“I would like them to say,
‘What a great downtown. Let’s
come back, and let’s tell people
about it,” Hunter said.
According to Hunter, Blake and
Herseth, the open plan for the
library plot can only exist if the
plans for housing and commercial
real estate are scrapped.
However, not all attendees
felt disdain for the library lot
being developed into affordable
housing. Ann Arbor resident
Zachary Storey spoke to the group
about a period of time in which
he
experienced
homelessness
and would have benefited greatly
from
affordable
housing
or
convertible furniture, which can
be used as beds after dark.
Despite
calls
for
more
affordable
housing
in
Ann
Arbor,
some
attendees
said
there are other sites in the city
that have been designated for
development. They said residents
should pressure City Council to
proceed with those plans without
undermining their open, green
vision for the library plot.
Ann Arbor resident Saharsh
Hajela is a University alum
who went to work in Ann
Arbor
immediately
following
graduation. Hajela said he came
to the event to become more
involved in his community, but
feared older residents would
“villainize” certain types of
people occupying the park.
“(The co-chairs) hinted at other
ways to get involved,” Faber said.
“They said that there might even be
some research opportunities, things
that they would want the Student
Advisory Panel to look into to figure
out … maybe the Commission would
run into some kind of problem
and they would task the Student
Advisory Panel with doing some sort
of basic research.”
The PCCN ultimately delegated
this additional research work to
eight
Internal
Analysis
Teams
(IAT): specialized units composed
of both students and faculty that
investigated means of cutting carbon
emissions. The PCCN’s Fall Interim
Report, which was published on
Dec. 2, describes this change in the
SAP’s intended role.
“It was originally conceived
that (student advisers) would also
provide research contributions on
specific topic areas – a role that is
now being fulfilled through student
participation on the internal analysis
teams,” the report reads.
Three SAP members allege that
the PCCN gave them a short period
of time to provide their comments
and that the PCCN ignored most
of their suggestions. They said the
PCCN did make changes to official
reports in response to some of their
comments, but claimed that these
revisions were restricted to changes
in phrasing. According to the
members, the PCCN never provided
feedback for why suggestions were
excluded and they did not learn
which were included until they saw
the final published versions.
A member of the panel who
requested anonymity due to fear
of losing their position on the
panel sent an email to The Daily
detailing concerns with the PCCN.
The member will be referred to as
Member 1 in this article.
“Commission
members
have
never once responded to SAP
suggestions to ask for clarification
or to explain their reasoning for
rejecting serious concerns that
the SAP has brought to them, as
representatives of the student body,”
Member 1 wrote.
Another member of the SAP,
referred to in this story as Member
2,
confirmed
this
claim
and
expressed disappointment with the
Commission’s lack of a response to
their feedback.
“It was frustrating,” Member 2
said. “We felt it was necessary to
continue to engage in good faith in
this process, but we’re still frustrated
with the outcome and the responses
that we got from that.”
Faber
described
the
SAP’s
confusion after seeing little of
their feedback implemented in the
reports.
“(We asked ourselves), ‘Are we
on the right track? Is there a reason
these things haven’t been addressed?
Were these things discussed?’ We’ve
just kind of been totally in the dark,”
Faber said.
In an interview with The Daily,
Haverkamp and Forrest explained
how the PCCN evaluated feedback
to incorporate into the final versions
of documents.
“I’d
say
our
process
with
comments from students was the
same as our process with input from
members of the Commission, which
is that we got feedback from multiple
sources and weighed and balanced
what we got and as a group put
together the document that made
the most sense,” Haverkamp said.
“We valued the input that we got and
look very much forward to serious
engagement by them when we have
recommendations in the spring.”
According to three SAP members,
the PCCN held two meetings with
the entire panel in the Winter
semester of 2019. The PCCN also
asked the two student members of
the Commission to attend the panel’s
meetings and relay communication
back to the Commission. The SAP
members said they haven’t met with
the co-chairs of the Commission
since their second meeting on April
10, 2019.
Haverkamp and Forrest have
confirmed they met with the SAP
twice during the Winter 2019
semester and have not met with the
SAP since April 10. However, they
said they have not met with any
of the other three advisory panels
either.
Since the last meeting, the student
panel has attempted to schedule a
meeting with the co-chairs at least
four times, beginning in the middle
of the Fall 2019 semester, according
to Member 1 and Faber.
