But Rath was not alone.
CAPS received more than 5,000
requests for services in the
2018-2019 school year and 57
percent of University students
reported feeling overwhelming
anxiety. However, as students
seek support for mental health,
concerns about the inadequacies
of the University’s mental health
system are persistent. Grievances
range from long wait times
for CAPS initial consultations
to inefficient distribution of
resources between North and
Central campuses and a lack of
support for students of color.
Waiting for CAPS
Students
have
expressed
their
frustration
with
the
wait time at CAPS through
memes in Facebook groups and
various petitions to increase
CAPS resources and counselor
availability. The wait time for
an initial consultation at CAPS
was the most common grievance
among the University students
interviewed for this story.
Last semester’s wait times
continue to drive the negative
perception of the University’s
mental
health
resources
on
campus. Todd Sevig, chair of
UM
Student
Mental
Health
Work Group, told The Daily
that the longest wait time for a
CAPS appointment was two and
a half weeks and they had the
shortest wait time in Ann Arbor.
However, many students said
they waited much longer than
two weeks.
According
to
the
CAPS
website, the initial consultation
wait time is currently down
to two business days. CAPS
acknowledged the long wait
times during the fall semester
and attributed it to increased
demand.
Students
vent
frustration
about the wait times through
social
media.
CAPS-related
memes were voted the second-
best meme of 2019 by over 1,300
users in the “UMich Memes for
Wolverteens” Facebook group.
Meme
tournament
organizer
Lucas Renno described CAPS
as
“representing
pessimism,
something broken within the
University that may well be
unfixable.”
In an interview with The
Daily, Sevig emphasized the
efforts at CAPS to address
student concerns.
“I will meet with any student
who wants to meet with me
about CAPS or mental health,”
Sevig said. “We changed our
intake model five years ago. That
only came from a student who
was upset at the wait time for
getting into CAPS. The dialogue,
back and forth, I love it. So, email
me with suggestions.”
LSA senior Sulayman Qazi told
The Daily he was struggling with
generalized
anxiety
disorder
and was feeling out of place as a
transfer student when he tried
to make a CAPS appointment in
Fall 2018.
“The
wait
time
when
I
checked was 20-something days,
and a friend of mine waited even
longer,” Qazi said. “He said by
the time he saw them, he was
already over the situation he
was having, and so he just had to
compartmentalize it himself. I
thought that was scary.”
LSA sophomore Eva Schwartz
said students who would like
to talk to someone sooner but
do not feel like their situation
warrants a crisis counselor are
left in the dark.
“If
you’ve
made
an
appointment, the CAPS website
could do a better job displaying
other resources on campus in
the meantime,” Schwartz said.
“It’d be helpful to have a page
that says, ‘If this doesn’t work
for you, maybe consider going
to Wolverine Wellness,’ or ‘Here
are some of the other resources,’
outlined.”
Local coffee shop Elixir Vitae,
known for its chai lattes, diverse
clientele and creative wall art
shut its doors on Dec. 20 after
almost two decades. Located
across the street from Nickels
Arcade and thought of by many
loyal customers as a hidden gem
of Ann Arbor, the store’s regulars
lamented its closing.
LSA senior Ola Amokomowo,
Elixir regular, said she will
miss many things about the
cafe, including its teas and the
welcoming community.
“It’s honestly so upsetting,”
Amokomowo said. “I just recently
became a regular, actually. I heard
about it at the beginning of my
senior year, and it got to the point
where I was going almost every
day basically because they have
the best London Fog I’ve ever had
in my life. You just knew that your
business mattered. I felt like a part
of something bigger than myself.”
According to loyal customers,
Elixir stood out from Ann Arbor’s
many local coffee shops because
of its staff and warm environment.
Amokomowo elaborated on her
own Elixir experience, calling
Elixir a “standout.”
“It really was a local standout
place. It felt homey. I knew
that they cared about my day, I
cared about the baristas’ day,”
Amokomowo said. “I really loved
it. I enjoyed being there so much,
and I’m pretty sad that it’s gone.”
Jimmy Curtiss worked at Elixir
Vitae as a barista for 15 years. He
said he valued Elixir’s community-
oriented values.
“It really was a townie coffee
shop that I feel like didn’t actually
cater to any specific demographic.
It was just kind of for everyone
which was really, really cool,”
Curtiss said. “It was its own
little insular universe, and it was
just bizarre, because it was this
isolated, self-contained space, and
yet it was so close to campus.”
The owner of Elixir Vitae did
not respond to The Daily’s request
for comment on why the coffee
shop closed in time for publication.
