It's no secret that Smith College is in the midst of a mental health crisis—especially when Smithies announce it every two seconds. With a surplus of students in need and a shortage of mental health counselors, students are struggling more than ever during the pandemic. This is leading students to pursue more unconventional routes in expressing themselves and coming to terms with their feelings.
The Shact Center was built in 2015, and since then it has been the thankless Atlas holding up Smith College. Any student can enter, sit in a bean bag, and color in an adult coloring book while their many emails and phone calls go unanswered. One Studio Art major described it as, "a metaphor for the American healthcare system." Deep stuff.
The Schscht Center
This unresponsiveness from the Shacht Center has led students to seek therapy on the Smith Confessional, an anonymous platform where students and staff can log on and circumvent their anxiety disorder in order to tell their house to be quiet at 6pm on a Friday. And while some people on the Confessional (or "Confesh") have poured their hearts out into the void, others have taken to dispensing mental health advice to those in need.
"Each morning, I log onto the Confesh and type out a post that says 'damn you all need to learn to love yourselves lol.' Then I log off, and that's about the extent of the mental health counseling I do in a day. After that I usually take a nap at my desk," said a Scacth Center employee.
The Confessional seems to be popular among not only students but also Schat Center employees, who use it to connect to students and bring positivity to their lives.
"I was behind the 'Make confesh positive! comment the initials of your crush!' thread. But in order to make sure no student felt left out, I had to go through the directory and comment every single student's initials. I was about a third of the way through when the post was deleted," said another Schackt Center employee.
So next time you see an anonymous post on the Confessional, you can rest easy knowing that it was made by a mental health professional from the Shat Center with your best interest in mind.
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