The Office of Special Programs (OSP) in the Wilbur Cross building was dismantled on July 1, its staff and resources reorganized into various departments. The OSP had, through its various efforts, served as a guiding light for hundreds to thousands of students.
The OSP and its members worked to counsel UConn students however they needed. Its staff of professionals and students advised, free of charge, on issues of family, sexuality, depression, test anxiety and just about any other issue that regularly faces college students. In addition, the OSP ran the HEART House for a time and put together First Year Experience classes and programs with community assistants.
The two remaining options for students seeking mental advice are the Humphrey Center, where they can describe their problems to graduate students in training and Mental Health Services (MHS). For a slight fee of $20 (the same price as having a computer diagnosed at Resnet), MHS will question, assess and diagnose a student so he or she can determine what to talk to the psychiatrist or APRN about. Follow-up sessions are $10 or a special group rate of $5 each.
"There is a stigma in consulting Mental Health," said Dr. Joanne Lewis, former director of the OSP. "Students don't like it."
Lewis said students tended to prefer the OSP because it offered a more holistic, informal approach to counseling. She said many students also shy away from MHS because of its clinical approach.
According to some students may now have a more difficult time finding help they can trust before their respective issues reach a critical level.
"[The OSP] worked as an intervention before the problem got so serious as to need a psychiatric evaluation," said Galina Portnoy, a 7th-semester psychology and women and health major.
Portnoy, who used to council peers at the OSP, said there are currently hundreds of students who no longer know where to go.
"With the rapport they had established with the counselors, they don't want to start over," Portnoy said. "That and they don't want to be labeled 'insane.'"
Rachel Hughes, a 5th-semester political science and history major, said the OSP helped her when she had a very painful experience one weekend.
"I went to talk to Dr. Lewis and didn't feel at all uncomfortable like I did at [Mental Health Services]," she said. "It was a free program with a very comfortable setting. You didn't feel awkward or intimidated."
Hughes said it is sad the OSP is closing, because she would never have gone back to MHS.
John Saddlemire, vice president for Student Affairs, called the process a reorganization. Saddlemire said all of the services previously handled by the OSP will still be offered, only by different administrators in different areas.
"In the last few years the university has reorganized a number of functions which, in turn, led to various parts of the office being moved to other operational areas," Saddlemire said.
He said the creation of the Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Education Services a year ago (which now fills the spot in Wilbur Cross once designated to the OSP), coupled with the creation of the Center for Undergraduate Education (CUE), led to a need for reorganization.
Students with academic dilemmas may now seek help in the CUE building, across from Homer Babbidge library. Health Education will now operate from an office in South Complex and is aligned with Health Services.
"The remaining counseling services is being covered by a variety of means," Saddlemire said. "Including those members of the office who had been doing counseling in proceeding years as well as the Dean of Students Office and Health Services."
But Lewis says the former counselors of the OSP don't have as much time to help students anymore, given their new offices and positions.
"I'm just concerned about those students who won't go to Mental Health," Lewis said. "What will they do?"
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