Presidential Initiative Model For Collaboration

OPINIONSOPINIONS

December 17, 2021 Established 1874 Volume 151, Number 9

The Counseling Center’s Website Needs Immediate Improvement

EdItOrIal BOard

EdItOrS-IN-ChIEf Anisa Curry Vietze Kushagra Kar

MaNagINg EdItOr Gigi Ewing

OPINIONS EdItOr Arman Luczkow

In summer 2020, President Carmen Twillie Ambar announced a Presidential Initiative on Racial Equity and Diversity that “seeks to address issues of violence, police-community relationships, and racial injustices.” By establishing an umbrella for future projects to fall under, President Ambar encouraged the campus community to start an ongoing conversation about diversity and equity. Notably, by September of that year, the Conservatory released a plan to increase diversity and equity within programming and pedagogy.

The latest project from the Presidential Initiative is the recently announced Center for Race, Equity, and Inclusion. According to President Ambar’s announcement of the Center, it “will bring together academic opportunities, co-curricular experiences, career programming, mentorship, community building, and civic engagement.” Every one of those elements will have direct benefits to students on campus and, crucially, make Oberlin a hub for pressing conversations.

After a college experience marked by financial cuts and pandemic precautions, this Editorial Board is heartened to hear plans for this new Center. The Center brings together everything that Oberlin professes to be: justice-oriented, committed to racial and social equity, and rooted in the community. The Presidential Initiative itself is led by a commission of administrators, faculty, and students. The Conservatory action plan was made in consultation with the Black Musicians’ Guild. Once the new Center for Race, Equity, and Inclusion is up and running, students will be invited to work in or engage in fellowships through the space.

In addition to its own merits as a necessary articulation of the College’s commitment to racial justice and equity, the Presidential Initiative is a model for how administrators can work with students in an engaging and productive manner. Often, students say they see a pattern of crucial work falling on their shoulders. In the past five years, students have seen elements of student life that should be handled by the College being neglected. The JED Campus mental health program was deprioritized by the College and mostly fell on student workers. When students’ belongings were lost in the shutdown of campus due to COVID-19, Residential Education was unable to work out the logistics to reconnect students with their belongings. A year after students first left campus in March 2020, the College increased its efforts to return student belongings, yet it only did so after months of urging by Student Senate and other Obies. However, the Presidential Initiative marks a new precedent: administrators and students working together, non-adversarially, in pursuit of a common goal.

What’s most exciting about the Initiative’s ongoing work is the prospect of what’s to come, with a slew of updates slated for release in the upcoming months. For us, it’s also meaningful how President Ambar — the most prominent face of the College — directly interacts with the community. Be it through Instagram updates from Organ Pump and the Hanukkah Dreidel tournament or workout sessions with various sports teams, students have the opportunity to interact and connect with her in a way that transforms this institutional figurehead into a leader who cares. These are more than the public appearances administrators are wont to make; they’re deliberate acts of engagement with the variety of microcosms within our college. It means that students aren’t just dependent on the availability of office hours to share their thoughts with their president, and the head of our college isn’t waiting passively for input from others.

While, as we have previously written about, criticism is crucial to consistently evolving as a community, it is equally important to reflect on the movements toward positive change. This Editorial Board takes heart in the steps the Office of the President makes — particularly in its Presidential Initiative. The direct, open, and student-centered approach of the Office serves as an example of a transparent relationship between students and administrators, and provides a means through which to strengthen these relationships. We hope that this project is the first of many opportunities for open collaboration between administrators, students, and faculty on issues of deep importance to our community.

Celeste Wicks

I was poking around for cheap therapy options. This was a big step. Since, like many students, I don’t have in-state insurance, a car, or a trust fund, private practice is out of my budget. I really have one option. I searched “Oberlin College Counseling,” expecting zen web design and an appointment schedule. Instead, I felt excluded, disheartened, and put off. The website should be taken down immediately and rewritten.

What it should be:

Inviting and reassuring, with a simple link for making an appointment.

What it was like for me:

Excluding:

I clicked the tab marked “Sexual Abuse.” It starts with a narrow definition of what qualifies as sexual abuse. Because I was an adult when the abuse started, my experiences didn’t make the cut. Sex abuse only happens to children and adolescents? I didn’t know they wanted me to understand my abuse as sexual assualt. Assault seems like a word for an action rather than an ongoing relationship. Was there no tab for me? As I read their definitions of abuse, I felt an urge to close my laptop; the language was anatomically specific and violent.

Why did they bother defining any of it? When someone wants therapy, can’t they make an appointment without diagnoses for what’s bugging them?

I went to the Counseling Center for help. If I was confused about the definition of sexual abuse, I’d go to Google.

Disheartening:

I read on. Apparently sex abuse means you will absolutely need exhausting and expensive, long-term therapy — YEARS of therapy. Oberlin’s Counseling is presented as a brief way to “shore up.” Not comforting.

Off-Putting:

To be fair, they do list another option for survivors — we can read a book! “Bibliotherapy is a place many people start, and The Courage to Heal and The Courage to Heal Workbook are commonly used first books.” Yikes. I knew the sordid history of this book. Why didn’t they? The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse is an infamous and widely discredited self-help book written by a poet — not a therapist — 30 years ago.

“The book has been criticized for being used primarily by incompetent therapists,” says Wikipedia. It’s a shame that the same author who didn’t realize I had access to Google didn’t know about Wikipedia. Could’ve saved them the embarrassment.

The problems aren’t isolated to the “Sexual Abuse” tab. Each “Specific Issues” page also needs to be rewritten.

Rigid:

Presenting rigid, pathologizing, or unsubstantiated definitions as norms was a pattern.

Weird:

Resources were sparse and well ... weird. The “Sexual Abuse” page lists “Resources” but it is only one website “designed to assist and empower men.” This odd resource simultaneously relegates men to an afterthought and fails to address the existence of gender diversity. Also, all of us could use more than one resource and a 30-year-old book. Thankfully, we have options! - Uncallable crisis lines - Unnamed area coordinators, who are presented as the ideal suicide prevention squad - Lots of religious (Christian) resources. Weird!

Poorly-Written:

The best page by far is “Bipolar Disorder.” Sadly, this is because it is a copy-pasted six-sentence blurb from the National Institute of Mental Health website.

Dangerous:

Under “Self Inflicted Violence,” the Counseling Center explicitly enumerates 10 ways to self-harm. Isn’t this irresponsible and potentially dangerous? But that would only be for people who bother to read the website, and I think they have made sure very few people do.

Making a better website shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s mostly about cutting pages. And to the Counseling Center — Hi! Competence and Wikipedia are at the top of my résumé. Shoot me an email. I’d be happy to help.

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