LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Let’s Talk, Cornell. Enough With This ‘Grin and Bear It’ Stuff.

To the Editor:

CW: Mental health, suicide

When I moved to Ithaca as a freshman in fall 2010, Cornell’s response to multiple deaths by suicide the semester before was both swift and controversial, yet undeniable: fences on the bridges. Today? It’s deafening silence. It’s now been two weeks since Gregory Eells, the former Director of Cornell’s Counseling and Psychological Services, died by suicide. Until his departure to the University of Pennsylvania just months ago, Eells spent the past 15 years working intimately with students here in both his capacity as a health care provider to our community and alongside us in our campus governance and advocacy efforts. The Sun’s reporting of this tragedy misses the mark.

GUEST ROOM | Mental Health Promotion And Suicide Prevention: How Is Cornell Supporting Students?

 

Over the past year, many people have voiced concerns about student mental health, including criticisms of the university’s clinical services and efforts to prevent suicide. Wait times for counseling services are among the challenges we at Cornell Health have been working to address. With university support we have added new therapist positions which has shortened wait times and also increased the diversity of our staff. Access to mental health care is critical, because treatment works and many students are in need of it. It’s also important to reach students who may be reluctant to walk through our doors, so our Let’s Talk program places counselors in locations around campus for walk-in consultations.

WANG | Hear for You

I always thought the greatest superpower anyone could wish for was the ability to speak the right words at the right time. Its potential would be substantial. Businessmen could use it to swing negotiations; socialites could use it attract the attention of others; politicians could use it to push their agenda across. And I? Well, I could use it to get me and my friends to calm down a bit.

LIEBERMAN | Cornell Health Doesn’t Meet Student Needs

One of the most serious threats to students’ safety at Cornell is our mental health. The administration claims to care about our well-being, but lately I’ve been seeing evidence to the contrary. A few weeks ago, I saw an article on Facebook that left me feeling frozen. The headline read, “Pollack Rejects Creation of Independent Task Force to Review Cornell’s Mental Health Policies.” I clicked the link, and you should too. I was introduced to Sophie Hack McLeod, a Cornell student who took her own life in 2016.