Minutes
University Assembly
Wednesday, December 2, 1998
WSH International Lounge
4:30 PM

I. Call to Order

M. Esposito called the meeting to order at 4:33 p.m.

II. Additions to the Agenda

No additions were made to the agenda.

III. Open Forum

D. Di Bene announced that posters concerning the recent anti-harassment issue on campus were available at the University Assembly meeting. He requested they be posted by members in support of the anti-harassment movement on campus.

IV. Approval of the Minutes

Dr. D. Meilman requested that the statement by G. Brandt on page 3 of the minutes from November 18, 1998 be amended to correctly describe the involuntary leave of absence. He suggested the statement, “… the University health system is aiming to implement a policy that will enable it to remove mentally troubled students. . .” be amended to read “the University health system is working on a draft policy for involuntary leave of absence for students with personal, life-threatening issues such as serious suicidal tendencies and life-threatening anorexia.”

The minutes of November 18, 1998 were passed as amended.

V. Report from the Chair

M. Esposito reviewed the events of the recent Assemblies Leadership meeting. He announced the topics discussed included the recent plans for the reorganization of the Division of Biological Sciences and the recent issues of harassment on campus. He added that the President’s campaign of 200 million dollars, geared toward undergraduate study and scholarship, was also discussed at the meeting. He explained that S. Murphy, VP Student and Academic Services, has held two meetings with student groups to discuss the recent issues of harassment on campus. He added that Dean Lewis issued a statement concerning the Latino and other ethnic studies programs. A call was made for improved lighting in certain areas of the campus; some areas suggested have already been improved. He added that the President believes these recent harassment events are unconnected. M. Esposito announced the final Presidential Statements concerning the harassment and Division of Biological Sciences issues were included in the handouts of this meeting.

M. Esposito brought up the issue of B. Krause leaving the position of Judicial Administrator. He announced that L. Falkson has agreed to serve as the acting J.A. until the search committee can find a replacement for this position. He asked if the members of the UA would feel comfortable appointing L. Falkson as the acting J.A., without personally hearing from her and reviewing her resume, as is standard process, due to time constraints. Many members spoke on her behalf and expressed that they were in full support of her temporary appointment.

The University Assembly unanimously approved the appointment of L. Falkson as the Acting Judicial Administrator, who will serve until the search committee can identify possible candidates and a new Judicial Administrator is hired.

He added that Dean Cooke forwarded his selections for Faculty members on the University Hearing Board to the University Assembly.

The University Assembly unanimously approved the faculty selections to the University Hearing Review Board.

The significance of the University Assembly approval of the faculty selections to the University Hearing Board was questioned. C. Gardner noted that these are recommendations which must be approved by the University Assembly.

M. Hartill brought up the point that students and employees selected to sit on this board must face a rigorous application procedure before being appointed to the board. She felt the faculty method of appointment did not match the process the students and employees faced.

VI. Constituent Assemblies Reports

Faculty Senate

B. Lewis announced that the Faculty Senate had not met since the last University Assembly meeting.

Employee Assembly

M. Esposito announced that the Employee Assembly is drafting a resolution concerning the harassment issue on campus. Also discussed, he added, were transportation issues and various Charter amendments.

M. Esposito announced that the EA has surpassed the 10,000 dollar goal for the Arecibo Relief Fund. Due to numerous and generous donations by many members of the Cornell community, this relief fund was a great success.

G. Brandt reminded members of the U.A. that the annual Hockey Tournament will begin Monday and extend throughout the month of January.

GPSA

D. Carlson announced that the GPSA is still dealing with many of the issues previously presented at the past UA meeting. He explained a new issue brought up in the GPSA was what constitutes a student group in terms of funding. He added the GPSA has been asked to re-write its Charter to reflect this new definition. He noted this amendment stems from various lawsuits concerning the option of routing student funds by the general selection of certain boxes on an application. D. Carlson added this option system is a form of discrimination of groups. He added the Charter will also be changed to pull some student funding from the Big Red Barn to support more student groups and to keep the funds for student organizations from dipping below a certain level. He announced that the President and Vice President of the GPSA are also working on drafting guidelines to standardize teaching and research assistants hiring procedures and position practices. D. Carlson noted that the GPSA is working on a resolution dealing with the communication between the GPSA, the administration, as well as sister assemblies.

