Ellie Haskett, the new Counselor of Student Accommodations and Mental Health Initiatives. Photo by Lake Land College.
Since the beginning of this semester, Ellie Haskett has served as the new Counselor of Student Accommodations and Mental Health Initiatives. Haskett replaced Amber Niebrugge, who served in the same capacity. Now, Niebrugge is currently the Psychology instructor.
Haskett mentioned, “I used to work at the Counseling Department at Lake Land. That is how I knew about the position and applied for it. I wasn’t the counselor here, but the counselor services specialist. A couple of the counselors, Kellie Niemerg and Heather Nohren, reached out to me and asked if I was interested in applying for the position.”
Previously, Haskett worked as a counselor for the Sexual Assault Counseling and Information Services (SACIS), which office is presently located inside the Coles County Health Department at 825 18th Street in Charleston. This organization has served victims of sexual assault and violence since 1977. The counties SACIS serves are Coles, Crawford, Cumberland, southern Clark, Edwards, Jasper, Lawrence, Richland, and Wabash counties in southeastern Illinois.
In addition, she worked at One Hope United, which is an American non-profit organization, established in 1895 that provides education, foster care, adoption, and other support services to children and families in Florida, Illinois, and Missouri, with the headquarters in Chicago. She operated at the local affiliate in Charleston. She stated that she “did out-patient for them.”
From 2015-18, she worked as the Counseling Services Specialist, prior to the Luther Student Center being renovated. Her office was at the back and her main responsibility was doing orientation for new and transfer students.
Additionally, she revealed she “worked with Andy Gaines with the accommodation students while Gaines was the Counselor of Student Accommodations. That helped me a lot in regards to this position. I then became a counselor, a mental health therapist for five years for the two aforementioned places.”
Regarding student accommodations, she explained students received “audiobooks, class notetakers, extra time on tests/exams, extra time on assignments, attendance policy, an opportunity to take the test/exam at an alternative location, such as the Tutoring Center in Webb Hall.”
Furthermore, she received a Master’s degree in Counseling at Eastern Illinois University. Moreover, she is not the full-time mental health counselor. She serves as a back-up to Thomas Moll, the coordinator of mental health services. Let’s welcome Haskett to the Lake Land College community and hope she enjoys her tenure here on campus.
