Brittanee Sanders / Kaye Wells

901 13th Street South

Birmingham, AL 35294-1250

02/21/2020

President Ray L. Watts

1720 2nd Ave South
Birmingham, AL 35294

Dear President Watts:

We would like the opportunity to discuss with you, as UAB students, the lack of timely

access to on-campus mental health resources. The current wait time to be seen by a counselor is

over two weeks. This can be very off putting to students who are actively experiencing a crisis

and need help as soon as possible. According to our research, the reason for this wait time is due

to A) An insufficient number of counselors employed by the university, and B) Lack of access to

the Community Counseling Clinic. We would like to work with you in order to change the way

mental health support is handled for UAB students.

According to a study done by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in four young

adults have a diagnosable mental illness. They further report over 80% of their study population

(college students) have felt overwhelmed within the past year and go on to note that 45% have

even felt helpless within the same timeframe. As students here at UAB, we are heartbroken to

discover that many of our peers feel the same way. While we are absolutely grateful for the

resources we already have, we also believe they can be improved to reach more students in need.
 Our goal is to reduce the wait times students experience before they receive mental health

services. Our discussions with the student body reveal two solutions that have the capacity to

almost eliminate wait times altogether. A) Hire more counselors in the Student Counseling

Center. Because the number of staff on hand is extremely limited, students must wait

approximately 2 weeks to be seen. This is not timely service, especially for a student in crisis,

and should be avoided as much as possible. More counselors equal shorter wait times and

happier students. B) Allow students access to the Community Counseling Clinic. Currently,

students are not allowed to take advantage of the Community Counseling Clinic’s services. We

believe granting access to the CCC will allow students to “spread out” between on-campus

mental health resources, giving the Student Counseling Center a chance to relieve some of it’s

backlog. Again, the object of our mission is to reduce wait times overall for students seeking

mental-health care.

Thank you for taking the time to read our requests. We would love a reply detailing your

stance on this conflict and look forward to working with you to deliver a higher quality of care to

our students.

Sincerely,

Brittanee Sanders and Kaye Wells.