Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

After Suicides, GWU Revisits Counseling

In the wake of three suicides at its Mount Vernon campus earlier this year, The George Washington University has rushed to add counseling resources at its satellite campus. At Georgetown’s other Washington, D.C. locations, counseling services already present at the Law Center and the School of Continuing Studies ensured no mirrored response is necessary.

Three students in West Hall, a dormitory of George Washington’s satellite campus located in northwest D.C., have died since January — two in the first week of April. The first two have been confirmed as suicides, and the cause of death for the third is unconfirmed.

“We at [Counseling and Psychiatric Services], like many others on campus, were greatly saddened to learn of these tragedies and this premature loss of life. Our hearts go out to the students, families, friends and to faculty and staff at GWU,” Phil Meilman, Georgetown CAPS director, wrote in an email.

On April 5, GWU reacted to the events by offering counseling services to the Mount Vernon campus through the rest of the year, and the university is considering making those services public.

With all off-campus locations already holding psychiatric facilities, Georgetown administrators expressed confidence in the placement and availability of the university’s counseling services, though Meilman assured that CAPS remains vigilant about such incidents.

“On a regular basis, we work with other offices on campus to figure out the best ways to address behavioral incidents that are affecting the community,” Meilman said.

Located in Darnall Hall, the CAPS office aims to serve both undergraduate students and graduate students who take classes on the main campus.

There are satellite CAPS offices at the university’s other locations at SCS on Massachusetts Avenue and the Law Center near Capitol Hill, both staffed with professionals for all needs.

Mitchell Bailin, dean of students at the Law Center, explained that, while all Georgetown students have the opportunity to visit the main campus for counseling, he has found that the law students typically visit the law center’s CAPS office, which is staffed with two full-term clinical psychologists and a psychiatrist.

“They have a choice, and most of them choose, if they’re going to seek an evaluation, to seek it here on campus because it’s more convenient,” Bailin said.

Meilman stressed the importance of these satellite offices in order to properly meet the needs of graduate students at the Law Center and SCS.

“For the most part, graduate students are older, have already chosen a field, more are partnered or married and some have children, so the issues tend [to] be somewhat different from those of undergraduates,” Meilman said.

Bailin saw the service as essential for law students because of the stress associated with their future profession.

“Many, many students every year go for at least one evaluative session, and sometimes more than one session, with one of the clinical psychologists,” he said. “Our students talk very openly about the need for self-care and for being attentive to their wellness as something that they need to do to prepare for a stressful profession.”

The SCS has similar resources in place for its students with staff members of CAPS available onsite at the downtown campus.

“Both CAPS staff members have offices at the SCS downtown campus,” Maggie Moore, ommunications officer of arts and sciences for Georgetown University, wrote in an email. “SCS students may call the intake line and are then referred to emergency services or may make an appointment to meet one of these counselors on the SCS downtown campus.”

The SCS also takes particular care to ensure the services are available at times that are convenient to students.

“Because many SCS students have classes there at night, one of the staff members there begins her workday at 4 p.m.,” Meilman said.

Bailin did not see any particular response to the GWU incidents, but considered the existing system attuned to the students’ needs and well-received by the student body.

“We ramped up our services four years ago now. We used to have the equivalent of one full-time clinical psychologist and we went to two, and that was consistent with increasing demand of law schools across the country for mental health care for law students,” he said. “I think we long ago saw the need to increase our resources and we successfully did that and it served the law students very well.”

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