In the past months and years, NYU has shocked the city with a number of high-profile jumping deaths, but such tragic incidents are nothing new at Cornell. Three students died in the course of a month recently, and Cornell is currently on suicide watch, kicking off a full-scale campaign that urges stressed and depressed students to get help. The three students are thought to have taken their own lives—all by throwing themselves into the town's famous gorges (Ithaca's version of the Bobst Library). “While we know that our gorges are beautiful features of our campus, they can be scary places at times like this,” Susan Murphy, the vice president for student and academic services.
Despite its reputation, one doctor who grew up in the town says Cornell's label as the "suicide school" is fallacious. He blames the gorges. “When someone dies by suicide in a gorge, it’s a very visible public act,” he told the Times. The stats support his claim: "The most accepted suicide rate for college students is about 7.5 a year per 100,000 students," Chris Brownson, director of the Counseling and Mental Health Center at the University of Texas told the AP. That makes Cornell, with a student body of 20,000 students and 14 confirmed suicides since 2000, just about average.
Still, following the three deaths, teachers took time to remind students that they were cared for on a personal level, not just an academic one. Patrols now stand on the university's bridges and RA's knock on dorm room doors, asking how everyone is. Cornell's president bought a full-page in the school newspaper for the cause. “Your well-being is the foundation on which your success is built. If you learn anything at Cornell, please learn to ask for help,” reads the copy.
