A few thoughts about Tyler Cole’s “We Were Only Freshmen” [June 7], on suicide and the University of Chicago, from an alumna of that college:
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- Curious about what the U. of C. has to say about this phenomenon, I learned in the April 25, 2002, Chicago Weekly News, a campus newspaper, that “guidelines [on handling suicides by students] were being drawn up by the administration under the title ‘When a Student Dies.’” “When a Student Dies”? As if a suicide were comparable to a student dying of cancer or in an auto accident! Why is it that a place that stakes a claim to intellectual honesty doesn’t simply say “When a Student Commits Suicide”? Also, the U. of C.’s current Student Counseling and Resource Service Web page cautions that “when a student indicates that he or she is considering leaving school or transferring…a change of place may not be all that is at issue.” How generous for the U. of C. to admit–after recognizing that there are “nontrivial shortcomings in the undergraduate experience,” as Cole related–that the place might be partly “at issue”! I suspect that a student’s sense that he or she might be happier elsewhere and taking action on it might be the smartest and healthiest decision he or she has made, at least since applying to college.
Vicki White
