Cornell Suicides: Nets To Cover Gorges Around School's Campus

ITHACA, N.Y. — Cornell University in New York plans to begin installing nets on several bridges over gorges where three students jumped to their deaths in 2010.

The Ithaca Journal reports () that the town of Ithaca and the Ivy League school have reached an agreement that calls for installing nets on five bridges. http://ithacajr.nl/OmJjZi

The three students committed suicide by jumping from bridges within a month of each other. According to the newspaper, 27 people committed suicide between 1990 and 2010 by jumping from the bridges, including 15 students.

The school has long been haunted by a reputation for suicides. Cornell maintains its suicide rate over time is normal for colleges.

Fences were erected after the 2010 suicides.

Some nets will extend about 15 feet out from the bridges. Installation is to start Monday.

Comments

[johns123123]

02:50 PM on 08/21/2012

Who is in charge there? Circus enthusiasts? Dumbest waste of money ever.

[fixitguy331]

06:09 AM on 08/21/2012

I just can't see a suicidal person thinking...I'll go jump...No wait..they have nets up now...Guess I won't.
I'm pretty sure they will just think of another way?

[aliceandthecat]

06:01 AM on 08/21/2012

StudentLoanDebtSucks!!!

[tb52by]

02:22 AM on 08/21/2012

Wow, just think of students after consuming some adult beverages in massive quanties looking at those nets hanging out and below and wondering how much fun it would be to jump off and bounce on the netting.

[Tom Howell]

11:21 AM on 08/21/2012

That didn't even occur to me, but you're absolutely right.

[BarbWireLess]

01:45 PM on 08/29/2012

Not so much fun, actually. The nets are made of steel mesh and will hang well below the bridge. The landing would hurt. They don't bounce, either: they are designed to collapse around an object until trained rescue workers remove it. The bridges will be outfitted with video cameras linked to police headquarters. So basically you'd do a high dive into steel mesh and then dangle there, 100 to 200 feet above the gorge, waiting for the cops to arrive. Do you think it will catch on?

[Cornelius Dribble]

01:56 AM on 08/21/2012

Finally, those ugly, black chain-link fences will be gone! They made one of the most beautiful college campuses in the world look like a medium-security state prison. If your goal is to prevent suicides, one of the worst things you can do, I would submit, is erect something that constantly reminds people of suicide.

[Chris Beahan]

01:50 AM on 08/21/2012

My mom is from the Finger Lakes region so I have spent a great deal of time up there and frequently stop off to walk around Cornell's campus. It is breathtakingly beautiful in Spring, Summer & Fall; however Winters up there are loooooong, grey and snowy/rainy. Mix in eggheads whose only identity in life has been as high-achieving students who have generally poor social/communication skills, a few poor/failing grades & you have kids flying off the bridges in droves. There is also something oddly romantic to a young person about ending their life in such a dramatic and beautiful way. They don't yet see their problems from a long-term perspective.

Seems a shame to put up the fencing and nets.

[ResidentPragmatist]

11:12 AM on 08/22/2012

I'm just curious- have most of those Cornell suicides taken place in winter? Seems that would be in keeping with the symptomology of SAD (seasonal affective disorder).

[Chris Beahan]

07:41 PM on 08/22/2012

Not sure, but wouldn't surprise me. I recall when I was a Junior at Penn State, where the weather was notoriously gray and rainy in the colder months, and we had 22 straight days of rain. 22!! We had breaks in the rain, but no sun for 22 days. I know I was depressed & I drank a lot more. Nobody took the plunge, however.

[CocaColaKid]

01:24 AM on 08/21/2012

Now I can see some wild students jumping just because there is a net there....just for the rush.

[salamanca1]

11:23 PM on 08/20/2012

I predict that Cornell students, being among the best and brightest, will devise ways to kill themselves in the gorges by circumventing the nets. Where there's a will, and a top-flight mind, there's a way.

[realitytrumpsbull]

10:16 PM on 08/20/2012

I think college is/can be a stressful environment, if you're doing it right. Lots of performance pressure, lots of information being processed, young people, social frictions, hormones, money worries, maybe a little bit of a pressure cooker? Accordingly, maybe there needs to be more focus on students' mental and emotional state. In Colorado, a college student went completely berzerk and opened fire in a crowded movie theater. What was going through HIS mind, after failing his exam? How do we deal with failure?

[sunsetstrip]

09:15 PM on 08/20/2012

This is as sad a commentary I've seen concerning a crisis like college suicide. Nets over gorges? Wow.....sad....

[salamanca1]

11:24 PM on 08/20/2012

There was a tower at one Ivy League school that was notorious for being the jumping platform of despairing students. Some wag painted a bullseye on the pavement below.

[cyph3r xray]

08:04 PM on 08/20/2012

This has always been the suicide school.....I came, i saw, I quickly left....

