Jazmin Guajardo has seen students with the kind of anxiety that “consumes them” not only throughout their day, but outside the normal business hours of the campus mental health center. “As a peer mentor, I have directly seen these impacts of mental health on student success,” said Guajardo, a student at CSU Channel Islands who serves on the California State University Board of Trustees, during a board meeting this week. Cal State leaders say those are some of the reasons they would like to expand virtual, after-hours crisis support across the university system. Officials say students attended more than 5,400 walk-in or crisis appointments during regular business hours, placed at least 3,500 after-hours crisis calls and were transported to hospitals 177 times in 2024-25. “Our mandate is clear. After-hours care is essential to a university’s duty of care,” said Dilcie D. Perez, a deputy vice chancellor at Cal State. MENTAL HEALTH HOTLINE If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call, text or chat the free 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline to connect with a counselor. But Cal State’s proposed solution is encountering resistance from the union that represents campus counselors. Cal State officials said Wednesday that they are considering expanding their work with TimelyCare, a company that provides students with crisis support through video conferencing and telephone. The California Faculty Association, which represents campus counselors, has previously argued that the service contracts out work that could be done in-house, putting students’ mental health “in the hands of…
