Mental Health Resources at William & Mary

ZACHARY LUTZKY // FLAT HAT MAGAZINE

Aug. 28, 2018, the College of William and Mary opened the doors of the McLeod Tyler Wellness Center to members of the College community. The center, a $19 million project named after Bee McLeod ’83, M.B.A. ’91 and Goody Tyler, now houses Campus Recreation, the Health Center, the Counseling Center, Health Promotion, and the Center for Mindfulness and Authentic Excellence.

“William & Mary’s vision of integrative wellness is designed to create a systemic response that provides multiple portals of entry for students to manage both stress and distress. That includes the full continuum of prevention, health promotion, and multiple treatment modalities for intervention,” the Health & Wellness page states.

In September 2020, however, The Flat Hat opinions section published an op-ed titled “Wellness Center offers insubstantial and performative services,” written by then Flat Hat Editor-in-Chief Claire Hogan ’22. The article highlighted concerns about the Wellness Center’s effectiveness, a lack of care for student grievances, and its use of “vague ‘wellness’ platitudes.”

“Even if it’s an underlying mental health struggle rather than academic stress, the College has a responsibility to uphold the health of all of its students. And that’s simply not happening,” Hogan wrote.

The College’s approach to mental health has been an ongoing discussion across the campus community for years. Opinions of concerned students can be traced through media history long before the creation of the Wellness Center and continue today, with questions surrounding the College’s management of mental health concerns in articles extending to national news outlets like The Washington Post. 

But the campus debate is not yet resolved; while many students and faculty members lend their support to the College’s mental health resources, others voice concerns over the lack of assistance offered. 

Undersecretary for Mental Health & Wellness within Diverse Communities for Student Assembly Pelumi Sholagbade ’24 believes the College’s approach to mental health implicitly pushes a narrative that links mental wellness with productivity.

“I think that is just a smaller scale version of this greater national or even global conversation about what it means to be mentally well, in terms of it being tied to your productivity — the amount that you are an active participant in the world around you — as opposed to actually being happy,” Sholagbade said.

In terms of proposing changes to the College’s wellness systems, Sholagbade believes that it is difficult for a university to increasingly promote mental health without simultaneously dismantling its commitment to preparing students for employment, when in most cases, employers only care about mental wellness insofar as it extends to productivity. 

Sholagbade did, however, recommend that the College have a greater emphasis on harm reduction.

“I think if there has been this conflating of increased productivity with increased wellness, then I feel like there’s also simultaneously a denial of that,” Sholagbade said. “The administration is pretending that they’re not connecting those two things.”

Active Minds President Rebecca Walsh ’24 offered an alternative perspective on the Counseling Center, citing it as a primary source of support for her during her time at the College.

“Aside from my work with the Counseling Center, I’ve gone in to do mindfulness therapy sessions with a professional,” Walsh wrote in an email.  “The individual that I work with contacts me regularly to check in, adjusts her schedule to make time for me, and is more than generous. The staff care deeply about the well-being of the students on campus, and there are resources for all of us.” 

Walsh mentioned that although she has heard criticisms of the Counseling Center, she believes the main issue is that students struggle with finding the resources they need and thus should be more willing to seek out help. She also emphasized that the Counseling Center could benefit from a greater allocation of money to hire more counselors.

“The resources are all there; it’s just a matter of going out of your way to find them, which is something that students tend to struggle with,” Walsh wrote. “We are all so busy that we sometimes forget to take care of our own mental health until we’ve reached a point where the resources at the school aren’t enough.”

ZACHARY LUTZKY // FLAT HAT MAGAZINE

Aaron Albright ’22 explained that he has benefited from individual and group counseling at the Wellness Center every year he has been on campus. Albright, who volunteers as a crisis text line counselor and plans to attend graduate school for clinical mental health counseling, explained that the Wellness Center is a good first line of defense.

“I don’t think they intend to be a long-term source of help. They’re usually a semester-based thing. I don’t think that’s a particular deficit that they have — it’s just something to recognize,” Albright said.

