Imagine this: a student, feeling a bit depressed, out of touch, and in general need of help and counseling, ventures into the counseling center located in the infirmary to find someone to talk to. After speaking to the counselor, the student is left feeling better than before, only to find out confidential information has been released to an unauthorized person and their parents have been called to pick them up and remove them from campus for “an involuntary leave of absence.”
“The student may be notified [of their dismissal] after his or her class registrations, housing and meal plan contracts, and student privileges have been terminated,” wrote Michael Gradziel ’02 in a Letter to the Editor in the September 11 issue of The Polytechnic.
The student files an appeal, and the appeal is denied. He or she “will have had no rights to register for classes during the leave and so may be left with few options for the semester immediately following the leave,” continued Gradziel.
Shocked at the negative slant on their services, the counseling center welcomed the chance to try to clear their name.
Vice President of Student Life Eddie Knowles explains that the purpose of the policy is for “the student’s health to be the primary consideration.”
“For years we have been very proactive on health care issues,” he continued, touting the school’s preparedness on issues such as meningitis.
“We are here to give students the help they need,” Counselor Lorna Guyett said.
“When we put someone on leave, it is not because of risk management issues. Most students who do go on leave want to. It is very unusual to see a student object,” she continued.
The counseling center offers leaves of absence as a last resort for helping students.
“In such situations, it is usually the case that if the student did not take a leave of
absence he/she would face academic dismissal, the policy reads.
Enforced leaves take place in approximately 10 percent of all cases, roughly three or four per year. Students seeking help who are in need of serious assistance are normally told at the start of their first therapy session that a leave might be required. Normally, however, leave is not prescribed after the first session. “We have highly experienced people in the counseling center; they don’t make judgments lightly,” said Knowles.
If a leave is to be initiated, the director of the counseling center must interview the student. In this way, a leave must be approved by at least two counselors. If a leave is to be instigated and the student disagrees, it will only be enforced if the student presents a “clear and present danger” to other students, is “too dysfunctional” to care for his or her self, or is requiring more care than the Rensselaer support systems can provide. The student still has an opportunity to appeal this ruling to the director of the health center, and then to the vice president of student life.
In the case of a leave, the student’s grades will all be changed to Ws (Withdrawn) and his/her transcript will merely read “Medical Leave,” having begun the day the student first started counseling.
In order to return from leave, the student must meet a series of requirements: they must provide a summary of treatment from a mental health professional they have been seeing during the leave, they must take two courses at a school other than RPI to demonstrate their academic ability, they must have been gone for one full semester, and they must have a re-admission interview with the counseling center. The quicker all of these conditions are met, the quicker the student can be returned to student status (i.e. if the re-admission interview takes place before the registration period for the following semester, the student can register at the same time as the rest of the student body).
The counseling center touts this policy as being fair and just. “I haven’t read this in a while, but it’s a great policy,” stated Guyett. But for all the stipulations of this policy, it isn’t final. It leaves wide gaps in order to treat patients on a case by case basis, and they take advantage of it.
“If you read the policy,” Guyett said, “it’s general enough to let us take other steps as needed.”
Despite the fact that this policy that may hurt them, students in need of counseling must remember that only a handful of students every year, out of the many who visit the center, feel the experience has hurt them. Professional mental help, free of charge, is not available anywhere else nearby. The counseling center and counselors are there to help students, and in the majority of cases they do.