SA

R. Jacobs announced the Student Assembly is presently working on a Statement of Diversity, as well as recommending that an essay be added to the application for high school seniors applying to Cornell concerning the issue of diversity. She explained the Statement on Diversity would be a 5 to 6 line statement which would be published in all Big Red Books. Also related to the issues concerning harassment would be to implement programs with the Residential Advisors and orientation leaders in hopes of creating a stronger Cornell community. R. Jacobs added the Student Assembly is also working on setting up a discussion between the Latino Studies Program and President Rawlings to instigate a compromise between the involved groups.

VII. Business of the Day

D. Carlson introduced today’s guest speaker, Dr. P. Meilman, Director of Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS). He commented that Dr. Meilman was invited to speak at today’s meeting as the result of concerns stemming from a resolution dealing with the limit on CAPS visits. He noted that before Dr. Meilman reorganized the structure of CAPS, creating the limit on visits, students were forced to wait an extensive period of time before being seen. He explained that due to the concern of this visitation limitation, members of the UA asked Dr. Meilman to speak at today’s meeting to explain the recent changes in CAPS.

Dr. Meilman began by providing the University Assembly with the history of CAPS and the origin of these recent visitation limits. He commented he came on board in September of 1996 to, what was then, the Psychological Services Office. He noted the first change was the change of the name to Counseling & Psychological Services, in order to soften it. This was an attempt to become more user friendly and lower the threshold for people coming in. Dr. Meilman noted as many as 60% of students were previously seen once at the center and then referred to off- campus counseling. Based on his background in college student mental health, Dr. Meilman realized the health center had to be promoted as “serving our own.” Therefore, when he became the head of the center, he decided to place a halt on referring students away and began an attempt to handle each case that entered the door. He commented this system worked well for the 1996–97 term, due to the fact that many students who were previously seen off-campus continued to receive off-campus assistance. Dr. Meilman continued by stating that the 1997–98 term brought an increase in numbers, which forced the center to hire extra professional help for the last weeks of each semester. He added even with the extra assistance, people would still have to wait three weeks for an initial routine appointment. If a patient needed medications, the time period to see a psychiatrist was an additional 4 weeks. He commented the ideal wait should be no more than a week to ten days. Dr. Meilman pointed out an emergency was seen the same day and all efforts were made to allow for this, including shifting other students appointments to accommodate the emergency situation. He emphasized that problems which are not, at the moment, a crisis, could quickly escalate into an emergency situation. Of the 1500 students seen in the past year, 62 local hospitalizations were made, with an estimated 12–15 off-campus hospitalizations. Most of these hospitalizations were for suicidal, delusional or manic cases. The majority were voluntary hospitalizations. He added some involuntary hospitalizations have been made, in which Cornell has the legal authority to aid in life threatening cases.

Dr. Meilman announced the average number of visits a student makes, nation wide, to college mental health service, is 5 — 6. He pointed out the modal number is 1. He commented that when the data from June 1 to March 30 was evaluated, if the cut point of the number of visits was set at 12 (counseling visits), 91% of the patients would not be effected with this limit. Dr. Meilman added the remaining 9% utilized a lot of staff time. This created a problem by blocking access to other students needing to make the initial visit. The visitation cap was needed to provide the best service to the most people. Decisions were made to set a cap of visits at 12 and to eliminate split-pair arrangements. He explained that split-pair is a patient seen by two different systems for the same problem. This created communication issues between the two systems, as well as liability issues. Therefore, the clientele of the center had to be either all in house or all out of house, and not a mixture. This was done to clear up confusion. Another change was an increase in staffing. One added staff member specifically deals with managing what happens during the 12 visits. This person also functions as a referral manager in the beginning of the term and an extra counselor near the end of the term. He added another position was added, increasing staffing by 2.

Dr. Meilman commented that these changes have been both an improvement and problematic. He stated that it has been an improvement in that they can get people in a little bit faster; there are no waiting lists for services after the initial visit, and the wait has been reduced to two weeks for a routine appointment. He added that the wait for evaluation for medication has been reduced to three weeks. Therefore, overall a week has been cut off each initial waiting period. Dr. Meilman pointed out that the year round students (i.e. graduate students) will have summer visitations count for one-half a visit. This means 8 visits over the summer will still allow the student to have 8 visits during the school terms. He commented they do try to set a clear definition of the 12 visits for individual counseling, but individuals can be moved to group sessions, of which there is no limitation on the number of group visits. Psychiatric coverage is available to individuals while presently attending either group or individual counseling sessions. He commented that referrals are made after 12 individual visits. However, in extreme hardship cases, this visitation limit may be extended to 20. Dr. Meilman explained that he has informed his staff that a maximum of two patients can be carried in this hardship system at one time. He announced that crisis situations are not turned away; if a student has used all 12 visits up, they will not be turned away if they enter the center with a crisis situation. The number of visits is reset after each year. He added the center still fields the course drop, test delay and leave of absence due to mental health, regardless of the number of visits a patient has.

