---

Counseling reports were inaccurate

To the Editor:

I read with distress the statements in last week's Review concerning my availability at the Oberlin College Counseling Center. In the article, "OLGBA Makes Headway, Achieves Goals," one student representative is quoted as saying that student demand on my time is so great that there is a three week waiting list to get an appointment to see me. This is simply not true. Although I must confess to a brief ego rush seeing the myth of my extraordinary popularity perpetuated in print, my overriding reaction is one of deep resentment that I am being used as a tool to continue bashing my competent and dedicated colleagues in the Counseling Center.

When I joined the Counseling Center staff in January 1994 I discovered that news of my arrival (the black, lesbian, Obie alum) had preceded me. During my first year here, there were a few times when I had a very long waiting list. However more recently, as folks have discovered that I, in fact, do not walk on water, when calling to make appointments people have found that they can usually get in to see me within about a week. (And even faster in the case of emergencies.) Still the myth of my three week waiting list persists.

Since being on staff here I have also had the opportunity to observe that not all LGB students ask to see me. Many queer students, as well as, students of color, see and appear to be quite satisfied in their work with other members of the Counseling Center Staff. As a staff we take seriously our mission to serve the needs of as broad a range of students as possible. It angers me to witness time and again old, outdated, and inaccurate information about the Counseling Center circulated as if it were news.