What do you believe is more important: the mental health of our student body or a new field house? Although many would say mental health is of more value, UWL’s financial decisions are not reflective of aiding the illnesses prevalent. Our counseling systems are substandard and our needs are persistently unmet.

As of this year, UWL is failing to reach the recommended student to counselor ratio. In fact, we don’t even have one-third of the recommended amount of counselors. Consequently, we are allowed–not guaranteed–up to ten appointments each academic year.

Depending on the stresses and mental illness being taken on, one appointment every three weeks may not be enough for some of our classmates. One may suggest urgent care.

Although it’s a useful service, urgent care only runs two hours a day during the week and is on a first-come-first-serve basis. Because struggling with mental illness is predictable during this demanding stage in our lives, it’s important to always have access to a trusted adult to turn to for support and guidance.

In addition to our tuition, UWL charges us with segregated fees for services, programs and facilities which include our counseling systems and recreational facilities. In order to construct the new field house, UWL is using forty-nine-million dollars of our segregated fees and university funds.

To ensure that our money doesn’t continue to be funneled into athletics when we are supposed to be guaranteed quality counseling services, we must be advocates for balanced funding.

An effective way of doing so to obtain more counselors is to contact Student Association for new, community-building ideas.

We cannot allow an additional forty-nine-million dollars go towards building another field house when our community’s mental health is the priority needing to be fixed.

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