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On Sept. 27, Dr. Sidney Gardner began her new position as Assistant Dean of Students and Director of the Office of Student Advocacy and support. After almost 20 years running LGBTQ+ and gender centers, this move is an exciting transition for Dr. Gardner to continue supporting students through support services, crisis management, and advocacy. 

How do you see your work as the Assistant Dean of Students and Director of the Office of Student Advocacy and Support intersecting with your experiences from the Women and LGBT Center?

“It intersects in a myriad of ways. That’s probably one of the things that I really wish people understood about running a shop like the Women and LGBT center is that there is so much that you don’t see. There are the front-facing parts that are all about programming and student advising and such, but then there are the parts happening behind the scenes–there is a lot of supporting students in crisis and students that are navigating really difficult situations, whether it be homelessness, food insecurity, financial issues, or anything related to Title IX. I have helped students navigate these issues throughout my career, but it’s part of the things that people don’t typically see us doing because it’s not front and center.”

What got you interested in the work you will be doing in your new position?

“I’ve been in the field for a long time, and again, a lot of it has to do with having navigated working with students in crisis for so long. But also, there was a time before the current iteration of Title IX, when a lot of support services fell under women’s centers on campus. I’ve also been doing that work for a really long time–in my previous position at another institution, I had been the deputy Title IX coordinator, I have worked with Title IX investigations, I’ve also served as the confidential support in these sorts of things. So that piece, I have a really strong background in, on top of just working both on campus and off campus to support students that are going through all kinds of personal crises. Because of that, I had really been interested in this type of position for a while—and then it was just good timing.”

What are you most excited about as you make the transition to your new position?

“I’m just excited about being able to support students in a different way—I still get to do some of the work that I love and am able to support students, but I get to be able to do that for our entire campus community and not just students that intersect with my previous position in the Women and LGBT Center. I’m also excited about being able to figure out things like best practices and how we can do an even better job of supporting our students going forward. Those are some things that I’m really looking forward to.”

What are some goals you would like to achieve in your new position?

“My predecessor had built this office from the ground floor during a time when these positions were just starting on campuses, so I think this is a perfect opportunity to be able to look at the work that we currently do and be able to take that to the next level. Now that we’re in a different day, so much of our campuses have changed, the world has changed, our students have changed–so what are their needs? What does the support that they need look like? How can we tailor what we do to have the greatest impact on our students? How can we get them to persist to graduation? That is the goal, but we want people to be able to do that in ways that they feel supported.”

What is your vision for the future of the Office of Student Advocacy and Support?

“My hope is that we are a space that our entire campus community really sees as somewhere that when you send students to, they know that they will be taken care of and that they will have the support and the resources that they need. I hope that other students will feel confident when they say to a friend about us, ‘Hey, you know who really helped me? You should reach out to them too.’ I think we do have some of that dialogue already, but my hope is that throughout the campus community, we’re seen as that space that is really all about exactly what our title is—student advocacy and support. I hope that people really value and express how much the work that we do means to them.”

Engage Dallas is a place-based community engagement initiative via SMU’s Residential Commons to address community needs focusing on South and West Dallas. The initiative is a long-term, university-wide commitment led by students to partner with local residents, organizations, and other leaders to positively impact the community. There is equal emphasis on campus and community impact stemming from the initiative.

Engage Dallas launched Fall 2020 with each of our 11 Residential Commons focusing on one specific community-identified need. Each Commons partners with non-profit organizations in South and West Dallas serving to address these needs. The 11 community-identified needs are: Homelessness, Food Insecurity, College Access & Preparation, Arts as Social Impact, Environmental Injustice, STEM Education Access, Immigration and Refugee Support, Community Wellbeing, Child Poverty, Childhood Literacy, and Community Rebuilding.

 

 

 

Written by Dr. Randy Jones, Associate Dean of Students and Executive Director of Health Services

At peak levels last year, the demand for mental health services exceeded the existing capacity of the Health Center. Our system was operating at maximum efficiency caring for as many students as possible, but was unable to readily accommodate a higher influx of patients. This resulted in longer wait times for appointments, a doubling of students calling our after hours on-call counseling service, and a greater number of students voicing frustration over limited access to these much sought after resources.

In efforts to meet the growing demand for mental health services, the Health Center has partnered with Academic Live Care (ALC) to expand counseling services to students. Our students now have access to ALC’s large network of tele-mental health providers as another avenue for obtaining counseling and ongoing therapy. This partnership provides students with greater flexibility in appointment times and they can select providers based on preferences such as gender, cultural and ethnic background, language spoken, and specialties. It also offers a venue of support to our students who for various reasons cannot or prefer not to present in-person to the Health Center. All counseling sessions are made available at no expense to students.

The Health Center also added a new resource called Togetherall designed to provide our students with 24/7 access to a large peer-to-peer mental health support community. This new web-based platform and media-style mental health app gives students a safe place to connect with other students experiencing similar feelings. Students log in and make a post (anonymously)…then someone responds to their post, often to validate how they are feeling or to give advice. The online community supports over 250 colleges and universities with over two million registered users and is monitored at all times by trained clinicians. This tool is an excellent low-acuity mental health intervention and offers a supplemental venue of support for the students we may be missing through our existing conventional approaches to care.

Onsite SANE Service

In response to requests from our students, provisions were put in place in late this spring 2022 to offer SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) exams 24/7 at the Health Center for victims of sexual assault. Through a partnership negotiated with The Turning Point Rape Crisis Center, a SANE nurse and advocate will be dispatched on demand to the Health Center for SMU students who have experienced sexual assault and request emergency examination. Previously, access to such services was only available to students off-campus.

To learn more about the mental health resources mentioned in this article, visit smu.edu/mentalhealthapps.