overused term that came to embody all that was wrong) had decided two hours was enough to gauge student opinion on prevalent issues on campus. This statement perpetuates an adversarial relationship between the upper echelons of the College and the student body.
Several students gave statements on their perception of the resources that Hamilton offers to students who need mental health services. One student claimed, “Appointments are booked out six weeks in advance,” while another yelled, “Mental health on this campus is a joke,” and one student even went so far as to say there are “No therapists available.” Anyone who thinks these things is not paying attention. David Walden has been to Student Assembly, Minds for Change, the Mental Health Taskforce, and several other organizations working to get rid of these incorrect assumptions regarding the Counseling Center and the services/resources that are available. This information is and was available for any student who wished to find it. All they had to do was check Facebook, their email for an invitation, or read the minutes from SA or the Wellness Collective. Did the students who spoke about mental health and the perceived priorities of the administration take the time to look into their claims?
From the first of August to the second of February, the longest minimum wait time for a new patient was the week of Oct. 27, where it took between five to eleven days for a new patient to be seen for an intake. In every other week, with one exception, there had been a zero day minimum wait, while the maximum wait time ranged from two to ten days. Before you get up in arms about this, there are several things you need to consider. First off, these numbers are aggregate from specific practitioners. Some therapists have more available schedules than others. Second, you must understand and remember that this is a free resource available to students. Other schools force their students off campus for care, limit the number of sessions that a student can be seen, etc. Next, remember that if you were attempting to see a mental health provider in the real world, outside of the sheltered bubble that is Hamilton College, it would likely take you weeks to get into an intake. Finally, consider that students can and are seen on a same day basis if they are in crisis.
One student claimed that after 4:00 PM there are no resources for students. Not true. Peer Counselors, the 24/7 hotline, support groups, and Campus Safety are all available at different times past 4:00 PM. The theme of these claims is that students are making statements that are factually inaccurate. It is not as if this information is hard to find or is hidden/withheld from students. On the contrary, it doesn’t take more than a cursory Google search or phone call to become informed. If you claim to be an involved student who cares about student life but you don’t educate yourself by joining groups and paying attention to the dialogues and minutes that happen weekly then all you’re doing is making noise.
A student who claimed, “The administration forces students off campus because they don’t want them to be a liability,” at least in my judgment, issued the most offensive statement of the night. This student went on to assert that; “They [the “Administration”] don’t want students on campus who have mental health concerns.”
This statement was an absurdity and is wholly factually inaccurate. There has only been once case of a student who has been asked to leave campus against their will because of a mental health concern, and this was quite literally an issue of life or death. When students come to Dean Chase to take a leave of absence it is the best thing for them to get the care that they need. The student who made this claim implied, in their ignorance, that the College does not genuinely want the well being of students and is instead focused on minimizing liability. Not only does this statement make the assumption that students are unable to act in their own best interest or autonomy, it removes any efficacy of students to provide for their own care.
The issue with leaves of absence is not that students are taking them, but rather that students don’t feel safe in telling their friends. The stigma that we, the students, have created makes lying about having to leave for mental health reasons a better alternative to the truth of one’s hardship. Is the administration to blame for the ugliness of our misunderstanding and stigma about mental illness? Do students genuinely feel that the Counseling Center (which stands out against other comparable colleges as the only institution to offer every single one of the following resources: group therapy, psychiatric services, a licensed dietitian, a biofeedback space/provider, therapy spaces, therapy alternates, and Peer Counselors) is not providing for students?
How is it the fault of any specific administrator if you as an individual have not taken the time to educate yourself on what the College does and does not provide? Information can only be supplied so many times before it becomes our responsibility to ingest and internalize it.
Another statement a student made that set my teeth on edge was, “She [Dean Chase] has not done anything to work with students on mental health concerns.” This is another blatant falsehood that perpetuates a perverse ideology of an administration that somehow wants the worst for us. As someone who works closely with Dean Chase through weekly individual meetings and weekly task force meetings I take offense to this. Had this student checked any of their weekly invitations to the Mental Health Taskforce, read my reports in the SA minutes, or taken anything other than a rumor and acted on it, this malignant comment would have been avoided.
The point that I’m trying to get at is that all to often students make assumptions or hear rumors and take them as gospel. Rather than independently fact check a statement or do something as simple as check the Counseling Center’s website, students instead form a coalition of uninformed and enraged individuals. We are all on the same side here. We are all human beings doing our best.
Another series of statements that bothered me were the comments made by students surrounding the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Why any student on this campus feels more educated or knowledgeable about the rights and privacy of students, or legalities concerning mental health, than President Wippman, David Walden, Terry Martinez, or others, astounds me. It is so easy in hindsight pontificate on what could have or should have been done, but at the end of the day you (unless you find yourself in that position where you have to make that judgment call) will never know what it is like to carry that weight. One student had the gall to read a subsection of FERPA that he felt was particularly salient.
This student attempted to lecture a former international lawyer and Editor-in-Chief of the
Yale Law Review
on a legal matter. How conceited must you be to think that you know better? There is no one size fits all solution to student care. It is easy to be righteous and condemn “mistakes” when you lack the pertinent information. None of us students are privy to the specifics of the case in question. Therefore any statement we make on any specific case is fundamentally flawed. The attitude that “I know better” is dangerous, wholly arrogant, and ignorant. Students came into the Town Hall not looking for solutions but rather to hurtle accusations and unfounded blame. It is interesting to note that the students who said the most outlandish things about mental health on this campus are not students who are involved in Student Assembly, Minds for Change, or the Mental Health Taskforce. How can you claim to be an informed and committed individual if you don’t take the time to become familiar with the issue before you pick your hill to die on? What also disgusted me is that many students left before the Town Hall ended. The fact that it ran over time is not an excuse. Coming solely to flex for your peers and prove that you’re a socially conscious individual without being able to provide any kind of constructive feedback or suggestions is indicative of a pervasive and damaging attitude that some students on this campus have.
Professors Duranni and Johnson time and time again asked students to clarify, expand, or otherwise give context to some of the statements they made. More often than not the fiery and well-rehearsed remarks were replaced by stammering or angry silence. To me this indicates that these individuals were more concerned with putting on a show than affecting actual change. If you care about an issue as deeply as these students seem to then you should be involved with the student and administrative initiatives that are working every day and every week to make this campus a better place. Ignoring emails, not engaging with groups on campus, and perpetuating ignorance is a blight on our efficacy as a student body.
One final note: I want it to be perfectly clear that I only take issue with the statements I specifically addressed in this article. All too often when people challenge me over Facebook or in person they got a second hand report on my article and didn’t actually read it. It’d be easy for someone to read this and go, “Gavin Meade wrote an article saying how every student that spoke at the Town Hall was uninformed!” I of course can’t stop you from propagating that inaccuracy, just know it’d only prove my point.
