Notes from Student Dinner to Present Cabinet Proposal
Cabinet Dinner with Students to Present Proposal for Health, Wellness and Inclusivity
April 20, 2017
President Klawe:
Gives overview of who is on cabinet. No one on cabinet, including Maria, makes major decision without discussing with full cabinet. Would like for dinner to be one where lots of people, legitimately have different opinions; like to listen to everyone’s 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.
President Klawe read a copy of the email sent to students last evening (Mentions DSA budget will be shared tomorrow.).
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).
Seventy-eight percent of the president’s 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’s the right thing to do. From her discretionary budget, 92 percent of current commitments will be to the Division of Student Affairs.
Dean Jacobsen:
Stepped into this role and the funding for DSA from the president’s 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’t have a job. She has built Office of Community Engagement. Money from the president’s 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)—the president’s 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.
President Klawe:
In 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.
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’s fundraising campaign. We really thought that the Core revision was going to address the workload and stress issues, and it didn’t. It didn’t 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—don’t think we took out a full semester of mathematical content— it feels like those three semesters are now more stressful than before.
Dean Jacobsen:
I disagree a little about the math – 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—this makes it more difficult for students. Maybe there is also some compression because of the use of half courses.
President Klawe:
We 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.
Student:
Cabinet 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—does not intend her comment to be perceived as a shortcoming of cabinet. Hearing things about $20K funding for additional counseling support—that’s really great—but I don’t 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…outside 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.
President Klawe:
We 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’t 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—they are doing that consulting right now—so we will have opportunities to get feedback from that. If we don’t feel like we are getting something useful—it’s possible the Council could invite additional specialists to give advice.
Dean Pendakur:
Building capacity, working with faculty to help them understand working with students with mental health issues; knowing best practices is the role of Ast. Dean for OHW.
Student:
Concerned about attitudes toward MCAPS and wants to make sure we hear students’ perspectives. Does Cabinet or President Council believe in MCAPS and why?
President Klawe:
The 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…to have its own therapists.
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’t going to MCAPS enough or they weren’t 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’ve 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’ve seen the numbers come down.
There also was the feeling that the approach therapists were taking when student came in—using all or most of the first visit toward diagnosis—was 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’t moving forward to treatment with initial meeting. The feedback we’ve 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’s 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’t a good match for students. We do now have someone who specializes in African American and Asian American students.
Dean Hughes:
Because a school of 800 can’t afford to have a counseling center, sharing resources is useful. She has seen feedback in the two years since she’s 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.
Student:
In 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.
President Klawe:
I didn’t say Council was happy with way MCAPS is functioning.
Student:
Could 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.
President Klawe:
I think MCAPS is supposed to provide those urgent appointments within 24 hours.
Student:
MCAPS 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’s hard to convince them to go there. Maybe bring MCAPS to campus more?
Student:
I feel like I’ve heard similar things from students that the counselor’s at MCAPS don’t understand them or don’t understand Mudd, so if we explain it’s a stressful situation they will say drop the class, and student will say I can’t drop this class because it is part of Core. The kinds of responses they give are not effective.
President Klawe:
That’s on us. It’s 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’s not that they aren’t interested.
Student:
What are current plans on bringing that liaison? What is the responsibility of that liaison? Can they contact a professor?
Dean Hughes:
If a student is struggling, anyone can reach out to Dean Bassman and she will contact the student’s professors to make sure extensions are given, but she also meets with students to help manage course load and schedule.
Dean Jacobsen:
Dean Michelle Harrison is serving in this MCAPS liaison role for now.
Student:
Do you know how MCAPS on-call works (after-hours)?
Dean Hughes:
There 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.
Student:
How 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’t get anything out of it.
Dean Hughes:
MCAPS does collect data about number of students who call and from which campus. At Mudd, we don’t 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’s 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.
Student:
It would be helpful to release a description for each of the deans at Mudd because there is confusion about what their roles are.
Dean Pendakur:
The 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.
Dean Hughes:
The role also serves to triage to connect to long-term care.
Student:
Is 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)
Dean Jacobsen:
I view the $20,000 as being for additional resources—trying to use those for co-pays and access so you can effectively manage on campus counseling needs through connecting with community counselors and therapists.
Student:
Over past two years has the college devoted resources to MCAPS to improving it?
President Klawe:
Council 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.
Student:
How many students were consulted and how were these decisions were made when students don’t go to Monsour from Mudd?
President Klawe:
The 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’s not one over the other. We have steadily increased on campus resources and MCAPS resources.
Student:
What do you mean about on campus resources?
President Klawe:
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.
Student:
So no students were consulted (In regard to MCAPS funding)?
President Klawe:
The 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.
Student:
We’ve been saying we need more on-campus counseling, and what we’re hearing is no, it’s going to stay at Monsour. So the assumption is you know better than us; is that correct?
President Klawe:
The 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.
Student:
Students who are struggling can’t get out of bed; (Response) That’s one of the reasons we have proctors, deans on call, etc.
Student:
Why can’t we have both on-campus counselors and MCAPS? Talking on phone is stressful for some—that is not helpful therapeutic appointment.
President Klawe:
Instead 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?
Dean Jacobsen:
(To students) Is there a preference that this money provide some sort of rotating schedule of counselors on campus?
Student:
If 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?
Student:
You’re talking about Monsour being better than on-campus in a philosophical way, but is there any evidence-based metric for that?
President Klawe:
This is the recommendation we’ve (Council of Presidents) gotten from every professional in this space we’ve 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’t have that range.
Student:
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.
Dean Jacobsen:
What if it was a rotating group of three people—you would get on the same wavelength with one?
Student:
I understand that that would be the intent but scheduling is always difficult and in practical life it may be difficult to achieve that.