Regarding criticisms over the long wait times for counseling appointments, Albright recommends being proactive and scheduling early but acknowledges that attempting to schedule in the middle of a semester can, unfortunately, result in a lack of appointment availability.

“I think that the university should be able to see people for more than just a semester,” Albright said. “It’s appropriate to be able to see people for more than a semester. And I think in certain cases you probably can, but I wouldn’t say it’s encouraged. They try and keep it to a semester, which feels a little bit like they’re just trying to shuffle you through, but I think that’s part of the nature of the system.”

In terms of longer-term help, alumnus Thomas Le '17 wrote in an email that the previous Wellness Center, replaced in 2018, was very helpful to him during his time at the College. Le, however, also mentioned that he did not necessarily find a good fit with any of the campus therapists, prompting him to find an off-campus therapist with the help of the Counseling Center. 

“Now that I’m older, and I’m in the mental health profession myself, I recognize that sometimes it takes multiple tries to find a therapist — or whatever form of help you want — that’s a good fit,” Le wrote. “I hope that people who have negative experiences with therapy, whether that’s at William and Mary or beyond it, continue trying to seek help because I firmly believe help is out there.”

Le believes there to be more nuance to the question of campus mental health resources — students may be hesitant to share their experiences with the Wellness Center due to the stigma surrounding mental health.

However, some students have found it unacceptable and unsustainable to sell students the idea of free therapy and mental health resources without offering long-term solutions or more suitable preventative measures.

Amber Wyatt ’24 mentioned that she chose to attend the College partially due to its advertised support systems. When she arrived on campus, however, she was moved around to two different therapists and subsequently told that she needed to be transferred to outside care. 

“How they approach mental health in general is short-term. The attitude is, ‘let’s fix the problem now,’ but the preventative measures are not there,” Wyatt said. “They will give you a therapist for up to three to four months, and then they will send you out of their care to where it’s very expensive. Half the students here don’t have cars yet. It’s very time-consuming to leave campus. It’s just not sustainable for student health and mental health.”

For students like Wyatt, it is disappointing that the Wellness Center does not offer more long-term assistance, especially at such a prestigious institution. Preventative measures could help end the cycle of students only going to the Wellness Center when they have already reached a low point.

“I think they need to look at their past in order to plan for their future. If they’re going to be as rigorous as they are, they need to invest in their students in more than just academia,” Wyatt said. “If they keep putting all this time and money into these metaphorical Band-Aids, rather than actually just doing the preventative measures … students are just going to keep falling more into that pattern.”

Associate Vice President for Health & Wellness and Director of the Center for Mindfulness & Authentic Excellence Dr. Kelly Crace, along with Director of the Counseling Center Dr. Carina Sudarsky-Gleiser, said in a joint email that universities across the country are facing increased demand for mental health services that exceeds resources.

“There have been times when unprecedented demand and staff shortages have resulted in wait times that are longer than we wanted,” Crace and Sudarsky-Gleiser wrote. “Clinicians and administrators alike found the wait-time issue to be highly problematic. Work was done as quickly as possible to change the clinical system to minimize barriers to help seeking behaviors. Additionally, support was provided for extra clinical capacity.” 

The pair critiqued negative articles aimed at the Wellness Center as unhelpful to the student body, stating that they may have deterred students from using resources.

“At this point, when students can call and schedule a tele-mental health appointment a day later, can be seen for urgent matter same day, or have an in-person appointment within two weeks, the criticism of the Counseling Center as not being sufficient to manage the demand for services is not based on current data,” Crace and Sudarsky-Gleiser wrote.

ZACHARY LUTZKY // FLAT HAT MAGAZINE

Wyatt, however, mentioned that there have been recent incidents involving the Counseling Center that have personally impacted her, suggesting that student concerns are not entirely unfounded.

“I had a traumatic situation happen, and I was told, ‘Okay, you go to this out-service provider that we will not pay for, or else you will not be allowed to come back next semester,’” Wyatt said. “And I said, ‘Well, I can’t afford that,’ and they said, ‘Tough, you have to pay for that yourself. But if you do not go, you will not come back next semester — you will have to sit out a whole semester,’” Wyatt said.