Member 1 and Faber used their
suggestions on the Internal Analysis
Teams reports to explain how their
advice was neglected. They claimed
that of the 15 suggestions the SAP
made, only three were reflected in
the published version.
Faber told The Daily he thought
the official reports should have
discussed
the
early
focus
on
quick solutions that would reduce
emissions, the dates the co-chairs
met with the SAP, summaries of
issues raised at community meetings
and
an
explanation
for
why
divestment does not fall under the
scope of the PCCN’s work. Instead,
the three sets of reports focused
primarily on logistical matters,
including the purpose and structure
of the Commission and a timeframe
for how it would complete each
phase of its work.
In the Fall Interim Report, SAP
members also sought to include
an explanation addressing energy
procurement
and
why
Camilo
Serna, vice president of regulatory
affairs at DTE Energy, had a seat
on the Commission. Activists raised
concerns about the inclusion of a
representative from DTE, a major
energy utility serving southeast
Michigan, when the Commission
was announced last February. The
University also has an agreement
with DTE to purchase renewable
energy from the utility.
Member 1 argued the Commission
should have taken up the matter in
the Fall Interim Report.
“There’s serious concern about
the fact that the vice president of
corporate strategy of DTE is on
the Commission itself,” Member
1 said. “If we publish this report …
and nowhere is it mentioned how
we’re procuring our energy and
who we’re buying it from and how
that could potentially be the biggest
way that U of M impacts the state of
Michigan and emissions beyond its
own campuses … it’s basically going
to be seen as validating the concerns
that have been raised for more than
a year.”
The Daily obtained a series
of memos written by the SAP
including
recommendations
for
the
Commission.
The
memos,
dated Oct. 24, 2019, request that
the Commission address structural
and planning issues in advance of
preparing its final recommendations,
including a justification for every
SAP suggestion the PCCN did not
include in its documents.
In an email to The Daily, Faber,
one of the five students who signed
the memos, said the other members
have been discouraged by the
PCCN’s general lack of a response
and that attendance at SAP meetings
has begun to decline as a result.
“Attendance was pretty high in
the last couple months of the 2018-
2019 school year but really dropped
off once we got back for the 2019-
2020 year,” Faber wrote. “We used
to have ~12 at meetings and now
it is down to maybe five or so per
meeting. We were told there would
be meetings over the summer on
something like Skype, but this did
not happen once.”
Faber credited this dropping
attendance to a feeling that their
work did not matter.
“There are intelligent and highly
accomplished students on the SAP,”
Faber wrote. “My theory is that they
stopped coming because they began
to see it as a waste of their time
rather than out of laziness or a lack
of caring.”
Some SAP members said the
PCCN never formally discussed
the structure of the panel, leaving
students confused about how often
the panel would meet and what the
objectives of the meetings would be.
The two student members of
the Commission — Engineering
doctoral student Austin Glass and
Engineering junior Logan Vear,
Climate Action Movement president
— serve as liaisons to the SAP,
attending both group’s meetings and
relaying communications between
the panel and the Commission. Both
Glass and Vear declined to comment
for this article due to confidentiality
agreements they signed with the
Commission.
Member 2, who also signed the
memos, said they wrote the memos
in an attempt to clearly communicate
their concerns to the Commission.
“We wanted to make sure that all
of the concerns that we considered
serious were contained in one place
to provide an easy response course
for the Commission,” Member
2 said. “They were extended in
good faith that the Commission
was considering student concerns,
and the lack of response seems to
indicate the opposite of that.”
Three SAP members told The
Daily they have received no formal
response to the memos they sent
to the Commission, though the
Commission has recently agreed
to schedule a meeting with the
panel after weeks of back-and-forth
communication.
At the time of the interview,
Member 1 expressed frustration at
the lack of a response to the memos
and the inability to find a time to
meet.
“The fact that they have not
agreed, not even responded to that
request, let alone implemented it,
has been really, really discouraging
as somebody who has spent a lot
of time trying to work within this
process and represent and work
in good faith,” Member 1 said. “It’s
really hard to still believe that we
are not actually just being used as a
marketing ploy.”
