When walking into counseling psychologist Dick Boyum’s office, you are greeted with a cavalcade of toys, art and sports memorabilia.

“I consider this to be a sacred place,” he said.

The artifacts strewn about his office – including a bust of a woman sewing up her torn heart, wizard hats and figurines, a chunk of the Great Wall of China and thousands of other objects – are either metaphors for wellness or relate to his life.

With the youthful attitude that existed throughout his career, he picked up a squeaky toy hammer and hit his head a few times to show how people beat themselves down with stress.

Boyum has been at UW-Eau Claire for 31 years, and at the end of this semester, he’s going to empty out his office.

Boyum said he’s seen more than 6,000 students and held more than 15,000 individual sessions. He has published 268 articles, as well as children’s stories and counseling techniques.

Despite the positive nature of his work, Boyum said there have been difficulties.

“It’s hard watching people be sad and cry all day when they have so much going for them and so much potential,” he said.

In his time at Eau Claire, Boyum said he lost one student to suicide.

Despite the painful times, Boyum has helped many students make positive changes in their lives.

A female student saw him while she was contemplating suicide, Boyum said, and three years later, she returned to see him with a baby in each arm and living a happier life.

Former Student Senate President Adrian Klenz said Boyum helped him make the decision to return to school after he left in the mid-1990s.

Klenz and Boyum kept in contact with each other, even when Klenz was not attending the university.

“He has a really good knack for reaching students and helping out students,” Klenz said.

Boyum was hired as one of the last tenured non-teaching faculty members in the UW System. This job security gave him the freedom to speak his mind without fear of losing his job.

“It allows you to speak up on a variety of issues,” he said.

When Boyum began at Eau Claire, he wrote one of the first alcohol research grants. The results of the research showed the university had an alcohol problem. Administrators told him to suppress the information, but he chose not to, he said.

In 1999, Boyum began upgrading the Counseling Services’ Web site, and since then Boyum has made the site a source of self-help. The site drew 69,200 hits last month, Boyum said, and about half a million in the last year.

“He puts a lot of time and effort into their Web site,” Computing and Networking Services Web programmer senior Shawn Everhart said.

Of all department members he works with, Everhart said Boyum is the easiest to work with and the most receptive to ideas.

“I like how he takes my opinion into consideration,” Everhart said.

As for his plans after the semester ends, Boyum said nothing is cast in stone yet, and he feels as excited and terrified as graduating seniors. He said he is graduating too, and looks forward to the transition.