A staff member within Student Care will speak with you by phone or review the information provided in our care inquiry form. We will work with the referral or the student to identify next steps. Our first step is usually to connect with the referral party by setting up a consultation or directly reaching out to the student if they are expecting this. If you submitted the Student Care Inquiry as a faculty, staff, or family member, our reception team will call you to set-up a referral consultation if requested.

Thank you for contacting us. Our team will contact you within one business day to discuss resources to consider and/or send you a link to schedule an initial meeting with a Student Care case manager. For more information on what to expect, please feel welcome to review this guide. 

If the student is informed and expecting outreach from our office, we will initiate outreach. Our outreach is typically one business day after a form is submitted. If you indicated in the submission that you would like to consult or that the student is not expecting outreach, we will not reach out. As access and empowerment are our core values, we do not initiate outreach without the student's knowledge and consent. You are welcome to share our contact information with the student and encourage them to connect as well.

If you haven't heard from our receptionist team to set up a consultation nor from a Student Care staff member in 2+ business days, please feel welcome to contact us again. It's our goal to always set-up a consultation or reconnect within 1-2 business days. We appreciate your patience during busy times of year, especially the beginning and end of the terms.

If this is an emergency, please call the CAPS Crisis Line at 541-737-2131 (after-hours, select option 1) or the Department of Public Safety and OSU Assist at 541-737-7000. OSU Assist is our mobile emergency support team and is available every day from 1 PM – 1 AM. We will try to meet with you as soon as possible, but do not have emergency availability.

Students may miss class or work for a number of reasons. If you haven’t heard from them in awhile, we would encourage exploring a few key steps:

1. Contact the student through more than one medium (e-mail, phone, text) and name your concern for their wellbeing
2. Encourage the student to contact you when they are able to come up with a plan to attend to missed work, exams, etc.
3. If they are unresponsive, consult with an advisor, supervisor, or colleague to see if there are other options.
4. If the individual is still unresponsive, inform them that if you are unable to hear from them by (insert date), you may request for additional help.

It can feel unsettling, but students have the right to refuse to go to class, to be unresponsive to repeated attempts to communicate, and several other actions some of us might deem unwise due to possible implications on their education, employment, finances, etc. You may have concern for the student and be wondering to yourself if a welfare check should be done. If you have reason to be concerned about an emergency health or safety concern related to a student, please call OSU Department of Public Safety at 541-737-7000. Welfare checks may not be the appropriate immediate first option to pursue when noticing a student’s absence unless there is danger of violence or a possible emergency.

It can feel very stressful to miss a few classes or an exam throughout the term. The university does not have an excused absence policy, but there are several options to consider to successfully complete the term. If your absence was for difficult unforeseen circumstances, please consider these steps:

1. Contact your Instructor or Faculty member
   • If possible, communicating your recent or anticipated absence should be your first step.
   • Review your instructor’s syllabus for expectations on communication. You may also consider including your advisor in your outreach if that has been encouraged in the past.
   • You aren’t required to provide significant detail, but enough for the instructor to have context.
2. Explore your options with your academic advisor by reviewing the Key Decision Points guide and the Final Grades flow-chart to weigh your options after contacting your faculty.
3. Contact us: we’re happy to consult on these options. Call us at 541-737-8748 or submit a Student Care Inquiry form for support.
4. Connect with the Academic Success Center to meet a strategist to map out the remainder of the term to complete it successfully.