The supervisors and students can make suggestions about how to handle cases, but staff members insist that there are no "rights and wrongs" in counseling methods. Staff members insist that they be allowed to use their own personal style in counseling.

Required reading for all Room 13 volunteers is a book entitled On Becoming a Person, by Carl Rogers. The book, first published in 1961, advocates "helping other people talk, helping them to open themselves up" as a method of counselling, said Wendy Enikeieff '76, a staff member. This book stresses the concept of counseling without giving advice, which is emphasized by co-director Yoss.

However, all the staff are not as negative as Yoss when it comes to giving advice from Room 13.

"You must have been talking to Marci," one of them laughs when asked if he avoids giving advice. Some of the staff members say that they find their own experiences useful when counseling, and that they sometimes give advice on the basis of those experiences.

Staff members profess to having found their first counseling calls "scary." But they say this feeling wore off soon, when they realized that the caller at the other end of the line was at least as timid as they. Bill S. Connelly, a staff member, said that people who come in to talk often spend the first ten minutes of their time there apologizing for having troubled the staffer at all.

Throughout the year, Room 13 staffers participate in meetings and seminars on a variety of problems and topics, ranging from the psychology of suicide to the relative merits of various kinds of birth control. Room 13's supervision group program can be taken as a tutorial for credit (Psychology and Social Relations 910r).

The staff is ready and waiting to be confronted with problems, but the waiting is often in vain. Callers wanting movie or bus schedules are frequent, and no calls at all is an even more frequent occurance.

Room 13 receives $2000 annually from the University, half from Dean Whitlock's office and half from the University Health Services. Jane Leavy, assistant to the director of UHS and one of three supervisors at Room 13, said that UHS provides its half of the funds because "a large proportion" of Room 13's calls are health-related. She said that Room 13 acts as an "outreach service" for the Health Services.

The expenditure of these funds is generally the responsibility of the staff of Room 13, although the UHS reviews the large expenditures, Leavy said.

This year, each of Room 13's two co-directors drew a salary of $300 from the funds granted by the University. This amount represents a large decrease from last year's salaries of $700 each for the co-directors. This salary cut was voted by the staff at the end of the last school year.

"No one felt they were necessary," Bigda said. The rest of the staff receives no pay at all for work at Room 13.

A large chunk of Room 13 funds also goes annually toward the purchase of A Student Guide to Sex on Campus, which is distributed free of charge to every freshman room. Other expenses are publicity, refreshments for open houses, and necessities such as lightbulbs for the basement rooms.

Staff members say that the $600 expenditure for The Student Guide to Sex on Campus is a worthwhile expense. They say that there is a specific need for such a book on campus.

"It's the kind of book that people laugh about to their roommates but then read later when they are by themselves," said one staffer. "I would say it's a good book to have around."

The staff members themselves appear to have joined Room 13 for three major reasons. Almost all of those asked cited a desire for meaningful involvement in an effective project, and a desire to work with people. Co-director Pat Booker articulated the third principal reason.