The Student Counseling Center provides a variety of services for students in order to promote academic performance and promote personal growth. Services include crisis intervention counseling, group therapy, couples counseling, individual therapy, outreach programs, and consultation.
The center had its beginning with the 1946 implementation of the guidance service required for service personnel returning to school under the GI Bill and available to all veterans. This guidance offered vocational and academic testing and general counseling. Veterans who had not graduated from high school could pass a general educational development test—taking 10 hours to take five tests—and earn a high school certificate, which qualified them for admission to UT. The center was under the direction of Mr. C. B. Collier, a member of the registrar’s staff.
In 1962 a reorganization of student services joined the counseling and testing functions with other student affairs programs under the administrative purview of Executive Dean of Students Charles Lewis, who established the Student Counseling Center soon after he took office. Its first director was Dr. Thomas B. Scott, who received the bachelor’s (1949) and master’s (1950) degrees at UT and the PhD from the University of Minnesota (1960).
The center was first located in a temporary structure behind Ayres Hall and moved to Temple Court in summer 1964. Following the completion of the Student Health Clinic on Andy Holt Avenue in 1975, the Counseling Center moved to 900 Volunteer Boulevard, a building constructed in 1927 as the residence of Weston M. Fulton, the famous inventor. As a memorial to his son who was killed in an automobile accident in 1928, Fulton gave a $50,000 gift so that the university could purchase his residence and add to it for use as an infirmary.
Planning for an expanded Student Health Center included incorporating the Counseling Center into the building, an arrangement long urged by longtime Student Counseling Center director Richard Nash. Counseling Services were incorporated into the new facility, which was completed in 2011 and dedicated in January 2012.