The co-chairs, Haverkamp and
Forrest, said shortly after they
received the SAP’s memos, they
began the process of scheduling a
meeting with the SAP to occur in
the near future, where they plan
to discuss how they assessed each
recommendation that they received.
“We absolutely read everything,
took it all into consideration,”
Forrest said. “We are looking
forward also to our meeting with
them… that’s the time when we want
to go methodically through with
them what was considered with
each and every recommendation
so that we can fill the gaps and
understanding about what they
think or what they feel became of
certain recommendations.”
Haverkamp and Forrest said
the advisory panels will become
more involved in the future as the
PCCN prepares to deliver its final
recommendations to Schlissel.
Member 2 said they were hopeful
that the upcoming meeting with the
co-chairs would be productive.
“Meeting face to face with people
is an important way to help ideas be
understood between parties, and I
think there’s plenty of options and
ways the PCCN can make this into a
really powerful experience both for
the students who are involved and
the community and really be able to
push towards carbon neutrality with
all the resources and brainpower
that we have here and in the area,”
Member 2 said.
While
Member
2
seemed
optimistic for the future, Member
1 expressed skepticism in regards
to the University being able to take
decisive action to lower emissions on
campus. They argued that external
pressure from activists was driving
the institution to address the issue.
“U of M has been way off target in
terms of addressing climate change,”
Member 1 said. “The only reason we
have this Commission in the first
place is because of years of student
advocacy on this front … I believe
that we are only here because of
people
advocating
and
forcing
the administration to form this
Commission and have some sort of
response to the claims that they are
basically asleep at the wheel as we’re
careening towards catastrophe on a
global scale.”
As many students struggle to
connect with counselors who are
decades older than they are, Hannah
Connors, executive director of WSN
and Public Policy senior, said she sees
a clear benefit to the peer-led model.
“People enjoy talking to their
peers about their problems because
it’s easier to relate to each other,”
Connors said. “There’s research that
young people turn to their peers first
when they’re struggling before going
to a professional or a trusted adult
just because there’s a lower barrier of
entry and it feels comfortable and non-
intimidating.”
WSN makes a deliberate effort to
be accessible, with group sign-ups
open all semester at no cost, Connors
said.
“Maybe you tried to get counseling
at CAPS and you’re facing an
undesirable wait time, WSN can
be another piece of your coping,”
Connors said. “It provides people at
least some outlet to talk about things if
they aren’t able to get into counseling
right away.”
Other student groups dedicated
to mental health promotion include
CAPS In Action, Wolverine Wellness
PULSE and CAPS Student Advisory
Board. These groups actively give
feedback to professional University
resources.
CAPS Director Todd Sevig met
with the CAPS Student Advisory
Board in December to gauge student
preferences on the time of initial
appointments and time in between
appointments. The meeting also
sought
student
input
on
non-
traditional clinical options such as
placing counselors in “non-clinical”
settings and virtual appointments.
Sevig says CAPS has received all of
the Board’s responses and are going
through them all.
Members
of
Central
Student
Government are also looking at ways
to make mental health care more
accessible. In 2017, CSG recommended
improvements to University efforts
to be implemented within one year,
within one to three years and beyond
three years.
Many of the goals have been met,
including an increased number of
CAPS counselors, establishing a first-
year wellness course and revamping
the CAPS office in the Michigan
Union.
However,
no
progress
has been made on the long-term
recommendation for a complete CAPS
office on North Campus.
LSA senior Sulayman Qazi ran for
CSG representative to improve the
University’s mental health efforts. He
said he felt like the resources available
on campus were inadequate for
transfer students like himself and that
they did not take into consideration
uninsured students who can’t afford
long-term care.
“I ran to direct these resources in
the right direction,” Qazi said. “Even
if I can’t make big changes, I want to
at least have a discussion where people
recognize the problems that need to be
fixed.”
Since joining CSG, Qazi said he has
met challenges, including a possible
tradeoff between more funding for
mental health services and raising the
student health services fee.
“It’s a balancing act,” Qazi said.
“You want to have enough money
so these services can run perfectly,
but at the same time, we don’t want
to alienate anybody who might feel
they’re putting a lot of money into a
system that they’re not using. I’d hope
students would look at it from the
perspective of the greater community
that uses these services.”
