Issue date: 12/12/08 Section: News

Robbie Wroblewski/The Daily Eastern News

Dan Nadler, vice president for student affairs, believes Eastern has highly trained professional counselors that offer adequate treatment for students in the Counseling Center.

"We have a team of highly trained and licensed counselors and health care professionals," Nadler said. 'We offer educational programming, assessments, counseling and support services, and 24-hour-a-day emergency services."

According to InsideHigherEd.com, following the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007, people now believe there are more mental health disorders among college students. Treatment for these disorders such as psychiatric, personality and substance abuse are not commonly provided to students, according to the higher education Web site. InsideHigherEd.com included a study from The Archives of General Psychiatry in its article.

The survey concluded non-college students are as likely to get a mental disorder and unlikely to seek treatment.

According to the survey, college students account for 45 percent of having any psychiatric diagnosis out of 5,000 students, while 47.7 percent of them were non-college students. As for personality disorders, college students are at 17.7 percent, while non-college students are at 21.6 percent.

Since 2006, Eastern has added two full-time counselor positions, increased the hours of part-time psychiatrists, increased the graduate intern staff and increased outreach efforts. "These initiatives have been extremely successful as demonstrated by a significant increase in the number of our students visiting the Counseling Center," Nadler said.

Sandy Cox, director of the Counseling Center, did not reply to e-mail and phone inquiries.

Nadler said Eastern's staffing level is consistent with institutions of similar size as Eastern.

Michael Illovsky, associate director/coordinator of the Testing Assessment and Career Counseling at Western Illinois University, said Western has a professional staff willing to offer students assistance. He, however, believes Western's resources are limited.

"We are trained better than people in our community," Illovsky said. "Our resources are limited, although we have the training, we are not set up for more substantial psychiatric cases." Because the Western campus does not have 24-hour assistance in the counseling center, students are limited to where to seek help after hours.

Illovsky said the center directs students to off-campus locations that include hospitals and health centers where the university bus system will take them for free when they feel they need help.

"But students like to stay with the counseling center because it's free and on campus," Illovsky said. "They know we are good and convenient."

Western also has 10 full-time counselors and a part-time psychiatrist that is in the office on Wednesdays. When students have less complicated cases, they are directed toward physicians, but when there are complicated cases, counselors direct them to the psychiatrist, Illovsky said. Eastern provides service to more than 600 students every year and is open Monday through Friday. The Counseling Center is located on the first floor of the Human Service building.

Brittni Garcia can be reached at 581-7942 or at bmgarcia@eiu.edu.

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