The Associated Students of Madison introduced new legislation Wednesday suggesting to add crisis hotline numbers on the back of incoming freshman’s Wiscards for the next academic year.
The legislation — introduced by Rep. Yogev Ben-Yitschak and co-sponsored by eight other representatives and one committee chair — intends to add the UW Police Department phone number, University Health Services Mental Health Crisis Line and Rape Crisis Line on Wiscards before the start of the next academic year.
Over 200 universities around the country have added emergency service contact information on their university-issued student IDs. In fact, the state of California passed a law requiring institutions to have the National Suicide Prevention Hotline on IDs for middle school, high school and college students.
According to UHS, one out of five students at UW-Madison consider suicide at some point, and more than 300 cases of sexual assault were reported during last year. The emergency services contact information is only the beginning of the student health, safety and wellbeing conversation that ASM is initiating with the university staff.
Many of the student representatives pointed out that mental health issues and sexual assault incidents are a real concern for UW-Madison students.
“Freshman are adults, and we have other resources they are required to go through to prepare them for drinking on college campuses, sexual assaults on college campuses,” said Rep. Dylan Resch. “We get Wisc Alerts of active shooter and attacks by College Library.”
One concern raised by representatives was whether having emergency numbers visible at all times would be disturbing or triggering for students. However, Ben-Yitschak said there is not evidence to support that.
“The institutions that have the Suicide Hotline and the Crisis Text Line on their student IDs don't see the research that more people have triggering feelings from seeing the number,” Ben-Yitschak said. “That’s something that the State of California did research on before passing the state bylaw about this, and their committee did not find that having the number would cause people to feel more suicidal.”
ASM chose to postpone voting on the issue until the next meeting to give representatives more time to do research and “have a more informed discussion next week,” ASM Chair Laura Downer said.
Adding the three emergency numbers would not create additional costs for the university, according to discussions with university staff.
However, some representatives were still reluctant to greenlight any changes.
“Given that students can save these emergency numbers to their phones and just call 911, what does adding these numbers address?” Outreach Director Aerin Leigh Lammers asked.
This question prompted many co-sponsors to share personal anecdotes. Rep. Ben-Yitschak shared his experience as a house fellow and how the SOAR presentations include UWPD numbers but not crisis hotline numbers.
“There is a reason we do not add the Rape Crisis Line and Mental Health Crisis Line numbers to those presentations,” Rep. Ben-Yitschak said. “That’s mainly because students would feel uncomfortable if in their first conversation someone would have said, ‘Put these numbers in your phone in case you get sexually assaulted or consider suicide.’”
Update 10/4/19 3 p.m.: This story has been updated to more accurately reflect the California law requiring crisis numbers on student IDs.