LSA
junior
Basil
Alsubee,
another Elixir regular said he was
impressed by the cafe’s hospitality,
especially
with
customers
experiencing homelessness.
“It’s
just
a
very
homey,
unpretentious, welcoming place
for me,” Alsubee said. “I don’t
know a coffee shop in Ann Arbor
that’s been as kind to the homeless
population in Ann Arbor as Elixir.”
Alsubee said he appreciated
how accepting the atmosphere at
Elixir is .
“As a Muslim, I have five prayers
every day … and Elixir was actually
one of the very few places where
I did that quite regularly and at
some point the baristas noticed,
and they actually were so kind
to bring me a small little prayer
rug that was in the corner of the
coffee shop that I regularly used,”
Alsubee.
LSA senior Leena Ghannam
said Ann Arbor is losing several
small
local
businesses
like
Elixir and, with them, a sense of
familiarity and belonging.
“It had accumulated a really
strong base of people who would
go there frequently, and so it’s
kind of sad because once the place
leaves, the community leaves with
it. It’s no longer essentialized,”
Ghannam said. “I think it’s a real
shame, especially because a lot
of other, older businesses in Ann
Arbor have been shutting down
in the past five years, and I think
they’re being replaced by a lot of
larger corporations.”
CE NTR AL STU DE NT GOVE RNME NT
2A — Wednesday, January 15, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Ruchita Iyer/Daily
Whit Froehlich, Speaker of Central Student Government, calls the assembly to order at the Union Tuesday evening.
TUESDAY:
By Design
THURSDAY:
Twitter Talk
FRIDAY:
Behind the Story
MONDAY:
Looking at the Numbers
WEDNESDAY:
This Week in History
HANNAH MACKAY
Daily Staff Reporter
Students mourn loss of local coffee shop’s ‘welcoming’ and ‘inclusive’ environment
Elixir Vitae closes doors after nearly 20
years to disappointment of customers
Jan. 7, 1972: Free classes offered by education, social
change program to continue despite Smith’s statement
The Program for Educational
and
Social
Change
(PESC)
has accelerated its plans to
open University courses to the
public
free-of-charge
despite
Vice President Allan Smith’s
statement Thursday that such
a program violates University
policy.
At a meeting of PESC members
and
supporters
yesterday,
psychology Prof. Richard Mann
dismissed Smith’s statement as
“ranting and raving,” and said it
held little weight.
A PESC publication says that
all PESC courses are “open to
all, and free to non-University
people.”
Smith
Thursday
described” such a policy as being
“not within the province of
the program personnel nor the
individual professor.”
PESC members, both students
and faculty members, agreed
yesterday to step-up the publicity
of their program – as originally
constituted.
Hoping to squelch opposition
to the idea of free auditing of
courses by those not enrolled in
the University, PESC will begin
referring
to
the
community
auditors as “resource people”
or
“colleagues,”
rather
than
“students.”
In addition, PESC is urging its
supporters to appear en masse at
Monday’s meeting of the literary
college faculty.
Mann also revealed that he
and six other PESC members
had met with the LSA Executive
Committee
and
Dean
Frank
Rhodes Thursday to discuss
PESC’s structure and funding.
While PESC presented its request
of $4,600 from the $50,000 fund
earmarked for “innovation” in
LSA, the committee offered no
definitive responses, according
to Mann.
However,
English
Prof.
Robert Super, a member of the
LSA committee, said that the
funding question had assumed
no importance in the meeting,
whose primary purpose was the
edification of the committee
members with respect to PESC.
The
LSA
committee
had
presented PESC with a number
of
administrative
questions,
many of which were answered
‘at yesterday’s PESO meeting. For
example, the question of whether
community
participation
in
the courses would affect their
quality and/or close them to
regular students was countered
by PESC’s assertion that students
registering for PESC courses are
fully aware of their access to
community members.
PESC
pointed
to
the
University’s
“terrible
relationship”
with
the
community and the expansion of
University curriculum, brought
about by the new PESC courses,
as further justifications for its
acceptance.
Charles
Thomas,
who
is
president of the Black Economic
Development League and plans
to
instruct
a
PESC
course
entitled “’The Socio-Economic
and Political Foundations of
County Politics,” said that the
qualifications of nonprofessors
in PESC should not be challenged
by the University.
His
statement
apparently
anticipated a debate over whether
courses such as his could grant
credit hours to University students.
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the fall and winter terms by students at the University OF Michigan. One copy is
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CAPS
From Page 1A
See CAPS, Page 3A