On Feb. 1, The Oakland Post sat down with Student Congress President Murryum Farooqi and Vice President Maris Ferguson to discuss the state of Oakland University’s Counseling Center and the efforts OUSC is making to improve the condition of the center.
In terms of priorities, both agreed that the first order of business was to ensure OUCC’s mental health services were accessible and available for students in need. OUSC leadership decided the best way to reach this goal was to gather a large sum of money and put it towards the counseling center’s emergency relief fund.
As it stands currently, all OU students are eligible to receive four free visits to the on-campus counseling center located in the Graham Health Center. After those sessions are exhausted, students may purchase up to eleven sessions of services. Each session costs twenty dollars.
OUSC believes that it is necessary to assist students who face financial barriers in accessing mental health care. The counseling center’s emergency fund will either cover the cost of a student’s sessions entirely or at least provide relief and ease the cost so that the center is as accessible as possible.
According to Farooqi, OUSC originally set the stipend to $10,000. As the team went through the drafting process, however, the allocation increased as additional unused funds were located in OUSC’s budget.
“The bigger the number, the bigger of a statement it makes to the university. We want to attract attention,” Farooqi said.
The hope is that the money can be used to help the counseling center continue providing mental health services to students in need. OUSC continues to work on securing administrative support for a more long-term plan to “catch up” to the rest of the state in terms of funding for the counseling center.
“Over the last semester, we’ve heard from administration meetings, from Dr. Schwartz, that we are the lowest funded counseling center in Michigan,” Farooqi said.
The money comes just in time. According to Vice President Ferguson, the counseling center recently received a one-time $7,000 grant that has nearly been exhausted. For the legislators, the money needed to go to OUCC as the center typically sees a rise in visits during the winter months.
Moving forward, Farooqi and Ferguson say that Student Congress will be working to push for administrators to take over the upkeep of the counseling center. They have already begun initiatives amongst the legislature to increase community awareness on the topic.
“Vice President Macintosh says that President Pescotovitz is aware of the problem. She is looking into a slow and incremental plan to help solve this issue,” Farooqi said.
In the future, Farooqi and Ferguson want to raise awareness about the needs of the counseling center and garner support from the student body. For students who wish to help, you can find the Student Congress office in the basement of the Oakland Center, where students are encouraged to drop in and ask questions.
