By Cindy Garcia
Students on campus may see a few extra dollars added to their fees in the future.
The University of Iowa Graduate and Professional Student Government, along with undergraduate student government, is considering whether to pass student fee increase in order to support the University Counseling Service.
The UI currently ranks as the lowest staffed university for counseling in the Big Ten. Just 12 full-time counselors are currently employed at the University Counseling Service. For every 2,750 students, there is one counselor — when under the UI’s accreditation standards, there should be one employee for every 1,000 to 1,500 students.
The shortage of staff results in students being turned away, waitlisted, and receiving insufficient time with staff to address their concerns, said Barry Schreier, the director of the University Counseling Service said Tuesday at a GPSG meeting.
Schreier said the disconnect between need and service will not go away completely, but can be alleviated.
“Each center has to decide how big they want the gap to be,” he said.
Schreier noted that he is currently looking into several solutions to solve the issue.
These include securing financial support from academic programs on campus, using embedded models, implementing individual fees for services, or being supported by the UI Foundation.
However, Schreier stressed the benefits of implementing an increased fee for the University Counseling Service.
He said University Counseling Service funds come from a general fund for student wellness. If the Counseling Service had a designated health fee or access to the current fee, then its funds would increase along with enrollment.
Schreier said the University Counseling Service, in summary, requests an addition of 7 full-time counselors, which would decrease the University Counseling Service staff to student ratio by 30 percent.
GPSG also discussed a joint initiative committee it has formed with UISG to work with students, at the request of UI President Bruce Harreld.
GPSG President Joshua Schoenfeld said all students on campus would have the opportunity to submit proposals for new initiatives on campus or solutions they have to problems on campus through a survey.
“The main idea is to get an idea on how students, faculty, and staff want to solve these problems,” he said.
UISG and GPSG will collaborate to condense the requests or solutions and submit them to UI administration.