When promises are made in response to dire needs, there is often a tendency to sit back and congratulate ourselves on an accomplished objective. We fought; they promised to fix things; we stopped.

There is also another tendency however, for promises to be made — and not fulfilled, or for progress to be unacceptably slow.

As a community, we recently became incredibly aware of how dangerous the lack of adequate mental health care services on this campus can be. We have seen the impacts, heard the stories and raised our voices.

We demanded counseling staff that better represent the diversity of the student body, reasonable wait times and a sufficient number of those staff to make that happen. We demanded that those things be available right here, not somewhere off-campus that takes a journey to get to and a fortune to utilize.

We demanded to be listened to.

Inadequacies in the very foundation of a healthy and functional community should not go unaddressed, and should not be mended slowly. Money, planning and process take time, sure. However, an issue as critical as this should be made the highest priority.

The student community will not settle for consistent delay, pacification or erasure of our intrinsic needs. We will not settle for unkept promises. We will not forget and stop fighting.

They have made promises to us, offers to match those fundamental needs. Plans may have even been put in place already. Perhaps much has progressed even in the time since I wrote this. Regardless, we will not settle.

If they don’t hold themselves accountable — we will.