Wall Street Journal names Cornell a Safety School

[marty]

PAGE ONE excerpt  

 
SAFETY SCHOOL
Bucking Privacy Concerns,
Cornell Acts as Watchdog
Staff Trained to Spot
Students in Distress;
Campus Suicides Drop
By ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN
December 28, 2007; Page A1

ITHACA, N.Y. -- For 19 years as a custodian at Cornell University, Sue Welch has been taking out the garbage and mopping the floors of residence halls. Recently, she added a new responsibility: trying to prevent student suicide.

Ms. Welch noticed during a recent semester that she was repeatedly having to clean up after a particular student's apparent bouts of nausea, and told her supervisor she feared the young woman had an eating disorder. The supervisor told the residence-hall director, who encouraged the student to go to the university health center. Counselors there arranged for her to get treatment for bulimia nervosa. Ms. Welch credits the training sessions that she and other custodians attended on how to spot students with mental-health problems.

"These kids are looking to us to provide care," she says. "But they don't see administrators every day, they see me."

....

[French Rage]

Don't the butlers at Harvard have to do the same thing?

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Why would there be any stress at Sucks?  Would the difference between an A and an A- make you leap in front of the T?

[Josh '99]

[quote Jeff Hopkins '82]Why would there be any stress at Sucks?  Would the difference between an A and an A- make you leap in front of the T?[/quote]What difference does it make?  Nobody gets an A-.

[KeithK]

[quote Josh '99][quote Jeff Hopkins '82]Why would there be any stress at Sucks?  Would the difference between an A and an A- make you leap in front of the T?[/quote]What difference does it make?  Nobody gets an A-.[/quote]
Sure they do.  The 20% of the class who are not honor students occasionally get an A- or two.

[billhoward]

"Give me an A .. give me an A ... give me another A ... what's that spell?"