Union notes from Union / Management Meeting

Present – Prince Charles Alexander,Helen Lewis, Margaret McAllister, Jeff Perry, Stephanie Reich, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, David Scott, Elizabeth Seitz, Andrew Shryock, Will Silvio, and Jeri Sykes.

Management – Jay Kennedy, Chris Kandus-Fischer, Lis Tomlin, Scott Trach, Lori Johnson, Jeff Klug, Joe Bennett, Ron Savage, Sgt. Foley, Dave Ransom, Melinda Thomas, Rachael Winters, Leah Driscoll, Bill Whitney, Mila Thigpen

Jackson opened the meeting.

Chris Kandus-Fischer discussed the topic of delayed or non-response to student psychological assistance requests. Set the stage for the last two falls with significant issues, fall of 2017 – Globe article and last semester the fire on Hemenway St. caused major issues for the Student Services teams.

Jeff Klug made a presentation regarding the Student Services team members and their roles. We have an academic advising area and counseling center that are now separate, in the past they were connected. We are trying to respond to all our student needs. Jeff went through all the programs and student support for Health/Wellness.

Lis Tomlin went through the Counseling Center and their very new staff (75% have been here less than five months) and the clinical operations of the office. A picture of the fall: 8% of the entire Berklee students and 12% of the BoCo students were seen by the Counseling Center. We see all students that go to a hospital and then upon their return before they can return to class. Overall, there has been a substantial increase to the number of students that we are seeing at every level. In the past, students could have 12 sessions over their entire stay at Berklee, now we offer 12 sessions per year. We don’t really handle weekly appointments for students, we will refer out to someone that needs weekly therapy.

We are all required to report any sexual assault or self-harm – if you don’t know who to contact, please contact Public Safety and they can direct you to the appropriate office.

Is there one place that we can send students to then get sent to the correct office?

Chris Kandus-Fischer – we are working on cleaning up the on-line presence and the communications. Right now, we don’t have one place to contact – the best place to start if you don’t know where to send the student is Public Safety, they can then direct students to the correct place. We are looking into having a physical location for all the offices but right now we are all over the campus. We are looking at all the possibilities and a centralized location would be ideal.

Technology and prevention to help isolation. We have a program called Thrive that connects students to therapists in the area and helps direct them to appropriate services. In terms of prevention, we have done several clinics and ongoing campaigns to help awareness of our services and help the students.

Jay: Chris talk to your people and find a set of links to provide the union to put on their website as resources.