UNC Vice Chancellor Discuss Mental Illness

Vice Chancellor Winston Crisp updated members of UNC’s Board of Trustees on how the university handles mental illness in a committee meeting Wednesday afternoon.

“What we are not, and what we don’t do and I want to be clear, is provide long term therapeutic counseling for students,” he said. “We don’t have the capacity for that. What we do is short term crisis stabilization and then we work hard to connect people who need long term therapeutic care and make sure they’re getting that therapeutic care.”

The issue of mental illness has been discussed recently after Priya Balagopal, a 2014 graduate of UNC, committed suicide on January 10.

“Anytime something tragic like what happened to Priya happens, that’s what you see so it raises a lot of questions,” Crisp said. “We don’t do enough. We’ll never do enough as far as I’m concerned.”

UNC Counseling and Psychological Services, or CAPS, offers therapy and walk-in appointments to students and faculty in need. Crisp said the demand for these services is growing and the counseling center at UNC is at capacity every day.

“Huge amounts of our resources and time and energy go towards trying to train people,” he said. “Trying to train students, trying to train faculty and others as to what to look for, signs to look for in students and try to engage students in the kind of services and resources they need.”

Board member Charles Duckett said providing resources for CAPS is a priority of the trustees.

“We have no intention of trying to cut CAPS,” he said. “We want to find ways to increase it. We do a lot better than the vast majority. Our healthcare here at Chapel Hill is way beyond most college and university offerings, but it vital that we not just make the statement and sit there and live on it.”

Crisp said although the university does a good job of dealing with these problems, challenges still remain because people access these resources different based on culture or socioeconomic status.

“We not only have to run a clinic that people can be expected to walk into and say ‘I need help,’ but we need to figure out how to reach people who just aren’t going to come,” Crisp said.

To learn more about Priya Balagopal and her struggle with mental illness, visit her GoFundMe page.

UNC Vice Chancellor Discuss Mental Illness

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