Featured, On Campus - by Jessica Roy on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 12:22 - 23 Comments - 7,235 views
A male NYU student died in Bobst this morning at 4:30am, according to a report by WSN. The library is currently closed. We’ll get back to you with more information as it becomes available.
Update 9:20am: Public Safety would not confirm anything, and we’re waiting for John Beckman to get back to us.
9:21am: Bobst is now open. NYU spokesman John Beckman will be releasing a statement shortly.
10:10am: No area of Bobst has been cordoned off. Spoke to a security guard and a Bobst employee – neither could confirm the nature of the death.
10:41am: Gothamist is reporting the death as a suicide. A tipster who e-mailed us early this morning also believed it to be a suicide. However, there has not yet been official confirmation on this fact.
10:54am: Note that Gothamist says NYPD confirmed the student jumped. There are Plexiglas walls in addition to the railings on every floor with a walkway overlooking the atrium except for the 2nd floor.
12:20pm: President Sexton just sent out a university-wide e-mailing acknowledging that a junior in CAS has died by suicide. Full text of the e-mail after the jump.
12:22pm: NYU is still running campus tours in Bobst.
If you want to discuss this or any other problems that you’re experiencing, please remember that the Wellness Center is available to help 24/7 at 212-443-9999.
It is with great sorrow that I must tell you of the death of a student — a junior in the College of Arts and Science — early this morning in Bobst Library. While the cause of death is still being determined, indications are that he took his own life.
Suicide among people of college age is a national problem, a leading cause of death among the young; each year, campuses across the country must cope with these tragedies and their aftermath — the pain, the heartbreak, the upset it causes to those who are vulnerable, and all the terrible, persistent questions.
I have taught young people for some five decades, drawn by their energy and their promise and by the unique bond that forms between student and professor. The impulse for self-harm — particularly among young men and women with so much talent and so much to live for — is incomprehensible to me.
And so I would like to speak to the NYU student community as I would speak with a student of mine sitting and talking with me in my own office. No matter how difficult things might seem at any particular moment, your life is filled with promise, you belong in and are part of a community that cherishes your presence, you are loved, and there are many people at hand ready and willing to help you — your professors, the staff in the residence
halls, the Wellness Exchange, your family, and your friends. I am certain of this: there are many resources to help you, and harming oneself is absolutely the wrong choice.We are a close knit community, a large community of small communities; we should remind ourselves that there will always be people among us who will need our help, and we should never hesitate to reach out and offer a hand or an attentive ear, or to direct friends and peers to the many excellent professionals we have at the Wellness Exchange (212-443-9999, or 999 from any campus phone) to help students work through problems.
If you feel upset by this news or anything else in your life, do not hesitate to call the Wellness Exchange. If you have a friend or a student or a colleague who seems vulnerable, call on his or her behalf.
I know I speak for the entire NYU community when I say that this student’s family and loved ones are in our thoughts and our hearts and our prayers. The family has asked that they be accorded the greatest possible degree of privacy and sensitivity in this difficult hour, and I would hope that we all shall strive to comply.
To each one of us — student, faculty, administrators, or staff: take care of yourself, take care of one another.
23 Comments
elana cohen
Wow, this is really horrible and really sad.
We don’t know the cirumcstances about this, but my biggest condolences go out to anyone who knew the student.
jacob krell
Any indication as to how someone could have jumped from the upper floors after the stacks had closed?
Julianna M.
There really is no possible way to jump from any floor above the 3rd. Those glass barriers are over 10 feet tall and none of them seem to be damaged in any way. This is all kind of puzzling.
…and depressing.
I have a feeling he didn’t jump. At least I hope he didn’t.
Wei-wei Wang
Terrible, terrible news. I just graduated from NYU in May of ‘08. The city can get to you sometimes, but it’s incomprehensible that someone so young would decide to go that way. I feel awful for his friends and family.
This is awful… Has the name of the student been released? Will it be?
@Leo
Doubtful. The family has asked for privacy, and it’s not particularly ethical for news orgs to release the name of a suicide victim, especially without the family’s permission. I’m sure it will spread among students, though.
Well, WSN is reporting his name, so I guess ethics are debatable….
J Stern
It looks like the NY Daily News decided to publish his name.
Matt Nolin
@Jessica
Well at the least, it is relieving to know whether you knew him or not
Pat McClellan
@Matt, If you’re close enough with a suicide victim to be really emotionally impacted by it, you’d find out without needing to read the paper. Otherwise, it’s really not anyone’s business and I’m pretty horrified that the WSN printed this poor kid’s name.
Simone Miller
This is so sad. I can’t imagine what level of despair this poor student must have been feeling…
I agree with Pat on the whole releasing a name issue.
Laura
I was a freshman in 2003, when my good friend Steve passed away in Bobst. I was at studio all day (cell phone off), and didn’t know anything until I was halfway back to my dorm, when an acquaintance mentioned the event but didn’t know who it was. I didn’t know it was Steve until I got back to Rubin and reporters started accosting me outside, at which point I started crying hysterically and NYU security pulled me inside.
Just saying you never know how someone will find out, and it’s not always based on how close your relationship is.
@Laura I’m sorry to hear that that happened to you. You’re definitely right–just because you’re close with the person doesn’t mean you’d know right away. But I think the the point was that if you were close to the person, no matter when you found out, you wouldn’t want to find out through a news organization. At least I wouldn’t.
Ritz Angel
His poor parents…
Val Pesce
His sister works for NYU, too
http://www.nyu.edu/residential.education/contact/staff_bios.html
Eric M.
On the issue of whether or not you should print his name…
How is it not anyone’s business? A 20 year old – not a child – murders himself in a space that trafficked by hundreds, if not thousands of people in a day. (In a space, no less, that has become notorious for suicides like these). It is a tragic event and we must consider horrifying details, the trend of this type of suicide, and the importance of looking out for the people around us. I’m sorry, but his name is news, just as this story is news. It’s a horrible thing, we all recognize that. Suicides are difficult to deal with, especially when it is a young person with such promise. Printing his name is not insensitive or unethical as some commenters have insisted. This is not a private event. He was not a child. He chose to make his death public. Reading about it in the paper is not pleasant, but journalism does not have luxury deferring the message to someone else. And I can assure you Jessica, there is no good way to find out about a suicide. It is always, always bad, no matter who or what you hear it from.
@Eric M
Thanks for your insight. Clearly we have differing opinions on the issue. Considering the family’s request for privacy, NYU Local did not feel we needed to print his name, so we didn’t. Other sources did, so if students want to know who it was, they can easily find that information; we just didn’t feel comfortable running it ourselves. His name is not integral to the facts being reported in that it does not change the story.
As for your final sentence; that’s obvious, and something I know from experience, but thanks for clarifying.
Kristina Lustig
I’d like to take a second and point out how awful and sensational that ny daily news article is (the one linked above). holy christ. “the doomed student”? “he was a desperate man bent on self-destruction”? Unbelievable. Thank you NYULocal for actually being sensitive regarding such a terrible event.
Rob Atterbury
I’m still shocked that all of the news stories say ‘NYU Student FOUND’. He wasn’t found. He hurled himself from an upper floor into a 24-hour staffed lobby, with many students below that heard the awful thud. The instant this happened many people were aware.
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gawker says it was a suicide http://gothamist.com/2009/11/03/early_morning_bobst_suicide.php