Wolverine Wellness
Wolverine Wellness, the public
health branch of University Health
Services, is known for initiatives
including free condoms in the
residence halls, rapid HIV testing and
the Stay in the Blue app. It also offers
free Wellness Coaching, one-on-one
conversations with a trained graduate
student to guide students through
common challenges of well-being in
college.
According
to
Director
Mary
Jo
Desprez,
Wellness
Coaching
represents a shift in strategy from
specialized appointments in content-
specific areas such as alcohol, sexual
health and body image issues to a
more holistic approach in student
well-being.
“Students come to us as a beautiful
combination of lots of those issues,”
Desprez said. “They will come see
me and say, ‘I don’t know if I used a
condom last night because I was so
drunk,’ or ‘I’m saving all my calories
for the bar.’”
Previously feeling isolated as an
out-of-state student and a freshman
living
on
North
Campus,
LSA
sophomore Delaney Walsh went to
Wolverine Wellness last year and had
a positive experience with Wellness
Coaching.
“I think it feels like specific care,
maybe because there are less people,”
Walsh said. “I’ve never been to CAPS
but it seems like it’s more quantity over
quality there. Wolverine Wellness
is nice because it’s smaller and their
questions are easily answerable.”
According to a Wolverine Wellness
report obtained by The Daily, 464
students utilized Wellness Coaching
over the past two academic years,
but the resource is still not as widely
utilized as CAPS, which took in more
than 4,500 new clients in just one
year. Out of 11 University students
interviewed for this story, only one
mentioned Wolverine Wellness when
asked about mental health resources
on campus.
While Desprez emphasized that
Wolverine Wellness does not offer
clinical psychological services like
CAPS or UHS, she said the program
is looking at a number of avenues to
reach students more effectively.
“I would say our partnership
with Housing is a big one,” Desprez
said. “We try to reach out to RAs a
lot, and also partnerships with all
of our other colleagues. CAPS can
refer students and rec sports can
refer students. One of the things I’m
hopeful for is the syllabus statement.
Wolverine Wellness and all the well-
being resources on campus will be
in it, so if you sign up for four classes
and see that syllabus statement four
times you’ll hopefully be saying, ‘All
right already, I get it that Wolverine
Wellness is a thing.’”
Peer Collaborations
In the CAPS 2018-2019 annual
report, 36 percent of students said
they heard about CAPS from a friend.
That is a 12-percent increase from the
second-largest category, which is the
CAPS website. Sevig told The Daily
that students encouraging each other
to focus on mental health will increase
the usage of all the resources available.
“The number one is a friend,”
Sevig said. “It’s not (an) email from
me. It’s not communications from
communications. It’s not our website.
It’s not a faculty. It’s a friend. It’s a great
recurrence on our campus and it’s
different from other campuses. That
means two things. One, that there is
an increased comfortability among
students to actually talk and address
mental health. Two, it also means
that there’s a huge increase in student
energy and advocacy.”
Even though Music, Theatre &
Dance sophomore Helen LaGrand
has never used CAPS, she said she has
referred her friends to the service. She
recognizes that not all students come
to the University knowing the benefits
of mental health counseling and that
peers are often the link between
struggling students and available
resources.
“I have a pretty good support
system outside of school. I’m really
close to my family and my parents are
really supportive of my mental health,”
LaGrand said. “But I have friends who
don’t have that support system and it’s
really hard for them going to college
and not really knowing where to turn
to.”
In light of the number of students
turning to CAPS on the basis of
peer referrals, Sevig told The Daily
he would like to see more peer
collaborations within CAPS.
“Another thing is that I would love
to see a huge increase and inclusion
in peer support and peer counseling,”
Sevig said. “I would like to see the
possibility of some peer individual
counseling,
peer
programming,
workshops, peer education around
mental health.”
Group therapy is one example of
the peer collaborations within CAPS
— there are other groups such as
#Anxietytoolbox,
#Blackgirlmagic
and Graduate Women’s Group. CAPS
currently runs these programs every
semester, developing new ones each
year. Sevig said he encourages these
group sessions because it encompasses
the vision he sees for peer support
within CAPS.
“The idea for group therapy,
support groups and workshops is that
you get support from other people, not
just the professionals,” Sevig said. “It
actually normalizes it.”
