Online comments of the week

1/9/13 6:00pm

In response to "Rice maintains 'happiest students' status by ousting unhappy students" (Nov. 30 2012)

It's important to understand that Dean of Undergraduates John Hutchinson's response was bound by two considerations:

1. The 1996 federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and university policy preclude him from talking about specifics of the case. In order to defend himself and the university from the accusations, he would have to get into the specifics both of Olivia Hansen's medical situation and of the academic decision for medical leave. The law and policies are in place to protect the confidentiality of the student. She herself can choose to waive this protection to discuss otherwise confidential information; the university, and by extension Hutchinson, cannot. If I were him, I would not have included claims that her accounts of the situation are inaccurate or incorrect. It is hard to do, but he just cannot comment on it.

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2. This is a pre-litigation situation. Rice's counsel is not going to allow any official statements that stake their defenses to any specific set of issues or a response that provides ammunition to a plaintiff that would be sympathetic to a jury. If that seems cold and calculating, it is easier to feel that way when you have not been personally named in a six-or seven-figure lawsuit.

Anonymous

I know firsthand the lengths Dean of Undergraduates John Hutchinson and Paula Hutchinson go to to be allies and of aid to Rice students. In short, he is a caring, open, loving person who, for three decades, has made Rice students part of his family's life - not because he has to, but because it is his calling.

I do not know the facts of this case, nor does anyone else who is commenting. The only people who do are Olivia Hansen, John Hutchinson and the few other people who were involved firsthand. Nobody is here to call Hansen a liar. I am here - and using my real name - to call attention to the lifetime of service John Hutchinson has given the Rice student body and to personally thank him for that.

Josh Katz, Wiess '01

Rice has made way too much headway in growing its student body, but it forgot to add the mental health staff to go with that growth. Months of waiting, really?

I am sure Olivia Hansen's story is not the whole truth, but it is her truth, and whether or not there is room to argue with her (or just posting anonymously and spinelessly, "Liar!"), no woman at Rice should feel that a harasser and his teammates can get away with almost whatever they want and that the campus and administration will do little or nothing to help her feel safe and happy in her Rice experience.

We have been having campus discussions about women's safety at Rice since the '80s (my time there), and I guess we will have to keep having them until I die.

Keith Tipton, Class of '93

This is not the first article like this to appear in a student newspaper this year. Why are colleges so uniformly handling these situations in the wrong way? Is it possible that some national organization of college counselors has pushed for this kind of treatment as a best practice? I am not saying Rice is not still entirely at fault here even if it is just following a crowd, but this seems out of character, and students nationwide could benefit if it is discovered that something more pervasive needs to be reformed. In addition to a university response, an explanation from Rice University Student Health might be illuminating here as well.

Concerned (former) Sidizen

I am a Rice senior, and I have always loved Rice. Rice deserves its happiest students ranking. Please, spend a year at a large public state school and then a year at Rice - you will see exactly what I mean.

Anonymous

This is a really upsetting but important article to read. I have often felt the "happiest students" rating is a joke. I also often feel it promotes the mentality that if you are not happy at Rice, there is something wrong with you which makes it harder to get help.

Thank you for your courage the share this story. I cannot imagine the courage it took for you to write this.

Anonymous

Thanks for having the courage to share this. While I have not been in your shoes exactly, I have always laughed whenever the "happiest students" ranking is brought up. Clearly, they did not ask me or some of my friends.

Rice has some really great positives about it, but in general, the environment here can be very superficial. What I mean is that everyone is expected to be smiling and happy. Problems are swept under the rug.

I understand that in some cases, a mental health problem might be extreme enough that someone may need time off, but just because someone is depressed or otherwise mentally unhealthy does not mean they cannot receive treatment while they are here at Rice. They are adults - they can go to therapy and go to class. It seems to me that in some of these cases, Rice is just washing its hands of students instead of doing everything in its power to make sure a mental health problem does not derail their entire futures. Sending students away should be a last resort.

Anonymous

This seems to be a pretty common occurrence at Rice. Honestly, Rice's response to emotional and mental problems is terrible. While I was at Rice, I saw two friends forced to withdraw, one multiple times, in ways that were expensive, traumatic, detrimental to their mental statuses and, at least from my subjective, third-party viewpoint, needless. Personally, I never had major problems at Rice, but the one time I did feel mildly depressed and tried to schedule a basic counseling appointment, I was told the wait time would be two months. Maybe more resources should be spent on developing mechanisms to respond to developing problems in a timely manner and addressing them as they occur, rather than removing students after problems come to a head.

Anonymous

Fellow Rice Alumni (present and future),

Please consider stories like this when choosing whether and how you make your donations. We may not be on campus or in Houston, but we can speak with our wallets. I love Rice as much as any alumus, but it is out of this love that I encourage every one of us to do what we can to push our beloved institution forward.

JLL

Readers should keep in mind that there are always multiple sides to every story; that being said, this conversation needed to start.

Anonymous

Thank you so much for sharing your story, Olivia. I, too, was the victim of abuse - physically, emotionally, and verbally - at Rice, and I was too ashamed to report it. There was no one I trusted to help me, and I did not want my parents to become aware of the situation because I knew the news would kill them. Your experience gives me hope that I am not alone in dealing with this difficult situation. It gives me hope that one day I will be as strong as you and be able to truthfully tell those I care about what happened to me.

Anonymous

I don't think the "happiest students" status is a farce; I think there are many students who are genuinely extremely happy with their Rice experiences. That said, the title comes with the downside of expectations (that is, students think everyone is happy and feel they need to be happy too, and when they are not, it compounds any mental issues and anxiety they are feeling). In a high-stress environment at a top university like Rice, and even just in society in general, it should be okay to say you are not happy. It should be a good thing to seek counseling for stress, depression and other mental issues. It should be something we as an institution can confidently encourage and promote. I hope the attention this article is getting will prompt a response from the administration. Students like Olivia Hansen and many others who have posted here should be embraced by the Rice community, not spurned.

Concerned Alum

In response to "Dean Hutchinson response to Olivia Hansen's Op-Ed regarding student counseling services" (Nov. 30 2012)

I am really disappointed that Dean of Undergraduates John Hutchinson seemed to take such an uncaring and dismissive stance. While I do not doubt that the intentions of the administration are good, its actions and responses seem to suggest a failure to act in a manner that reflects this. That any number of students seem to feel something the administration will not see demonstrates there is clearly a large disconnect that needs to be addressed to make Rice a place where students can feel comfortable to learn and grow and to seek help when they need it.

Anonymous

In response to everyone claiming Rice did not treat their mental illnesses to their standards: Rice is not a mental health hospital. I think it would be irresponsible for Rice to try to treat every student's disease if it knows it is not equipped for that.

Anonymous

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