Jessi Haga
Reporter
Sometimes an animal is far more than just a pet. It can be an important part of someone’s emotional balance and stability. It can calm them when days are hard, and it can help pull them out of emotional spirals.
An emotional support animal – or ESA – is defined as a type of assistance animal that helps alleviate a symptom or effect of a person’s diagnosis. These ESAs are more important in the daily lives of people with symptoms of anxiety, depression or any other number of symptoms within the behavioral emotion spectrum.
But what happens when a student needs to bring an emotional support animal to campus?
There is a vetting process in which these animals are approved by campus officials. Jenny Mehri, a student support specialist for Mississippi University for Women, explained that confidentiality is the focus of the Student Success Center and the entire campus administration when a student seeks accommodation by The W.
“Anything that we sign off in this office is strictly confidential,” said Mehri.
The process is fairly simple A person seeking to request an emotional support animal on campus must first fill out a form online at https://www.muw.edu/ssc/disability/accommodation/esa to start the paperwork. After the form is submitted with shot records for the animal and medical records for the applicant, a doctor’s recommendation must be hand delivered to the Student Success Center in a sealed envelope. The Student Success Center then calls the applicant’s doctor do get a better understanding of why an emotional support animal is needed.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has set the standard for emotional support animals to be limited to cats and dogs while on a college campus. Students who have ESAs on campus cannot bring the emotional support animal to classes or outside their dorms and shared common areas. This differs from service animals – which are unlike ESAs because they are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual or other mental disability – according to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
After the Student Success Center approves the accommodation of an emotional support animal, the information and paperwork are sent to Andrew Moneymaker, the director of Housing and Residence Life, who then goes over the promissory contract with the ESA candidate. The student who is requesting the emotional support animal must adhere to a strict set of rules drawn up by the Housing Department. These rules include but are not limited to keeping the animal up-to-date on shots and vet visits – especially if the animal gets sick. Keeping the common area clean is one of the main focuses of the rules concerning ESAs.
In order to keep the animal in the room in the residence hall, the residents must get approval from roommates and, if applicable, suitemates.
The roommates of Julianna Clyborn, a Senior English/Speech Pathology major, have accepted her emotional support animal Lynx, a 2-year-old fluffy cat, with great excitement. Clyborn has had her ESA on campus for about two years. She explained she got diagnosed with anxiety the summer before her sophomore year and began going to therapy for the anxiety in August, upon returning to school at The W. She had in mind she wanted an ESA for some time, but fate brought her Lynx a few weeks into pledging for Rogue Social Club.
Clyborn’s father brought the kitten home from the wreckage of Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas, while helping with disaster relief. The kitten had fungal infections in his eye and the bottom of his feet, but Clyborn nursed him back to health and requested he become her emotional support animal.
“Originally, my roommate did not want to have an animal in the dorm, so I just waited until the second semester that year, but it took me about a semester to get him approved. That was before it was as stream-lined as the process is now. He was actually one of the first ESAs on campus, I think,” Clyborn said.
Clyborn has not had many complaints about the strict rules she and her roommates must adhere to, but she felt as though room checks were sometimes difficult.
If you want more information on accommodating an Emotional Support Animal, contact Jenny Mehri at the Student Success Center, or go to the Student Success Center website https://www.muw.edu/ssc .