While there has been growing concern over the lack of licensed mental health counselors at CSU Monterey Bay’s Personal Growth & Counseling Center, an external review of the center found that to be true: The university sorely lacks counselors for students, the review found. To address the situation, the university plans to hire three additional licensed counselors in the next two years.
“We’ve been behind the eight ball in licensed counselors,” Ronnie Higgs, VP of student affairs said to the faculty via Skype during an Academic Senate meeting on March 14.
Higgs highlighted the findings of the external review conducted by Jeffrey P. Prince, director of counseling and psychological services at UC Berkeley.
External reviews of every department occur every three years, Higgs says. The last review of the counseling center didn’t find staffing shortages, but in the past three years the student population has grown by 45 percent, he says.
While ideally universities would have a licensed counselor for every 1,500 students, CSUMB currently has one for every 2,603.
By comparison, the ratio at five similarly-sized CSUs including Sonoma State and Humboldt State is one counselor per 1,705 students.
The result of this shortage has made it very difficult for students to receive follow-up care after the initial consultation. At times, students must wait weeks—or even until the next semester—for a second appointment, the review found.
“Such long wait times for follow-up care are untenable for many students facing academic repercussions from development levels of depression and anxiety,” Prince wrote in the review, released Dec. 12 of last year.
To remedy the current shortcoming, Higgs told faculty members he plans to hire 2.5 licensed counselors (the equivalent to two full-time and one part-time) this July, and another 1.5 in July 2017.
He also told the faculty the university will hire a part time administrative support position in July, with an additional part-time equivalent the following July.
To fund the increased staffing, Higgs proposes an increase in student mental health fees from $16 a semester to $33. The Student Fee Advisory Committee must first be consulted on the rate increase, after which Higgs hopes to begin a nationwide recruitment in April.
After the $347,000 staffing upgrade to the center is complete in 2017, the student-counselor ratio will exceed best practices, at one counselor per 1,250 students, Higgs says.
“We need to stay ahead of the curve, not behind it,” Higgs said to the faculty.