Student:
Wondering how you could practically implement a system of rotating counselors? How could you make sure you could see the same person?
Dean Jacobsen:
They offer hours they are available and hours go out to students. In the fall we could set up something with consistent hours.
Dean Pendakur:
It could be set schedule….
Student:
The 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.
President Klawe:
I’m 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.
Student:
I 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?
President Klawe:
Ten hours overall
Student:
It strikes me that that number sounds low. If you’re 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’t pay them nearly enough for them to be counselors. And they’re 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’s my perspective. In thinking about the amount of counseling that was happening on campus, ten hours sounds low.
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’t 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.
Student:
Could we have weekly, biweekly or monthly meetings with Cabinet?
President Klawe:
I travel a lot, but when I’m here, I wouldn’t be bothered in the least to have weekly meetings with students. And I think I’m speaking for many members of the cabinet. Faculty members and staff members are here because we like to interact with the students.
Student:
I 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’s had to get reimbursed.
President Klawe:
We 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.
Student:
Can this start before end of semester?
President Klawe:
If it’s 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—as soon as we are out of next four weeks, we can start the conversation.
Dean Pendakur:
It is a double burden on students who come from working class backgrounds. Any purchases you must make before the end of year—one way to do it is to get an invoice from where you’re 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.
Student:
People 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.
Student:
In 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’ve established OHW has lot of problems, and I don’t want (the person hired for the proposed new position) to just do more of the already existing programming.
Dean Jacobsen:
We’ve 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.
Student:
How would the decision be made (decision of keeping that position or rotating among three counselors)?
Dean Jacobsen:
Position in on the order of $75,000. The proposal was to create this position. If you don’t like this idea and if you want something different, we can explore that.
President Klawe:
We 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.
Dean Pendakur:
The idea for the joint position emerged from some of the conversations with the organizers from the sit-in last week.
Student:
I thought the idea was that we wanted another dean of OHW in addition to the joint OID/OHW position?
President Klawe:
We just don’t have the resources. Right now we’ve 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.
Dean Pendakur:
You 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.
Dean Jacobsen:
If you thread position OHW with OID you would get the right candidate.
Student:
Does this mean that if we have joint OID/OHW join position we wouldn’t have on campus counseling?
Dean Jacobsen:
The $20,000 can be used to supplement with on-campus counseling. If people have insurance and a therapist that they like, that’s the best. If you don’t have insurance, we can help with that. The $20,000 is not just to Uber to Rancho Cucamonga but to bring resources here.
Student:
Will you be publishing notes?
President Klawe:
We will share an anonymized summary
Dean Jacobsen:
I am all for helping keep pressure on MCAPS – I think that’s a role I need to be doing; they’ve gotten wait times down and have gotten counselors who are effective.
Student:
It sounds like we have stats on how many Mudders are going?
President Klawe:
Yes.
(On topic of regular meetings with students) If we would try to put together a regular schedule of meetings every couple of weeks—clearly it wouldn’t always be on mental health, but in addition, it could be on things we want student input on it—could invite students to send suggestion for topics and try to cycle through those. What do students think about that?
Student:
Separate from this, you should have meetings with the leaders from diversity clubs. We could say we’re going to do this every month and appoint a representative.
President Klawe:
We could afford to have the leaders over for dinner monthly. Could Invite Sumi, Zach or not…
Student:
I don’t know. We would have to talk about it.
Additional Suggestions/Things to Follow Up On:
- Regular meeting with leaders from affinity groups
- Check with Andrew on whether the They/Them club can use some of their money to help with people’s transition – thinking of medicines, etc. If they use money for fundraiser can they then use money raised for supporting the transition.
- Asexual club – Do they get support?
Student:
Moving resources up to $2,000 per club, is that money separate from money already getting from OID?
President Klawe:
Yes, it is separate. Although FEMunion is not getting money from OID. We wanted to be fair because there are affinity clubs not part of this funding. OID gives $2,000 to APISPAM and $1,000 to others because there isn’t an OBSA or other 5-C resource group for them. Each club except FEMunion will have at least $3,000 and FEMunion will have $2,000. Since we are now roughly 50% female, it’s harder to say feminists are minoritized as same way as They/Them or SPLS.
Student:
Could we do a Monsour Meet and Greet?
President Klawe:
Yes
Student:
How do we hold MCAPS responsible?
What does that mean?
President Klawe:
Through the VP for Student Affairs (Dean Jacobsen).
Student:
How can we give feedback to Dean Jakes?
President Klawe:
We need better feedback loop – a better way of keeping our students informed about how things are changing and improving. We’ve got lots of things we can do better. Think this conversation is a good step in starting that process.
Student:
Is there some way there can be a more systematic way to get feedback on the Core? I hear vastly different perspectives form people who didn’t come to forums. What are we thinking about in terms of getting a more systematic approach to getting feedback?
President Klawe:
We get good feedback on surveys. But that’s biased since people with strong opinions are more likely to complete the survey. In forums we hear from a group of people who have strong opinions about a part of an issue, but not everyone feels that way; should we try focus groups?
Student:
There is a short, mandatory meeting with faculty advisor in first year. Could we use that to systematically collect people’s opinions about course and shape of their experiences?
President Klawe:
There are also course evaluations. We want to make these mandatory for all courses.
Student:
Can they make that electronic?
President Klawe:
One of the TCC colleges moving to online – would that be better?
Student:
Also need to look at the questions on course evaluations. Should be asking things like how do you feel this fits into your education as a whole? Did it play well with other courses? Communication between your Core profs and others Core profs?
President Klawe:
Agree with (student) that we should consult more with students on lots of issues; there are things that as administrators and faculty we don’t hear about, and it is clear that the current ways of gathering info are not necessarily effective.
At this point, it was 7 p.m. and many people had to leave.