Faculty Training
CAPS created a faculty toolkit
explaining how to respond to different
situations of students struggling
with mental health issues. This
toolkit provides negative and positive
example scenarios when introducing
CAPS in the syllabus, confidentiality
and creating an inclusive classroom
community, among other topics.
Students told The Daily they had
experienced both types of situations.
LSA sophomore Noelle Seward said
she had negative experiences with her
professors, emphasizing their lack
of empathy when she reached out to
them for support.
“So many professors go into the
beginning of the semester preaching
that they’re so understanding about
mental health and they think that all
these things they have in their syllabus
are enough,” Seward said. “I feel like
my professors were preaching how
they’re understanding and that they
get it. But when you actually could use
some help, they’re like, ‘That sucks
for you.’ It’s very crushing. I feel like
there are resources, but they’re not
accessible to students.”
LSA freshman Ishita Shukla did not
have trouble with her rigorous classes
in high school, but she struggled to
adjust when she started her courses
on campus. As a result, she said her
exam grades faltered and she started
to experience exam anxiety. Once she
recognized her situation, Shukla said
she reached out for help.
“I was taking Bio 171 this year and
I felt like exam anxiety was getting
in the way,” Shukla said. “The course
coordinator met with me and she
sent me her own list of exam anxiety
strategies. I followed it and I did a lot
better on my final exam than I did on
my other exams.”
LaGrand said she saw a lack of
community in the large classes she
took in LSA. She said she believes that
strong social ties in academic settings
are important to students’ mental
health.
“A lot of mental health stuff for
me comes from being connected to
people. If I don’t feel mentally good,
it’s because I don’t feel connected to
people,” LaGrand said. “I feel like
ways to facilitate more connections
in class (is having) professors or
GSIs encouraging more conversation
between people in classes. This is such
a huge school and you’re on the run all
the time so you don’t necessarily see
the same people all the time.”
CAPS Outreach
During the Union’s 20-month
renovation, CAPS relocated to the
Tappan Auxiliary Building. Now that
the Union has reopened, Sevig said he
anticipates CAPS’ return to its original
location will make their office more
accessible.
“The Michigan Union, symbolically
and concretely, is the center of student
life,” Sevig said. “We’d also like being
in a building where you can come in
for many different reasons because
while there is drastically less stigma,
some students still do have stigma.
We’re also not (on the) first floor
where there is so much activity. We’re
on the fourth floor next to SAPAC and
that’s one of the biggest new things
that we’ve never had.”
A new wellness zone is now open
next to the CAPS office in the Union.
The wellness zone offers massage
chairs, yoga and meditation tools,
seasonal
affective
disorder
light
therapy and many more resources
focused on improving wellness among
the student body. Sevig said that he
was hesitant about creating a larger
wellness zone in space that could
have been used for additional CAPS
offices, but the positive response to
the existing wellness zone on North
Campus convinced him to expand it.
“That’s why we built the wellness
zone. We could have used the space
for two or maybe three more small
offices for individual work,” Sevig said.
“Based on student input and feedback,
we tried the wellness zone. I was a
little nervous because if students don’t
come to it or they don’t use it, that’s
when quantity started to increase but
students said this a good idea.”
Sevig told The Daily that CAPS has
made advertising efforts for its own
services through orientation, emails,
website and paper material given to
RAs. A list of additional CAPS-related
resources is online for reference when
counseling appointments are not
immediately available.
“What’s cool is that a lot of students
who have had some mental health
challenges in high school, they find us
right away and they seek it out,” Sevig
said. “(But) the reality is until you need
it at a certain time, it might go in one
ear and out the other.”
Sevig told The Daily that CAPS was
involved with orientation through
the Educational Theatre Company
and gave a presentation at the Parent
Orientation.
However,
the
ETC
does not perform at transfer student
orientation.
Qazi transferred to Michigan
from a community college in Illinois.
When Qazi attended transfer student
orientation, he did not hear anything
about CAPS and did not know where
to go when he was seeking help.
“As a transfer student, in the
orientation, I didn’t know about
CAPS and all those things because
orientation was four hours long,”
Qazi said. “So when I was having all
these issues, I did not go to CAPS at
all. I actually went directly to UHS
services and through UHS they would
end up referring me to someone else.
But initially, before I transferred to
Michigan, I would always just go to
my Illinois doctors. But at Michigan, it
was really confusing and I didn’t know
where to go.”
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