Donald Keough, News Editor–
Students and Denison Campus Governance Association filed into a town hall meeting in Burton Morgan on Nov. 11 to discuss finances and therapy at the Hoaglin Wellness Center.
Recent policy changes at the Wellness Center have prompted feedback from students, and the meeting was held to give students a space for their questions regarding this policy and for any other concerns they had.
The new policy bills students’ insurance after their sixth counseling visit within an academic year. Students must also pay for any psychiatry appointment. Both counseling and the first psychiatry visit were covered in the previous policy.
Holly Levin, the director of wellness, education and health, and Michelle Barcelona, the director for medical services, both attended the event.
“Levin and Barcelona attended the DCGA meeting this week, and overall, the discussion was positive and constructive,” a member from the Wellness Center said after the meeting. “Our goal was to provide clear and informative responses to student questions while emphasizing our commitment to transparency and student well-being. We wanted students to know that their voices are valued.”
Anna Crum ‘28 attended the meeting. She said it was the first town hall hosted by DCGA she had attended.
This semester, Crum had also reached out to Dr. Ric Hall, the Vice President of Student Life, to discuss some of the recent changes at the Wellness Center. She said she “wanted to go to the town hall to voice” her opinions once again.
“[The meeting] gave me a little bit of the same information,” Crum said. “I had some questions that still weren’t answered, but it was good to hear new people talk about it and I think [the speakers] knew the wellness center a little bit more intimately than other members of administration.”
She also said that she thought it was nice to hear other students’ questions and consider their views, saying she “wanted other student perspectives besides” her and her friends.
“It was good to be there,” Crum said. “It was an opportunity for people to talk about something that is important to them.”
One of Crum’s biggest concerns was that limiting counseling sessions may decrease mental health support because those struggling might be deterred by the potential financial burden.
“Limiting counseling sessions… doesn’t get as many people through the door, because they know after their first six sessions, they have to start paying,” Crum said. “That alone is going to make people not move to counseling, especially when counseling is already hard for a lot of people to make that first step toward. There is an issue with accessibility.”
Certain studies have attempted to measure to what degree cost affects access to counseling. Published in the Journal of Family and Economic Issues, a study measured perceived financial stress and its relation to counseling services in adults and found that higher levels of anxiety arose due to financial stress.
It also suggests that accessible financial counseling programs are demanded to help prevent negative influences on individuals mental health. But it doesn’t clarify what these accessible financial counseling programs look like, as they often depend on the situation.
“I think it’s hard enough to talk to a counselor,” Crum said. “I don’t think applying for a scholarship to get help is reasonable for the school.”
For Crum, counseling services have played an important role in her life.
“It’s a big deal to me, and it has been really impactful,” Crum said. “I was told before that I don’t need therapy. I think coming to Denison, when it was free, and it didn’t matter if I needed it or not, was really meaningful.”
She also said that free mental health access was a factor in her decision to enroll. Before the new policy, she used to see a counselor who worked in the Wellness Center. Now, she is seeing a counselor outside of Denison.
“For me to utilize that for one year and then have it taken away was kind of rough,” Crum said. “I think it’s a drawing point, maybe not the main one, but a drawing point for a lot of students, and so for them to be cut back it feels limiting in a lot of ways.”
Although the limits were a point of discussion among a number of students at the town hall, there were an array of other suggestions and questions posed to Levin and Barcelona, covering the new wellness vending machine, visibility on campus and qualities about the staff, among other comments.
Ikera Olandesca ‘26 also attended the event, and asked Levin and Barcelona about the lack of people of color on the counseling staff.
“The issue of a [person of color] therapist is something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” Olandesca said.
Olandesca said that she wasn’t necessarily hopeful that herself alone could make any change, but she wanted to understand the situation better. She said that the meeting was “very revealing and insightful,” but also “eye opening and disheartening” in other ways.
She hoped that she was able to communicate why she believes people of color are important to have on a counseling staff at the meeting. Her personal experience with counseling at Denison, which she said “didn’t really suit me,” has been one of the reasons she feels a diverse counseling staff is important.
“When I did counseling, I felt supported in some areas, but I always felt like [my counselor] was catching up to me, because there was always something that she didn’t fully understand,” Olandesca said. “If I complain about being homesick, that’s very different than being homesick when you’re like a state apart versus a country away.”