Wyatt mentioned that although she understands the current aim of mental health resources at the College, she believes that to properly serve the student body, the Wellness Center needs to take a harder look at who they are providing for.

“There’s been a long history of mental health issues, specifically with William and Mary. There have been many suicide attempts and incidents,” Wyatt said. “I know several stories of people who have ended up in psych wards out of state from William and Mary because that long-term care was not provided here. And these were obviously students who were capable of doing the work. They got accepted.”

Sholagbade also emphasized that short-term solutions are not enough, stating that for the average student, living on campus nearly full-time requires putting more effort into student well-being. 

Sholagbade further underscored the role that Student Assembly plays in providing support for student mental health, highlighting that both Student Assembly and the College administration have a long way to go in terms of providing long-term support.

“Mental health is not something that’s solved with petting a dog or handing out snacks on the Sadler Terrace,” Sholagbade said. “It’s the kind of thing that requires a holistic understanding of how one’s work contributes or doesn’t contribute to their well-being … I feel like in those areas specifically, I think Student Assembly has a long way to go in promoting real change and growth in those areas.”

Sholagbade discussed an initiative they have been working on that focuses on mandating professors to attend training through the Counseling Center. The training — currently optional — emphasizes the importance of mental health issues and the role that professors play in helping their students work through and manage mental well-being.

Sholagbade also mentioned that much of what the Wellness Center advises is related to limiting the amount of pressure students put on themselves, something that is not always an option for all students.

“I know for me personally, being a child of immigrants, a first-gen American, as well as being a Black American, the pressure is a little higher. And it’s not just me that’s putting pressure on myself in that respect. I know I share these sentiments with other students of color, other first-gen Americans, other first-gen college students that I’ve talked to,” Sholagbade said. “I think two things can be true where it’s like, yes, that pressure is kind of self-inflicted, but on the flip side, there are cultural and societal reasons for us to put that pressure on ourselves.”

Sholagbade urged students to reach out to the Student Assembly and take advantage of the support fellow students can offer when going through a difficult time. They believe the campus community is a place where new resources for mental health assistance can be found.

Albright explained that it is difficult to say what specific steps the College should take to ameliorate the situation but that he has witnessed attempts to make changes, especially during COVID-19.

“I just don’t know that I can say that there’s a whole lot for them to do, except to just provide the resources that they can,” Albright said. “And I think they do a pretty good job of that. They could definitely encourage it more in the general population.”

Walsh urged students to reach out to various on and off-campus organizations, including The Haven, The Avalon Center, the Counseling Center, and Active Minds, a safe space for students to speak about mental health.

“Mental wellness is just as important as physical health, and students don’t always prioritize their own mental health. It’s hard — we’re all so busy and often have an unbearable number of stressors, but this makes it all the more important,” Walsh wrote. “There are a number of resources available to us through the school and in the Williamsburg community, and the counseling staff is always free to help students figure out how to best support their mental health.”

Crace and Sudarsky-Gleiser stated that they are currently working on addressing student concerns and working with students who are advocating for an increase in access and clinical demand.

“A focus on integrative wellness provides the opportunity for students to engage in personally relevant mental health resources to manage stress and distress before they escalate to crises,” Crace and Sudarsky-Gleiser wrote. “We are fortunate to have an administration that understands these issues and is willing to increase our staffing, support our initiatives, and be open to creative solutions.”

Clearly, the mental health discussion at the College continues, with many students critical of the Wellness Center’s services and others less so. 

Some believe long-term solutions should be the next step in increasing resources on campus, while others believe that students are not properly utilizing resources. That being said, common ground can be found with an emphasis on persistence in finding the proper resources that work for each student.

Le mentioned the importance of seeking mental health assistance, even if it is difficult, citing how his opinion of being referred off-campus has changed over time from more critical to more understanding.

“I really hope that everyone, especially people with marginalized and underrepresented identities, pursues therapy or whatever form of help might feel best for them, because it can be extremely beneficial,” Le wrote. “That’s not to say finding that resource is always easy or that using the resource will be a walk in the park — my therapy in undergrad was pretty tough, even though it was tremendously helpful, though I think in the long run it’s so worth it.”