Q&A: Meet the new counselor at the Center for Student Inclusion and Diversity

Elizabeth Husbands has been an Dedicated Counselor with an office in Central Michigan University's Center for Student Inclusion and Diversity (CSID) for over a year. She has 25 years of experience providing counseling to individuals from different cultures, sexual orientations or with varying degrees of mental health need.

Husbands has a private practice in Mount Pleasant, where she has worked for 11 years. While working at the clinic, she also worked for more than four years as a program manager for the RISE domestic violence and sexual assault program. She also does assessments for Central Michigan Care, an autism center in Mount Pleasant, where she has worked for over 2 years.

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Now she can be found at the Bovee University Center  Room 108, in the Center for Inclusion and Diversity.

CM Life: What have your experiences at CMU so far taught you?

Husbands: There’s an extremely significant need for professionals who work with individuals with marginalized and minoritized identities [at CMU].

[That could include] anybody that has a minoritized identity: a person of color, a member of the LGBTQ+ population; someone who has in some way been marginalized by society. It could be a homeless student, it could be [someone who’s] underprivileged in some way, under-resourced in some way, those kinds of things. And oftentimes, those identities co-exist.

How are you doing outreach for those groups of people at CMU?

Every other Wednesday from 2 p.m. to 4 I do a group called "Let’s Connect." The whole purpose of that group is to provide an opportunity for students to connect. We do crafts; we color. We just take a break from everything. Sometimes we talk about mental health concerns that come up, but it really is an opportunity for students to take a break.

I also do a group on Fridays from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. for our LGBTQ+ students, and that group is really about building community. One of the students who is attending has asked that we bring in individuals who are members of the LGBTQ+ community to talk about their experiences -- coming out, that kind of thing. And then we just talk about resources that are available to students.

I do a third group on Wednesday nights from 7 p.m. to 8:30 ... that’s called "Chilaxin’ with Elizabeth," named by the students. It's just an opportunity for students with marginalized identities to come together and talk about the impact of that on their academics, on their life here at CMU and just in general.

[We talk about] things like microaggressions that happen in classrooms, things like being first-generation students and not knowing how to navigate campus, financial resources because they don’t have support from family members [and] being ostracized from family.

One of the things the counseling center has done this year is we’ve brought some of our other groups over to the CSID in order to get students familiar with the staff and staff familiar with the students. "Healing and Wellness Strategies" are over here now, Tuesdays from 3 p.m. to 4:30, and that is really about strategies for being successful, so maybe things like studying tips or self-care tips, those kinds of things.

And then, (CMU Counselor) Julie (Shurtliff Fortino) is doing another group on the opposite Wednesdays than I do Let's Connect. (Shurtliff’s program, Let's Relax) is talking about how to relax, and how to take breaks and using small moments that have impacts on self-care.

What groups are ostracized by family? Are some of these from the LGBTQ+ community?

Sometimes -- a lot, yes. Especially our trans students. But it also happens in other populations, when students seek mental health services and families don’t support that. 

And so, how do we navigate the need for medication when your parents are saying, ‘you can’t use my insurance to pay for it,’ and those kinds of things. So, yes, it affects the LGBTQ+ community but it also affects a lot of students from minoritised identities.

Is the stigma against mental health care one that students face?

That can be one of the things. Sometimes it is a stigma; sometimes it’s a lack of information.

Sometimes it's life experience. You know, when you think about the African American communities and a lot of the communities of color...They were deliberately sterilized; and our Native American students, their heritage of smallpox, and things like that. And so, it's often hard for their family members to trust their medicine.

It is (a trust issue), and it's a life experience. For some of our students, if you think back, it's a generation ago where they actually had family members who experienced some of that medical abuse. And so, you are now a more ‘enlightened’ young person and you are meeting with somebody who says, ‘take this medication.’

Well, you have family members who are saying, ‘you can’t trust it.’ It’s not just a stigma against medication, it’s a conclusion that has been born out of life experiences.

How are you trying to build trust with students who come in?

I meet them where they are. I don’t ever pretend to know everything, or to understand their individual experiences, but I can certainly talk about my own experiences: being a first-generation college student in the United States. While both of my parents have advanced degrees, they did not obtain them in the U.S.

My family immigrated ... when I was a child, and so when I was navigating college, my parents had no idea what was going on. And so, I try to be very real with students and offer them resources when I can.

What are some services you hope to make more available so that students can use help-seeking behaviors?

I don’t know that there are services that I can make more available; I think that the university needs to focus on the resources that are (here). We have students who bring in international students, and there isn’t a plan of how they connect with things that meet their needs: resources, foods, those kinds of things.

Now, we did a bus trip last semester to Lansing, I believe it was, so (international) students could shop. Doing things like that more consistently (would help students). Now, making sure that in the Food Pantry we have spices and things like that that international students need (is also important).

Helping students connect. One of the things I hear very frequently from our international students is that they long for connection and they feel very isolated. And so, working to really support that and to provide ways for them to connect, not only with each other but with the faculty and staff.

We have a lot of students who struggle with not having meals, and so, talking about where -- not only on campus but in the community -- they can access those resources. (We have) students who may be concerned about being homeless, because they are in the transition process: Connecting them to the resources, the transitional program here.

What challenges do students face in getting the resources they need?

We do have departments that students can be referred to. But you have to think about just logistics. Most of the international students live off-campus. On one end of campus, we don’t have any transportation; I think about the other day when it was so bitterly cold, and students were walking.

The food pantry is not centrally located, and so if you live in Towers and you need the resources from the food pantry, you’re walking quite a distance with what you can carry. Those kinds of logistic things.

Often ... they don’t have warm enough coats or appropriate shoes. The faculty and staff of color last semester did a warm clothing drive, and we had hundreds of students who showed up. It was all donation-based, and they gave away coats and sweaters and shoes and socks and winter gear.

We’re asking students who may feel they are not proficient in English, or who are hearing something in English, translating it into their language, and then spitting it back out in English, to be that quick in responding in class. I’ve had students come in and talk about that: Where if there’s any delay in their response the teacher just goes on, not thinking about the fact that English is not their primary language. And so there is some conversion that needs to happen. And while it may not seem like a big deal, it is a microaggression.

I recently read an article that talked about how discrimination makes mental health worse for students, and it had some really great statistics. This is from 2024, it's a recent article:

"Students who face discrimination especially related to multiple identities are more likely than their peers to feel socially isolated. They are likely to report higher levels of social isolation, suicidal ideation and general distress.

About one-fifth of students attending sessions from the 2021-2023 academic year reported that they had experienced discrimination within the past six months due to their disability, gender, nationality, country of origin, race, ethnicity, culture, religion or sexual orientation."

So, when we think about (how) students face those kinds of discriminatory comments from peers, from staff, or faculty and people who may not understand or recognize the importance of things. ... With those comments and those actions, where do they find a place of healing?

Is a place of healing what you hope to bring to CMU?

It is. That's one of the reasons why the outreach groups are so important: Students need to find someplace where they can feel like they are not on display, where they can be themselves and where they can find some healing.