A Web page does not a program make…
While attending the University, I went through a difficult divorce and was counseled at the University Health Center. I received compassionate, professional attention. I was supported throughout the impact of the divorce and custody loss of my son, to the best of the counselors’ abilities, but it was not enough.
At the University, there is a well-established and funded Woman’s Health Center, located prominently in the Student Union, adjacent to ASUO offices. There are couches, desks with computers, shelved books and resources, space to meet and support those in crisis, and space to gather. It’s a vital nexus for all those women who benefit from its presence.
I asked my counselor, appropriately, why there was no Men’s Health Center; no similar support for the University’s men’s needs. No one had ever asked before and she said she’d look into it. After some time, some contentious meetings and some protracted delays, the UO Men’s Health Center was established with an office and a director. Unfortunately, it was too late for me. Counseling could only do so much, and the crisis point I’d reached, desperately struggling to maintain my relationship and support of my son, while managing a difficult curriculum, needed a larger support network than I had available; the kind I might have gotten as a woman on campus.
Maybe stereotyping, social stigmas, or cultural biases, even in a progressive community like Eugene, are reasons for this unfulfilled need, but there is still no meaningful support network for men on campus. Anyone you ask would be hard pressed to tell you where it is, what it does, much less tell you how helpful it is for UO men. The “Student Coordinator,” Dave Miller, has been gone for over a year and the “new guy” never seems to have taken over; maybe because he couldn’t find the office, supposedly someplace in the EMU basement. Phone calls go unanswered and e-mails are never responded to. There is a web page, though, that hasn’t been updated for years now.
A viable, meaningful Men’s Center is the right of male University students; it should receive equal support, a visible location and genuine commitment from the University administration and community.
How many men will be denied an equal measure of compassion, consideration and respect for the issues and unique needs we have as men in a challenging world? When I desperately needed it, it wasn’t there; now it’s too late for me, but it could still help others move successfully through the University. Maybe it’s the same lesson we are taught to accept in the larger Eugene community, where there’s no Menspace…. or maybe we should just build another Web page, ya think?
Jim Evangelista is a resident of Cottage Grove and a former University student