In last week’s lecture, we had multiple speakers from Emory’s community come out and discuss the impact of COVID-19 on education. One aspect that stood out to me, and I have grown passionate about these past couple of years, is disability resources for students, specifically comparing remote settings and in-person settings. The mental health resources provided to students during regular school years are not great. Emory is no different. Emory’s central mental health resource is Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). Even though CAPS switched to a remote telehealth form during COVID-19, only those who were still residing in Georgia could receive services. Thus, many people who were forced to go home did not have access to CAPS.

Before COVID-19 and even now post-COVID-19 (are we really post-COVID-19, though?), CAPS was severely underfunded and lacked proper staffing to meet the needs of students. Mental health has always been something Emory students have struggled with. According to the website Humans of University, they placed Emory at no. 4 for the most depressed student body. Whether that is true or not, one thing I know for sure is that Emory’s mental health resources are inadequate to help all struggling students. I’ve had personal experiences with CAPS that, unfortunately, seem to be universal.

When I first signed up for CAPS, it took a few weeks to have an initial meeting to determine my needs and intake. When I was asked if I had preferences, I requested to be assigned a therapist who is a person of color or a woman simply because I believed that these criteria were important aspects of my life that would be better understood by someone who can relate to me. This caused me to experience a wait time of 3 months, which was absolutely ridiculous. The average wait time for CAPS is about 2 months, but because I had preferences (which aren’t extremely picky or detailed), I was forced to wait an extra month. That is not a reasonable wait time for students reaching out for help. On top of that, it should not be difficult to provide students with a woman therapist or a person of color; Emory has thousands of students who identify with those identities. The staff should also reflect that.

Mental health is not the only form of disability that exists, of course. During COVID-19, certain students with physical disabilities, including myself, struggled with remote learning. I have visual impairments, and so being on Zoom and on my computer for hours on end brought me so much eye strain and pain. Many students with various physical disabilities struggle to do remote schooling because physical schools provide specialized learning and tools to help those disabilities. For many parents in the country, it forced them to become teachers for their children with disabilities so that they did not fall behind. However, according to The Washington Post, parents with children that receive special education “… are not just falling behind academically but are missing developmental milestones and losing key skills necessary for an independent life.” The pandemic was a really rough time for disabled students, and there weren’t many resources provided to relieve students.

Emory’s main resource for disabled students is the Department of Accessibility Services (DAS). While DAS could not provide much help during remote learning, just like CAPS, it is severely understaffed and underfunded. There is too much demand from students and insufficient staff members within the department. I’ve also been personally affected by this; I applied for accommodations at the beginning of this semester and, 3 months later, have yet to hear anything. At this rate, the semester is nearing its end, so what would DAS be able to do for me? It’s truly a shame.

For a university that costs nearly $80,000 a year, you would think that vital departments, such as CAPS and DAS, would be properly funded and staffed. Unfortunately, this pandemic has shown us that this is not true, and their limitations are extensive. Hopefully, enough awareness and conversations with the administration will improve things and implement change.