At Sinclair Community College, for instance, students range in age from 16 to 90, with the average age in the 30s.
Dr. Bobby J. Beavers, director of counseling services at Sinclair, said his department will soon add a full-time counselor who will focus on identifying and treating students who may evidence more serious mental health issues. Beavers, who has directed Sinclair’s counseling center since 1994, said over the years his staff has dealt with the usual college issues — personal problems related to academics, issues with jobs or families, stress or anger management. Those with more serious issues were always referred out to community health facilities.
But that’s about to change. Over winter term, Sinclair will hire a full-time counselor trained to deal with more complex mental issues on a short-term basis. After the Virginia Tech incident, Beavers said, many colleges around the nation began to track the types of students who might have more serious issues. Behavioral intervention teams were formed to evaluate the situations on campus.
“More focus was being placed on what our counseling centers are doing, and we began to look at what we were doing,” said Beavers. “During the 2008-09 school year, we had 83 of those students, identified as acting strange or bizarre, and referred to us as students who needed to be assessed.”
Those students may be referred, he said, by classroom teachers, deans, campus police.
“As a counseling center, we are attempting to provide counseling services in a holistic manner to meet the unique developmental issues of all students in order to help them have success in college,” Beavers said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2440 or mmoss@Dayton DailyNews.com.
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