Northern Illinois University is more than merely a school. It is also a community – a fact we are reminded of whenever a representative of the university has a chance to say so. A place that fits the definition of community must fulfill the basic needs of its members – and NIU Health Services now lacks the ability to fulfill a very crucial need of the student body.

Dr. Diana Kraft, a psychiatrist for Health Services, tendered her resignation and left NIU students with only three places in the immediate area to receive psychiatric care.

Health Services does all that it can, and we appreciate that. What we do not appreciate is that the university could have prevented this situation and yet did not.

Kraft has made it clear that she has left under protest. As the only psychiatrist at a university of 25,000 students, Kraft had to deal with a large number of patients to begin with. Mandating that she rush through them at an even faster rate shows either an obsession with efficiency (which can almost be forgiven), or a complete callousness toward the well-being of students (which cannot).

We cannot know for sure, since Brian Hemphill, the vice president for Student Affairs, declined to comment to the Northern Star about the schedule cutting.

What should infuriate students is that with some restructuring of the budget at the Student Affairs level, NIU Health Services could have hired, for a full year, at least a couple of additional psychiatrists of Dr. Kraft’s caliber, assuming they could drum up a couple hundred-thousand dollars.

The health of the student body is important enough to plan against such scenarios as this. We can’t help but wonder if shockingly ill-advised policy changes like this one are the result of this poor planning from the very beginning.