Room 13: Keeping the Midnight Watch

It's 3 a.m. and you're lying awake. You never thought college could be such a depressing experience. Your love life is nonexistent, you're way behind in every course and your roommate doesn't understand you. There's no one to talk to, no one who will listen to your problems...

On the north side of Stoughton Hall, there's a door to the basement, distinguished only by a doorbell and a small red sign. Most students pass by Room 13 without even noticing it, and few have more than a vague idea of what goes on inside. But in the dank recesses of Stoughton basement a group of 30 undergraduates operates a telephone and drop-in counseling service for Harvard students.

Established about ten years ago in Room 13 of Mather House, the service originated as a peer-counseling group for students with drug problems. But Joanne Burger '81, co-coordinator of the service says, as heavy drug use at Harvard declined, Room 13 evolved into a more broadly defined organization, providing confidential help to students with problems and questions of every sort.

Although many students think of Room 13 as an offshoot of the University Health Services (UHS) psych ward, Burger and her co-coordinator, Gary Siegelman '81, stress that the staffers are not a group of aspiring psychiatrists testing their ability to take apart people's minds. Chosen each spring after a competitive selection process--last year 120 applied for 18 positions--the counselors' interests range from government to biochem. But Burger says, they have one thing in common--the ability "to deal sensitively with all kinds of issues."

Student images of Room 13 range from a light-hearted group specializing in milk-and-cookie parties, to a last refuge for the mentally unbalanced and suicidal. At various times the group is both of those things and virtually everything in-between. Even Siegleman says, "We have difficulties at times defining exactly what function we serve for people."

The coordinators emphasize that there is no typical situation a counselor faces, but admit there are types of problems they see fairly often. Many call because they're concerned about relations with lovers and about academic pressures," Burger says, but she adds that "people call when they're really happy too."

One person called to read a poem and another dropped in because he was estatic that he had finished his first expos paper. Viki Nevins '82, one of the counselors, defines Room 13 as "an ideal roommate who has time to listen" and that conception seems to be shared by the members of the group.

But although the group no longer performs a specific function, neither is it loosely organized or disorderly in operation. Room 13 is open for calls and drop-ins from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., 7 nights a week, and is staffed each night by one male and one female counselor.

Room 13 is actually three rooms. A main room--the central discussion area--has two beds off to the side, and a large desk with a telephone and files containing general information and referrals to other agencies. There are two smaller rooms for private counseling, one of which is stocked with milk, coffee, tea and munchies. The Room's basement location is dreary and musty, out the furnishings and lighting make it seem friendly, if not exactly inviting.

The counselors of Room 13 are not professionals, but they maintain a close relationship with UHS and the Bureau of Study Counsel. Each year, according to Siegelman, all the counselors also participate in a series of Freshman Week workshops on issues such as suicide, pregnancy, sexuality and academic problems.

Each week two counselors from UHS and two from the Bureau meet with what they call "supervisory groups" of the student counselors to discuss techniques, participate in practice role-playing situations, and go over problems that have come up in the past week.

Suzanne Repetto, one of the Bureau's supervisors, says, "the supervisory group serves as a link between Room 13 and the larger university," adding that the university is ultimately responsible for what goes on at Room 13.

The university funds the groups in two ways. Room 13 receives $1000 a year from UHS and the same amount annually through Archie C. Epps, dean of students. Epps says he meets with the program's coordinators at least once a year and feels that the program is necessary because it is "important to provide the student with a variety of avenues" to talk over problems.

How well the counselors accomplish this task is difficult to assess because of the group's strict policies of anonymity and confidentiality, but the professionals at UHS and the Bureau rate the service very highly.

Nadja Gould, a psychiatric social worker at UHS and one of the supervisors of Room 13, points out that although some students would rather go straight to UHS when they need help, others feel more comfortable talking to their peers.

Siegelman and Burger say that one of their most important functions is to refer students to specific counselors at UHS and the Bureau. Burger explains that they "try to make the transition a little easier for people who want to see counselors there," adding that students feel more comfortable using the more official university services when, for example, they can go to UHS and ask to talk to a counselor who will be sensitive to their particular problem.

Many students are unaware that Room 13 often acts as a referral service, but this is only one way, according to the coordinators, that the service is misunderstood. "We spend a lot of time worrying about the Room 13 image," Burger says, adding that although the milk-and-cookies parties create one stereotype, many others feel "that we're only for serious problems and crises."

Siegelman echoes the latter problem, pointing out that some students think if you come down to Room 13 it means "you're not in control of your life."

Although the counselors say that this year's program is going very well so far, they express a desire for more people to use the service. One problem, a counselor says, is that many people feel the service is primarily for freshmen, who are making the difficult transition to college life, but the coordinators emphasize this is not the case.

Room 13's difficulties are not unique. Peer counseling services at other schools seem to have problems similar to those of Room 13. According to Thomas Bechtel, dean of student counseling at Brown, the services of Student-to-Student, Brown's version of Room 13, "aren't that heavily utilized" because of the misconception that "You've got to be pretty lonely" to use them. T. L. Hill, a junior at Brown and co-coordinator of Student-to-Student, adds that like Room 13, his program has a problem reaching upperclassmen, especially sophomores and juniors, who, unlike freshman and seniors, are not in the midst of a transition period.

One of the strengths of Brown's counseling program, its offerings for minorities, is a major weakness of peer counseling at Harvard. At Brown there is a live-in minority peer counselor in almost every dormitory and Bechtel says these students address the special needs of minority students. But at Harvard, Seigelman says, "A lot of minority students think Room 13 is not for them." For example, some members of the Harvard-Radcliffe Gay Students Association feel Room 13 counselors "can't counsel someone who's gay," he says.

Although Room 13 is not for everyone--one student says she'd be "too embarrassed" to go down to Stoughton basement and reveal her problems to a stranger--every year Room 13 has a few "regulars" who can't seem to get enough of the counseling staff. But Siegelman says the group tries to discourage students who use the service as a substitute friend. "If someone is down here for two or three hours every night we're doing more harm than good."

The coordinators and their supervisors at UHS and the Bureau stress that although most Harvard students will never bring a serious problem to Room 13, the important fact is that the service is there for those who need it. It is the only student-run counseling service that's open all night to help with the problems everyone faces. "You'd be amazed by the intellectualization of problems" among Harvard students, Burger says, adding, "We try to help them feel about it rather than think about it."