Friday, March 29, 2024

Letter: COGS, ASMSU presidents looking for CAPS director

College often offers some of the most incredible experiences of a person’s life. Undergraduate years open a world of possibilities to discover our passions, make lifelong friendships and grow as a human being. Likewise, graduate school is a time to grow through research, mentorship, and contributing to a field that we love. Both cases represent critical years filled with life transformation, intense identity development and truly enriching experience.

There is another side to that coin, though. 

As we know, these years are not without struggle; it is often during the most stressful times that issues surface of which we were not even aware. To become the people we are meant to be at the end of that long road to graduation, many students face feelings of being lost, anxious, uncertain about the future, depression, and other serious psychiatric conditions, often with an onset in the early to mid-twenties. Students push themselves to their limits every day and sometimes do not have the control or perspective needed to push forward alone. 

This brings us to why we are reaching out to you. We need a champion-in-chief for our behavioral health services on our campus. 

Through the position as a director for counseling and psychiatric services, we’re trusting in someone who understands the unique systematic issues of university students, both graduate and undergraduate, and who has vision for how to lead a diverse team of counselors, psychiatrists and mental health professionals all with student needs at the forefront. Those needs change and develop over time and range from the grief of losing a loved one, to struggling with addiction, to serious psychiatric conditions such as bipolar disorder and clinical depression and anxiety. 

Michigan State University is home to over 50,000 Spartans, all of whom are giving it their all to contribute to society and transform their lives in the most productive way possible. But we can’t take the lead on our health by ourselves. 

We need someone to demonstrate the importance by taking the lead on mental health. Our peers are stepping up to the plate to form support groups outside of formal services and sessions because they are eager to help one another. 

Know that as student leaders, we are taking leadership into our own hands to create a better campus climate for behavioral health. But most importantly, know that we’re ready to welcome you and work with you, too. 

To share or apply for the position of Director of the Counseling and Psychiatry Services at Michigan State University, please click here: http://careers.msu.edu/cw/en-us/job/494959/executive-mgtmt-directorexec-mgt#.Wg9IJUou204.link 

Lorenzo Santavicca is the president of the Associated Students of Michigan State University, the all-university undergraduate student government. Ashley Fuente is the president of the Council of Graduate Students, the all-university graduate student government. 

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