[Joseph Schmoe]

07:17 PM on 08/20/2012

I predict drunk students testing the nets after a night of binge drinking.

[ricchh]

04:50 PM on 08/20/2012

This won't change the fact that the school is an unpleasant pressure cooker in the middle of nowhere. People will just find other ways.

[Chris Beahan]

01:58 AM on 08/21/2012

Perhaps the eggheads can make the occasional 60 mile road trip to Syracuse University to learn how to unwind a little and maybe even kiss a girl.

I think it would be a safe bet to say that no one has killed themselves at Syracuse in decades because they simply wouldn't want to miss out on all the drug-fueled, drunken shenanigans.

[Cornelius Dribble]

02:48 AM on 08/21/2012

I majored in English, so it was certainly no pressure cooker for me. Obviously I can't speak for the engineering or pre-med students. I imagine it's much worse for those who picked those fields because it's what their family expects of them, or because they want to make a lot of money or a big name for themselves, but have no real vocation for their chosen profession.

Cornell is not, however, in the middle of nowhere. Ithaca is a middle-sized city at the tip of a beautiful and useful lake. It has plenty of fine bars and restaurants and a thriving live music scene, Outside of Ithaca, things can get boring, but if a Cornell student has ever set foot in Candor or Groton, it's news to me. Syracuse and New York City are easily reached by bus.

If Ithaca is in the middle of nowhere, than so is Princeton, New Jersey, Hanover, New Hampshire (Dartmouth), Brunswick, Maine (Bowdoin), and Lexington, Virginia (Washington and Lee).

[Big-Red-Michelle]

03:27 PM on 08/20/2012

As a Cornellian, I think this is just silly. While I attended, we regularly used to regularly hurl ourselves from one bridge on North Campus which was possibly the highest point that I have ever jumped from. It wasn't uncommon to lose one's top, or split your trunks because of the speed at which you hit the water.

It doesn't even have to be the bridges. While sunning in one of the gorges, one guy broke his coccyx because he was jumping from a cliff and failed to make it to the deep water. Instead he slammed into the rock shelf that the sunbathers were laying on. He may have had other injuries, but since hanging out in the gorge was not exactly smiled upon, most of us decided it was time to leave...and did so quickly.

Regardless, this is a campus full of bright people, except for ILR/Ag/Hotel, but even they could work out a way around the nets or just fling themselves from the rather old and large trees strewn so casually about the campus.

P.S. I'm just kidding about the intelligence of the IRL, Ag and Hotel people.

[CabinAgue]

10:44 PM on 08/20/2012

"Regardless, this is a campus full of bright people..."

After your previous paragraphs?  Maybe you mean all the people who weren't doing the stuff you listed...

[tb52by]

02:29 AM on 08/21/2012

It is full of bright people. so you think diving off of high places into water is stupid? Accidents do happen.
Or do you think everyone should be wrapped in bubble wrap at birth and never do anything risky or fun?
My gosh you do realize people use to play on swingsets with only dirt to land on.Rode bikes without helmets, knee pads and elbow pads.Not everyone died or was maimed.In fact over the many years of such "risky' behavior death rates and serious injuries were actually quite low. Long before this mentality of overprotection of never wanting anything bad to ever happen.

[Big-Red-Michelle]

10:46 AM on 08/21/2012

Yes that's exactly what I meant. 

Or maybe, I was concerned about the people who didn't actually go to Cornell, who are unaware of some of the customs which include taking jabs at the other schools within the university, assuming my comment was serious when it wasn't intended in that manner.

Or maybe you were in Humec and felt left out.  In that case, I'm sorry.

[Cornelius Dribble]

03:07 AM on 08/21/2012

I once jumped into the gorge of which you speak. About halfway down, I actually had time to think, "Shouldn't I have hit the water by now?" at which point I looked down, hit the water, cut my lip, and never repeated the experiment.

As a fellow Cornellian, I must point out that it was "the rock shelf that the sunbathers were lying on," not "laying" on. And ILR students are not unintelligent; they are just evil (the future union-busting corporate lawyers among them, anyway).

[Big-Red-Michelle]

10:49 AM on 08/21/2012

You got me.

Then again I took Writing about Movies and Fairy Tale Analysis as my freshman writing seminars, so I'm lucky I can even put a sentence together.

[joefoss]

02:33 PM on 08/20/2012

While they're at it, Cornell might also think about doubling the staff at their Student Counseling Center and, also, initiating an aggressive campaign to enlist alums as mentors for job-seeking grads. Nothing like a combination of "prevention" and "hope" to reduce suicides.

[Joseph Schmoe]

07:18 PM on 08/20/2012

Or they could just admit that you can't do a whole lot to prevent people from doing what they're going to do.

[locodrjohn]

02:33 AM on 08/22/2012

Simply put, and great point.