{"id":445904,"date":"2026-09-24T05:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T05:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/445904\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T05:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T05:34:09","slug":"cmhc-caught-up-its-habits-didnt-the-daily-texan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/445904\/","title":{"rendered":"CMHC caught up, its habits didn\u2019t \u2013 The Daily Texan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CMHC<\/a> <\/p>\n

For years, UT\u2019s Counseling and Mental Health Service Center admitted it was overwhelmed. In a 2020 interview<\/a>, Marla Craig, CMHC\u2019s associate director for clinical services at the time, expressed that student demand outpaced in-house capacity. Two years prior, Craig similarly stated<\/a> the center lacked plans to expand in-house counseling staff due to priority of accessibility rather than financial investments.<\/p>\n

Student demand has climbed for nearly a decade, according to Longhorn Wellness Center executive director, Katy Redd. In 2019<\/a>, she referenced a groundbreaking 77% increase in students seeking services over eight years. To combat this, the University\u2019s solution was TimelyCare<\/a> \u2014 a national platform offering 24\/7 access to outside providers and aid in social distancing during COVID-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, that isn\u2019t the same story Craig told this year. Now an assistant vice president and licensed psychologist, she revealed CMHC faces no staffing shortage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have any problem with (staffing),\u201d Craig said. \u201cWe\u2019re in a good place right now to take care of our students.\u201d<\/p>\n

CMHC employs around 100 staff members \u2014 62 of whom are full-time licensed clinicians. With respect to UT\u2019s fall 2025 enrollment of 55,000<\/a>, the ratio results in roughly one counselor per 887 students. This falls within the 1-1,000 to 1-1,500 range recommended by the International Accreditation of Counseling Services<\/a>, the field\u2019s accrediting body. Any perceived gap between the influx of student demand to lack of counselors that previously existed appears to have closed based on the IACS\u2019s metric.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, if the staffing problem that justified leaning on an outside vendor isn\u2019t there anymore, why is TimelyCare still where students are routed?<\/p>\n

Mechanical engineering sophomore Kenneth Tran experienced this referral firsthand. After one counseling session at CMHC, his counselor suggested TimelyCare as an option for the summer if he wished to continue mental health treatment, but he didn\u2019t use it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think with TimelyCare, it\u2019s hard to find a place that is quiet (where) no one can hear you talk (about) sensitive subjects,\u201d Tran said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to do that as a student because I\u2019m in an apartment currently with several roommates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Craig said research shows virtual and in-person counseling are fairly equivalent in effectiveness. That may hold up in a controlled study. However, it does not account for students without a quiet sanctuary of their own to receive virtual counseling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI prefer in-person a lot because when you\u2019re in a room with just a counselor, it has this feeling like \u2018no one else can know,\u2019\u201d Tran said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But what about the quality of going virtual? Because TimelyCare is not a UT-specific service, it lacks a deeper understanding of the specific pressures of being a UT student.<\/p>\n

None of this argues for the termination of TimelyCare. The service is an accessible resource for students who are traveling, residing off campus during seasonal breaks or need care outside of CMHC\u2019s operational hours. However, these are edge cases and not templates for routine follow-up care.<\/p>\n

If the CMHC has sufficient staffing levels meeting the IACS\u2019s standards<\/a>, then they should treat TimelyCare as a secondary option and not a default referral process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A better utilization of these resources is the existing model that CMHC developed and already supports: the CARE<\/a> program, which embeds counselors directly in UT\u2019s colleges. While it has grown from five clinicians to nearly 20 today, Craig said she wishes to continue its expansion. Placing counselors throughout areas where students naturally congregate, not just handing them off to a call center, is a direction worth pushing for.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez is a psychology and philosophy junior from Houston, Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For years, UT\u2019s Counseling and Mental Health Service Center admitted it was overwhelmed. In a 2020 interview, Marla…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-445904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}