Dr. Meilman pointed out the criticism of this system is people do have intense support needs, but may lack the financial support or may not feel comfortable with outside support. He noted he is unhappy with the waiting period, even at the reduced time period. It was explained only one emergency visit to the psychiatrist could be accommodated for without rescheduling other students. He stated three emergency visits per day could be accommodated for counseling services. He added he is not pleased with bumping students out of appointments, or the long waiting period. He commented he is pleased with the increase in campus outreach.

A question was raised as to why students would require more than 12 individual counseling visits per year.

Dr. Meilman replied by pointing out the fact that certain situations require multiple visits. He provided examples such as eating disorders, substance abuse situations, and troubling backgrounds which all can lead to the need for extended visitation to counseling services. He explained that 44% of clientele surveyed state the counseling they received help them to remain enrolled in school. Dr. Meilman added the student’s individual insurance coverage will pick up the majority of the cost of the outside counseling service.

Dr. Meilman explained that Cornell student insurance covers $50 for the first 20 visits or 75% of the cost, whichever is less, and covers $30 or 75% of the cost of each visit after 20, again, whichever may be less.

B. Perry questioned if certain dynamics of Cornell contribute to a high level of stress?

Dr. Meilman replied by noting that Cornell is made up of high achieving, highly driven students, often coming from highly driven backgrounds, which come to a competitive university. This creates a high level of stress. He added that highly selective institutions have a much higher level of stress when compared to other institutions.

In response to a question concerning Dr. Meilman’s support of the current resolutions, he stated he would like to see specific concerns addressed. These specific concerns would be: getting people in sooner; increasing the amount of campus outreach; and removing or raising the cap on services.

A. Mathios questioned how the dollars spent per student for psychological counseling support at Cornell compares with other institutions.

Dr. Meilman commented that the general guideline recommended by the International Association of Counseling Services is that a ratio of one staff member per 1,000 — 1,500 students be kept. He pointed out that Cornell would need 19 staff members to obtain a 1:1000 ration, and he presently has 14 staff members.

A question was raised as to the principle behind the limitation of the summer visitations.

Dr. Meilman pointed out that the summer period brings a reduction in staff to 6 members, which places a strain on the staff.

In response to a question, Dr. Meilman clarified student insurance is not required to utilize the CAPS system.

Responding to a concern raised, Dr. Meilman announced 4 students have been placed in the category requiring more than 12 visits.

C. Gardner questioned the drawback to charging for counseling services to help support an increase in staffing, given that all student are required to carry some form of health insurance.

Dr. Meilman stated this would create many complex billing problems. He noted that there are over 1,000 various insurance policies. To bill insurance companies is a very complex process and the department is not set up for that.

A suggestion was made to charge students for visits after the 12 visit cap.

Dr. Meilman pointed out a few problems existed for this type of solution. First, the amount of funds generated from post-12 visit billing would remain unknown. Also a bias may be formed, favoring the people who are able to pay.

G. Brandt added that many insurance carriers have a utilization review and perhaps the health center could integrate a similar system allowing for more staff and a reduced waiting period.

It was pointed out that many students do not want parents or insurance companies to be aware of their counseling visitations. It was added that CAPS has changed for the better and is very helpful in that students in crisis have been receiving attention right away. The problem lies in the lack of funding and perhaps pressure should be placed on the University to increase funding.

A. Mathios stated he counsels students many times during that initial waiting period and in attempt to raise more funding for the health center, the point should be made that other organizations and offices around campus have spent time “counseling” and this increase in funding will save other people’s time.

Y. Grohn questioned if seeing students earlier, without the waiting period, would limit the number of visits in the future.

Dr. Meilman explained when a problem escalates to a crisis stage, the intensity of service must rise to help. He added that additional hours are needed for emergency situations causing a disruption in the scheduling. The required blocks of 3 to 4 hours spent with a student in a crisis stage blocks out other students.

VIII. New Business

M. Esposito addressed the topic of the resolution on counseling. He commented that the Student Assembly has been developing a similar resolution and he felt the University Assembly should also address this issue. He then asked for volunteers to develop such a resolution. C. Gardener pointed out that the Student Assembly resolution references a limit of 12 visits per semester, however this should read 12 visits per year.

