In an effort to address student mental health concerns, Rhode Island School of Design Counseling and Psychological Services has introduced same-day access appointments this semester, with plans to form a CAPS student advisory board and introduce new digital wellness resources.
Last April, an executive summary released by RISD found that CAPS utilization increased from 5% of students in the 2014-15 school year to 25% in the 2023-24 school year, an increase of 400%. Accommodations from Disability Support Services “nearly doubled” from the 2019-20 school year to the 2023-24 school year, “with mental health accommodations being a top driver,” the report states.
“We have significantly higher utilization than most college counseling centers,” said RISD CAPS Director Sherrie Bruner. “CAPS is trying to get more creative about how we meet student needs. With those kinds of numbers, we can’t individually provide counseling services for all of those students.”
RISD junior Sarah Chen, who uses CAPS, said she has had difficulties securing appointments. “They’re looking really understaffed. It’s just that there’s not that many therapists or psychiatrists at CAPS, and so their capacity, I feel like, is always really limited,” she said. “It took me over a month, I think, for one appointment.”
In a statement sent to The Herald, Bruner and Elayna Kadish, a health educator overseeing the Office of Health Education and Promotion, wrote that a standard needs assessment with CAPS typically takes a maximum of two weeks to secure. But same-day appointments are available for students who are in crisis and support is offered after hours via Protocall, a 24-hour crisis line.
“Students can always get an appointment,” Bruner said. “We would never say we don’t have an appointment for you, but it might be a longer wait than students prefer.”
According to Bruner, CAPS introduced the option of same-day access appointments in the hope that “we have some appointments that are maybe more easily accessible,” Bruner said.
CAPS has also eliminated the requirement for students to do a needs assessment in order to make an appointment with a psychiatrist. After becoming the director of CAPS, Bruner realized it seemed like a barrier for students who were already taking medication and wanted to renew their prescription, they said.
“Historically, they would have had to wait a couple weeks for needs assessment and then wait a couple of weeks to see a psychiatrist,” they added.
RISD is also in the early stages of developing a student advisory board to help inform how CAPS can best serve students, according to Bruner. They said that students on the board would be able to “share some of their own experiences” and “talk to us about some of the things that they’re hearing from their peers on campus.”
These initiatives follow the release of key findings and statistics about student mental health and work culture at RISD from a February 2026 Institutional Self-Study and an April 2025 Holistic Student Wellness executive summary.
The executive summary details a grind culture which “glorifies overwork,” difficulties in navigating wellness resources and barriers to care as factors influencing student mental health at RISD.
According to RISD Associate Director of Public Relations Danielle Mancuso, RISD has recently addressed student workload by making Wintersession optional starting this year and reducing the minimum number of credits needed to graduate from 126 to 120 for students who entered RISD in fall 2024 or after.
Through the American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment, RISD found that 55% of students reported feeling high stress compared to 41% nationally, and 36% reported being diagnosed with depression, compared to 26% nationally.
“It’s actually a lower number than I would expect, based on my experience here,” Bruner said. “I think a lot of our students are really, really stressed.”
Sophia Minogue, a junior at RISD, said that she has witnessed a grind culture at the school. “I feel like both the curriculum, but also the atmosphere with teachers and other students, like staying up and doing all nighters, definitely impacts that grind culture.”
RISD junior Lydia Smithey said she believes the grind culture differs “department by department.”
According to the executive summary, “students often work while sick due to concerns about attendance policies, with some declining mental health support to avoid missing class.”
Bruner has noticed this issue and said that CAPS has measures in place to try to combat it. CAPS is open after hours on Mondays and Wednesdays, and students with very tight schedules can book recurring appointment times.
HEP also plans to work with WellSort, a wellness company that offers digital tools to showcase campus wellness resources and give students more avenues for self-reflection. She added that RISD is working to set the resource up on the HEP website by the next academic year.
CAPS also collaborates with other RISD units to promote mental health. Bruner said that they have “great partners” in Disability Support Services and the CARE Network. “If we work together, we can meet the student need better with regard to wellness and mental health, physical health, all the things,” Bruner said.
Minogue has experience using the CARE Network, which “helps students navigate challenges that impact their ability to thrive at RISD” and is operated through the division of Student Life, according to their website.
“I was going through a pretty tough time, and they were able to reach out to my professors on my behalf,” she said. “They were able to connect me with the CAPS team at the time for more emergency counseling.”
“I found that was really helpful, but that’s such a small team at RISD,” Minogue said. “There’s a lot more support needed, or funding, for that type of structure within RISD to support our students.”
Izabella Piatkowski is a senior staff writer covering the Rhode Island School of Design.
