The University stands to save as much as $43,000 by privatizing the Crisis Center’s hot line, a University vice president announced Wednesday night, but she said that was not the only reason for doing so.
The Crisis Center runs a suicide hot line, which will be closed at the end of spring term to be replaced by services provided by an off-campus call center. The existing hot line is staffed by undergraduate volunteers taking a class, supervised by graduate teaching fellows who are instructing the class.
That arrangement was the source of the problem with the center, University Vice President for Student Affairs Robin Holmes said. The hours of the Crisis Center, she said, dictated that the GTFs employed there worked more than the amount allowed by the University’s contract with the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, the labor union representing GTFs.
“I still could not get around the fact that we cannot violate the GTFF contract knowingly,” Holmes said. “And we could get these services at a much-reduced rate.”
Upon learning of the contract breach, Holmes said, the University consulted other colleges across the nation to find out how they administered their crisis hot lines. She said the University’s student-run crisis hot line is the only one in the nation, and that administrators at other universities told her the current arrangement was a bad idea.
“Because of the kind of work they’re doing — they’re taking calls from people who are actually suicidal — they need to be supervised for that activity” by professionals rather than simply GTFs, Holmes said.
Holmes said the hot line, which costs about $50,000 split between the ASUO and the University’s general fund, would cost $7,000 to $9,000 if it were outsourced.
The hot line will now be run by Seattle-based firm ProtoCall, which also runs hot lines for campuses that include Johns Hopkins University and New York University.
Holmes said she could not say for certain whether outsourcing the hot line would cost any jobs, but she said the GTFs will keep their positions.
A ballot measure against outsourcing the Crisis Center passed by a large margin in the ASUO’s primary election during the first week of the term, but the measure was non-binding and the University announced it would be outsourcing the center soon afterward.
“One of the, kind of, side effects of the vote that happened was that it was clear what the students want on campus,” Holmes said.
Holmes acknowledged the decision had adverse effects.
“By closing the Crisis Center for student (volunteers), we are taking away a very valuable apprenticeship opportunity,” she said. She said the University would be attempting to help find more opportunities for those students.
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