UA Statement on Recent Racial Harassment Behavior on Campus

M. Esposito then introduced the next item of business, which was the UA Statement on Recent Racial Harassment Behavior on Campus. He asked the members of the UA to review this proposed resolution and make any comments or suggestions. M. Esposito pointed out speech can be used as a tool to hurt other individuals. He added that freedom of speech is never absolute and that speech can infringe on others beliefs and freedoms. He commented that the revitalization of the Standing Committee on Freedom of Expression would look at various ways people communicate on campus and in the community. It was suggested that the 3rd paragraph of the document include President Rawlings’ Statement on Harassment.

A. Mathios pointed out the entire 3rd paragraph is peripheral, in it is difficult to applaud some statements and not others.

M. Esposito pointed out that Cornell has a greater effect on a group rather an individual and a group should not have the right to offend other groups on campus. C. Gardner added the question of whether or not a hate speech code should be developed is an essential question which stems from the retreat. She also commented that Title 5 in the Campus Code of Conduct addresses responsible speech and expression. She noted this was written following the protests of 1985. Prior to the establishment of Title 5, C. Gardner explained a statement of student rights was drafted and then withdrawn, due to a lack of support. She noted Title 5 addresses responsible speech and expression dealing with speakers visiting campus and symbolic expression. However, she added, it does not address the issue of individual speech. She commented the interpretation of the extent of freedom of speech varies and a specific provision exists for the formation of a standing committee to address the issue of freedom of speech. She reminded the UA Title 5 has not been reviewed since the implementation of the Title in 1985. She commented this may call for the committee to be revitalized to address whether Title 5 is adequate and serving the needs of the current community.

A. Mathios questioned if “Cornell” should be used in the Title of the Sun and Review and perhaps because of the level of importance of the Cornell name, this usage should be stopped.

It was pointed out that issues such as these need to be addressed.

M. Esposito questioned if the members of the UA felt this committee should be revitalized.

It was mentioned that it is important to visit this issue and other universities are also experiencing similar harassment issues. The fact that these are important issues, which need guidelines, was mentioned.

R. Jacobs questioned the power of this standing committee.

C. Gardner explained the committee would have the power to make recommendations to the President for amendments to the Campus Code of Conduct�specifically Title 5.

A question was raised as to how the committee would be convened.

M. Esposito commented he would recommend to the President a representative be selected from each constituency of the University Assembly and additional representatives be chosen by the President. M. Esposito stated he will draft a letter to the President concerning this issue.

IX. Old Business

M. Esposito then raised the issue of the University Alcohol Policy. He stressed the University must have an alcohol policy and this policy must be reviewed in a timely manner. He reminded the UA the existing policy has been in effect for many years.

J. Talbot commented the biggest amendment to the policy has been the addition of a “commonly asked questions” section to clear up main issues and concerns about the policies. She noted other changes included page 9, in which a section of the use of alcohol in residents was added, and on page 12 which presented a clear discussion of the purchase of alcohol with Student Activity funds. She noted the added section on page 12 makes a distinction between graduate and undergraduate students.

M. Esposito questioned where people can address their concerns once the policy is placed into interim form.

J. Talbot responded by noting that the policy will remain a draft and that it is not set in stone during that period.

R. Jacobs questioned the implications of fake ID’s concerning fraternity parties.

J. Talbot noted that page 24 explains New York States ruling on that matter.

D. Carlson pointed out that cheese and meats do not contain carbohydrates, as stated in the document. He then questioned what constitutes an all-you-can-drink event.

J. Talbot responded by saying this depends on how the event is organized, length, funding, etc.

D. Carlson questioned where in the document guidelines for an all-you-can drink event could be delineated.

J. Talbot replied by pointing out a list of references are given as to the various offices that could be contacted for assistance.

R. Jacobs questioned if a “Good Samaritan” clause could be put in effect to allow fraternities to turn drunken minors over for the correct medical assistance without facing the consequence of legal actions for serving a minor, whom they thought to be of legal drinking age.

J. Talbot commented that the J.A. and police would most likely work hard not to unduly prosecute students in that situation. It was pointed out that this has been discussed, but could not be implemented. D. Di Bene commented that Cornell does not have the legal authority to put such a clause into effect.

D. Carlson questioned if there is a way to place directed numbers in the Question and Answer section. J. Talbot agreed this could be done to reiterate the numbers previously given.

M. Esposito called the support of the University Alcohol policy as presented to a vote.

The University Assembly unanimously supported the University Alcohol Policy, Draft dated December 1, 1998.

J. Talbot noted that she could be contacted with additional concerns and questions to be addressed in the future.

X. Adjournment

M. Esposito adjourned the meeting at 6:10 p. m.

Respectfully submitted,

Mark A. Frontera