Not long after I arrived on campus for my freshman year at the University of Massachusetts, I noticed that one of everyone’s primary complaints about the University was University Health Services.

What stood out for disgruntled students the most was the waiting times. It’s not uncommon to hear of students spending hours in the UHS lobby waiting to be seen, a miserable experience for the sick or injured. However, there was no viable alternative: the only other option was to spend a few hours waiting in the emergency room of Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton.

Now, it’s easy to sympathize with the difficulties UHS has in serving the student population. As Executive Director of UHS Bernette Daly wrote in her Dec. 1 letter to the editor of the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, “the main facility, which is about 50 years old, was built to serve a smaller university population.” UMass has grown rapidly since then, particularly over the past five to 10 years. UHS as it is now is simply not fit to serve such a huge population.

So what did the University decide to do to fix this problem? Cut UHS’ hours and services, of course.

The irony is delicious. In need of an expansion to keep pace with the growth of the student body, UMass gave us a reduction in essential services. The University that purports itself to be so dedicated to serving its students and creating a better campus is instead cutting off the benefits its students really need.

The bizarre justification for the cuts is that they will potentially fund a new UHS building at some point in the future. The key word, unfortunately, is “potentially” – the University has stopped short of promising a new building, instead offering only vague, patronizing promises of long-term rewards to our short-term discomfort. The reason they won’t promise a new building is because these cuts can’t actually fund one.

In the same letter, Daly estimated the savings from the service cuts would save UHS about $1 million. Subtract from that UHS’ $500,000 operating deficit last year, and you have a whopping $500,000 towards constructing this wonderful new UHS facility … conservatively estimated to cost about $35 million.

In some ways, UHS’ hands are tied when it comes to raising funds. UHS is what is called an “auxiliary university service,” meaning that while it is a part of the University, it exists entirely on funds it generates itself. In other words, traditional tuition and fees don’t go towards UHS; the money paid to UHS for its services, particularly which are paid by health insurance plans, is what funds it.

UHS, though, can do better than functioning as the healthcare equivalent to an ascetic in order to save up for its own future. At a time when students at the University need more services than ever, UHS needs to start providing these services now, not “potentially” 10 years from now.

The problems at UHS are part of a larger problem at UMass: the inability of the University to keep up with the rapid growth of its student body. The University has eagerly leapt at every chance to increase the number of students over the past decade, and has stated it intends to continue this increase over the next 10 years as well.

However, it is becoming increasingly evident that the University is unable to manage this rapid increase. The problems in Residential Life are another example of this issue: students are being crammed into lounges and basements, singles are now doubles, and doubles are now triples. The University was so eager to expand its student body that it didn’t realize it had no place to put them all.

The upcoming changes to Dining Services will be next. Dining Services recently announced a $69 million project to renovate its eateries on campus, starting next January with Hampshire Dining Commons in Southwest. Hampshire will be closed while it undergoes the renovations. It is absolutely ludicrous to think the student body will have adequate access to meals during this time. Berkshire is already a madhouse at dinnertime; it is unfathomable to think what it will look like if Hampshire is closed, and the 5,000-plus students living in Southwest are left with only one DC.

The University’s great mistake has been its failure to properly engage and involve the student body. If the University is having trouble meeting the needs of its students, who better to ask for help than the students themselves?

Yesterday, as students protested outside UHS against the cuts to services, a question on everyone’s minds is why students weren’t consulted in the first place. Any undergrad could have told the University that UHS needs more staff, not fewer. Instead, we are forced to march in order to make student voices heard.

The way the University handles the growth of the student body is one of the defining issues of this period in the University’s history. As the service cuts to UHS show, the University is not handling the growth well.

Billy Rainsford is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].