CAPS to add staffers, expand hours

Counseling and Psychological Services will extend its hours and hire more staff within the next few weeks.

In addition to offering evening hours several days a week, CAPS plans to hire at least three temporary staffers to supplement its regular staff. Although CAPS Director Bill Alexander had discussed similar changes with groups of students for at least a year, funding from the Vice Provost for University Life only came through last week.

The CAPS Student Advisory Board had long pushed for more flexible hours, co-chair and Engineering senior Michelle Ho said.

“I think the University realized the need for it,” Ho said. “That’s what it comes down to.”

The new initiative will be in place until the end of the school year. Alexander plans to evaluate its effect at the semester’s end.

After three undergraduate deaths in 2014, criticisms about mental health resources have been at the forefront of campus discussions. The CAPS changes begin to address two of the main complaints about CAPS: long wait times and understaffing.

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