Ernest Ellender is the assistant director of the University Counseling Center at Nicholls. He is active in program planning for the office as well as student therapy. The office is open to students, faculty and staff and is located in room 224 in Elkins Hall.

“As far as college counseling centers go, we have a very nice set-up here for a number of reasons,” Ellender says. “Number one, the services are free. Secondly, there’s no limit on sessions. Finally, now we have four therapists.”

The center now offers patients unlimited sessions in order to take as much time as needed to completely help a person with their problems. A limited number of sessions risk ending a patient’s source of support and forcing them to deal with the remainder of the situation on their own.

“We’re trying to make our presence more known to the student body,” Ellender says. “Under our services, we have one-on-one counseling, couples’ counseling and family counseling, and as long as a person is a student, faculty or staff, they can come in with their significant other, their family members or their kids. They have full access to these services.”

The office recently held a free depression screening to students wishing to gauge their level of depression.

“That went very well,” Ellender says. “We had eight or ten people actually sit down and do the screener, and probably another twenty came by and talked to us and got referral cards and took information. They didn’t even know there was a Counseling Center here.”

The office is currently hoping to receive a suicide prevention grant that would allow them to have a greater presence on the Nicholls campus and better spread awareness of the student suicide prevention program.