On Wednesday evening, the student senate gathered on the second floor of LaFortune Student Center to discuss updates regarding campus technology and new information from the University Counseling Center.
Director for campus technology and innovation Kevin Wang gave an update concerning the integration of ID cards into digital wallets. According to Wang, the Campus Card Office and Office of Information Technology have begun the process of adding Irish1Card functionality into smartphones’ respective mobile wallet apps.
Even after this implementation, students will still have the option of using either a traditional ID card or a digital wallet. Because the effort is still in its early stages, a launch date for the change is still forthcoming.
The student senate was joined by director of the University Counseling Center Christine Conway, who gave a brief overview of the many services the center offers — including drop-in hours, workshops, group counseling and individual counseling — also explaining the benefits of each.
Following the brief overview, she discussed the impact of the employment crisis on the center’s individual counseling services.
“We haven’t been able to provide individual counseling for everybody. We just haven’t had the capacity, but that doesn’t mean we are turning students away,” said Conway.
Conway explained that in previous years, students would have to wait four to five weeks to get an individual therapy session. Since then, the center has hired more staff and added drop-in hours in order to shorten that waiting period.
“We just felt like that is not exactly what we wanted. We needed to get people in quicker, so the idea of the drop-in hours is that we have brought in hours every day to deliver care,” she said.
Conway said that there are four to six people on staff solely for the purpose of drop-in hours. She also explained that the typical wait time ranges anywhere from 35 to 45 minutes.
Conway also explained that the center is working on hiring and training new staff so that they are able to meet all students’ needs. In the meantime, she encouraged students to capitalize on the many workshops they provide as well as the drop-in hours.
