Faculty Mentoring Seminar 2007 - Part 13

So we work a lot together.
So if any of you have any questions about any student
who you might just be concerned about, their behaviors
are disturbing, disruptive, any of the above, you can contact
either one of us because we talk everyday.
We work together almost everyday on things, so it really doesn't
matter which one you get to, just get to one of us
and we'll make sure that it's addressed.
(Dr. Pearson). Are you all providing
teaching methodology in which to meet the
needs of students like that who would have Aspergers or bipolar.
(Sandy). That's actually through
Disability Services who is responsible for that.
That would be Kathy Waggoner.
I know she's expanded services in different areas.
Like under some of the mood disorders, probably not so much
yet because it's really debatable.
The research in that area is very debatable about whether
or not there should be accomadations made for that
but I know in Asperger's, she works very closely with helping
various faculty for that.
One of her specialties, brain injured students too.
So, it's a very collaborative effect on a lot of these things.
The teaching styles are more in her area.
Does anyone have any questions for us?
Yeah, yeah.
(female speaker). What is your approach
to the behavioral contract and you commented that
our code of conduct is maybe a little bit different from some
other places as far as that it includes not harming
yourself or whatever.
I've only taught at a community college before.
This is my first time teaching at a university, so how much
within or outside the norm are we in terms of our standards
or codes here.
Is that a whole lot different than others or is that
sort of the norm?
(Heather). We're not a whole lot different
in terms of our general code of conduct.
As a matter of fact, I tell students all of the time,
I think our code of conduct is really common sense.
Don't steal things, don't get in fights, don't do drugs.
(Sandy). It's like the Ten Commandments.
(female speaker). You almost made it sound like
it wasn't [unclear audio].
I'm a mom, [unclear audio].
(Heather). The thing though about our
code of conduct and about our procedures that's not
something that you'll find at a lot of other institutions
is the statement about harming yourself.
Most of the time, that statement is that you can't do things
to harm other people.
Then we add that phrase in there, or yourself.
The other thing that is very unique at Eastern
is the behavioral contract.
There are a few other institutions that aren't
instituting behavioral contracts that are starting to look
at behavioral contracts, that are really interested in that
approach but Eastern has been doing that actually
for quite some time.
So in the field of judicial affairs, other professionals
look at Eastern as a model in that area in terms of a really
good thing that an institution can do and it really supports
the students a lot.
These are students that normally would maybe we say oh you need
to go home but instead we're saying we see a lot of potential
in you and we really want to help you out,
so here's some guidelines.
I would say it's more the in between ground.
You see universities that either kick students out immediately
when they say self-harm or one's that just let them stay, stay.
So we're really right in between with a lot of support.
So very much so.
(male speaker). Hypothetical situation,
let's say a student comes to my office and says, doctor,
I fell really horrible.
I got a really bad grade and I want to kill myself.
Who do I call, Judicial Affairs or counseling?
(Sandy). Me, you'd call
counseling center.
(male speaker). That student is indicating
that she or he wants to hurt themselves.
(Sandy). Right, and the reason
for that is because we first are most concerned about giving them
the right support before we follow through
on university policy.
So what we initially do is if you talked to them and you get
a hold of us, we want them to come over to see our
emergency counselor that day.
If they won't, that's when we get a hold of them,
because they make them.
Not in a madated counseling way, but in a way that okay if you're
not going to come over to address this, then you've got
to meet with me right away.
So the first goal is to get them to us voluntarily so that they
can get the right support.
If there is something that's needed beyond that, then it goes
to Judicial Affairs as well.
If they won't come to us, that's when you need to go to
Judicial Affairs and say I'm very concerned.
This is what the student has said.
I referred them to the counseling center but they
won't agree to go.
Yes, no you're fine.
(male speaker). So if the student says
to me again, please don't tell anybody because I don't want
anybody to find out.
How do I deal with that because that destroys the trust between
me and the student in a way but I want to help.
It's a difficult situation.
