Community Council Update: Council Discusses Health Services on Campus

On Monday March 5, Community Council met to review a set of recommendations that will be proposed to Gus Jordan, executive director of health and counseling services, and the administration. The recommendations propose providing greater access to health services and education to students, expanding sexual assault training to students, hiring a Health and Wellness Director, increasing Parton Health Center’s hours of operation and providing sports medicine to all club sports.

“This is just a reiteration that health and wellness services at the College are very important to us,” explained Barrett Smith ’13, student co-chair of Community Council.

Some of the Council’s proposed suggestions have been met with resistance. When the Council spoke to Jordan about the idea of increasing funding to Parton, specifically to increase the number of hours that the center is open, it was established that there was not enough money in the administration’s budget to make this feasible.

In response, the Council proposed that the Student Emergency Response Team (SERT), comprised of about 30 EMTs, have walk-in hours as a service to students.

The proposal suggests for the College to “consider the feasibility of drop-in hours for the Student Emergency Response Team to meet current unmet student medical needs through basic informal assessment and referral.”

“We happen to have the greatest concentration of EMTs of any part of Vermont, and could use that to provide a service to the student body,” said Tyler Pepin ’13.

Another recommendation that the Council has proposed is expanding the availability of sports medicine to all club sports.

“There is a pretty strong consensus, especially with club sports, that students need more access to sports medicine,” explained Smith.

“The women’s water polo team had four concussions last year during the spring season, and yet it doesn’t meet the school’s standards to receive sports medicine,” he continued. “I think we are crossing into a serious health and wellness issue.”

The Council then voted on the proposed recommendations. The vote was unanimously in favor of formally proposing the recommendations to Jordan, Associate Director of Health Services Terry Jenny and President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz.

The Council also briefly discussed procedure for its meeting the following week. Coverage of the Council’s meeting on Tuesday, March 12 can be found on pages 1 and 4.