Jennifer Hamilton, thank you very much for your thoughtful column (Gazette, March 18). You point to some important concerns about student services that we all share. The fees to which you refer are known as Mandatory Non-Instructional Fees (MNIF).
Some of these fees finance our Student Services and are administered by a joint committee of University administrators, Student Union, and Graduate Student Association representatives. It is very important to all of us that students get the best possible support from these fees to allow them to fulfill their academic and personal potential.
I agree that the services that students need are not always as visible and as accessible as they should be. Sometimes it is difficult for us student affairs professionals to understand the ins and outs of the student support landscape in a place like the University of Alberta, and we can’t expect students to find their own way through the maze and to the support they need.
Over the past 30 years, student services in all universities grew in a bit of a haphazard way as new needs were recognized and new resources from students, government, and the institution were allocated to meet these needs. This has resulted in a student support landscape that lacks adequate coherence and is sometimes more difficult to navigate than it ought to be.
We are working hard to establish a single, visible, and accessible point of entry to the student support system where students can consistently be directed to the most relevant resource the first time. We are still far away from that goal, but the work has begun.
No matter how good, visible, and accessible a system we build, students are still responsible for taking the first step: Asking for help when they need it. We are well aware that this step can be a very difficult one to take. Asking for help is never easy to do. But it shouldn’t be their job to figure out which office can help them for which problem and how it is funded. That is for us to do.
For some services, there is indeed a user fee attached. We try very hard to evaluate the needs of students and prioritize the allocation of our limited resources accordingly. The most critical services should be, and are, free to the user. But since the cost of the services we offer is greater than the budget we get from MNIF, we have to use cost-recovery for some services. We are always looking at ways to reduce the additional cost of services, since this is a major factor in access to higher education.
Finally, you are correct that follow-up from student services is not always present. Especially when it comes to crisis intervention, we often have to shift our attention to the next crisis when one has been addressed in the short-term. But we are also working on this and we are dedicating more resources to follow-up.
Thank you very much again for your feedback. If you would like to get involved in the substantive discussions about the future of student services at the University of Alberta, I encourage you to join the Dean of Students Advisory Council this coming fall. These are exactly the kinds of issues we discuss, and exactly the kind of feedback we look for. Please feel free to contact me directly.
Andre Costopoulos, Vice-Provost and Dean of Students, University of Alberta
