You never, ever, get used to it. Ever.
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About Me
- Tenured Radical
- New Haven, Connecticut, United States
- I am Claire B. Potter, Professor of History and American Studies at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT. My blogging ethic is neither to name or to accurately describe individuals unless I am writing about a public event, or commenting on information already published about that person in a reputable source. Unless I note otherwise, situations, pseudonymous people and professional dilemmas described here are fictional. Uncivil or mean-spirited comments toward me or anyone else will be deleted, as will advertisements for products or services disguising themselves as comments. The Radical can also be found at her Zenith faculty page and at Cliopatria; scholarly and public writing can also be found here. The banner photo was taken from this page.
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12 comments:
My sympathies. We're dealing with a tragedy that's also touching our campus right now and it's very hard, I know.
I'm so so sorry for her family and her friends and for you.
My condolences. This is another tragedy.
Jesus. I can't imagine. I'm very sorry.
Oh, TR. I'm so sorry. I know I've said it before, but there are ways that as teachers, we think like parents, looking to a student's future. When it's cut off violently, it's just so hard.
So sorry, TR. To see a young person with promise in our institutions of learning take their own life is absolutely heartbreaking.
That was just me. Hugs.
Condolences. My thoughts are with you.
One of our students died in a car accident last weekend, and we're stunned, but it's somehow not as hard.
No you never get used to it. And if you do, then you know its really time to hang it up.
One thing I learned (and was surprised about in my naivete) was how often these things happen on a campus. Even faculty fall under the spell of the campus as safe space immune from certain harshness and tragedy in the world at large.
I found suicide especially tough. I know every faculty member that had her in class is probably thinking "did I miss something?" "should I have reached out more?" I know we often talk about getting away from the students or keeping them at bay but more often than not that's just talk. The truth is the majority of faculty members in practice get more not less invovled in student's lives then they admit. We ask what's going on, how they are doing, what's their background, stuff like that. And when we see them in trouble we often intervene to help, or call up the food chain to make sure deans etc. are aware of any problems. So when something like this happens, we feel (even though its not really true) that we failed in some way.
It can never hurt to alert a dean to student you think is having a problem or is falling apart. You may think the dean's are aware, but often they are not. No one else may be noticing or bothering to report it. One phone call to give the dean a heads up is often all you need to do and can be the difference in a student getting/not getting help (I don't mean to imply that is not what happened here or that a phone call can stop a suicide just that a little intervention is almost always more good than bad).
How terribly sad, for her family and friends and, in the end, for the whole campus by proxy. Especially at a smallish place like Zenith. (I'm reminded of the suicides in my high school, which was about half the size of Zenith.)
We had an incoming freshman die during orientation this year--an accidental death, in that sad and terrible category called "drunk people do stupid (and occasionally fatal) things." It was certainly a sobering way to start the year.
I heard about this a few days ago from a friend whose son is at Zenith now. Simply horrible. Just a tragedy for the woman and for her family, and a very scary lesson for her classmates in how these tragedies can occur anywhere, to anyone.
Oh, TR. So much love to you and to Zenith, for whatever it's worth against horror.
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