(Sandy). It is and I think the thing
we always tell people to say is but you just shared
with me information that I cannot keep to myself
because it deals with you being alive or being dead.
For me to just keep that to myself, I can't do that.
I'm not capable of being able to help you with the right way that
you need at this point.
So that's what we always just say and believe it or not,
the trust is much healthier once you do it that way.
It's much better on you too I might add.
Do you have a question?
(male speaker). [unclear audio].
I wanted to know about the confidentiality.
(Sandy). Now here's a good thing
that we did add on our intake is that let's say you sent
a student over and you just want to know if they came
to counseling.
Maybe it wasn't suicidal but they were really depressed
or something.
You just want to know.
We actually now have on our intake to say will you allow us
to acknowledge that you came to your appointment from the person
that referred you.
So if they checkmarked that, and most of them do, then we're able
to do that.
Before, we had to get them to sign a release and it was kind
of a heavy duty thing so in most cases, we're able to do that.
So if we tell you we can't comment, that means that they
probably didn't come.
So that's your hint-hint that they didn't come to see us.
The other thing is that if they are in your office and you're
really concerned, give us a call and you can walk them over.
We let you walk over the students and we have an 11:00
to 3:00 is our on-call time so if it's in between there,
we'll try to see if someone is available but we get
really, really busy so it's usually 11 and 3 during the day
that we're able to see folks.
(Heather). Now I will tell you,
my office is very different in terms of what we can
share with you.
We can share a lot more information with you, so if you
call our office to follow up on a student, I can tell you
yes or no somebody met with them.
This is kind of a general idea of how it went.
I can even give you a little bit of information about follow up
with the student and talk with you and maybe even problem solve
with you a little bit about is there anything different
that you might need to do in the classroom to help
the student out.
(female speaker). What about us?
(Sandy). For counseling
and support for faculty.
(female speaker). Worst-case scenario
[unclear audio].
My next door neighbor [unclear audio] and then
there was somebody else.
(Sandy). Sure, we have an
employees' assistance program.
The counselling center only sees students but through
human resources, there is an employees assistance program.
Let's say that it might be a situation where you had
a student who got really, really ill in your class and I'm going
to say they made it because I don't want to say,
but it was traumatic to you.
If you just want to come over and process it out,
you're welcome to say hey can I come over and just say
can I just process this out with a counselor and just process
this out with a counselor where it's not counseling per se
because we do that a lot.
We do that if we've been involved with someone who has
died by suicide and the people involved with that.
We'll come and just let them process that out.
If it's counseling per se, there is a great EAP program as well.
[unclear audio].
Is that all?
(male speaker). So what if we struggle
with being new faculty and we need long term attention,
let's put it this way.
You said there was a lot of resources in Charleston, right?
So where do we go?
I mean I know Sarah Bush takes care of that too.
(Sandy). They don't have that much
for that as far as there are a couple people who we refer to
in the area who are in private practice.
Like I'm not sure how much EAP does.
I don't know where they end with the services but I know that
both through Carle, if you have the Carle one or if you have
the Sarah Bush one, the Provina or the Health Alliance
there is definitely some people in the area that you can go to
for that too.
If you don't want to stay in this area, we have some,
you can give us a call.
We have a lot of really good referrals for like
the Champaign area.
There are some great ones in Champaign and such.
(Dr. Pearson). Which is just less
than an hour away.
(Sandy). Forty minutes if you
drive like me, oh that's on record too.
[laughter].
(Dr. Pearson). Let's give these ladies
a round of applause.
Thank you all, you were great.
[audience applause].
I know we started a little late because Dr. Nadler got here late
but if you'd be so kind to give Mona Davenport your attention.
She's going to talk to us.
She's from the Office of Minority Affairs and she has
some really great information also to share with us and I see
some more new faculty coming in as they're classes
are dismissing.
So, do you need some help here?
Oh, I'm sorry, a lot of our faculty and staff usually ask me
about the number of students here on campus when
we're talking about our students of color.
So I just brought just a few that you all could look at.