Yale students and faculty gathered to grieve for junior Cameron Dabaghi, who fell to his death from the top of the Empire State Building yesterday.
According to the Yale Daily News, Dabaghi was remembered as outgoing and dedicated student with a marked sense of humor.
Friends also noted Dabaghi's sharp, sometimes sarcastic wit, as well as his eye for planning elaborate pranks. Last year, his friends recalled, Dabaghi broke into the Berkeley dining hall and rearranged all the tables to create more space for the chairs. Meyerson also described how Dabaghi crashed the Directed Studies final exam during their freshman year."He took the test for about 45 minutes," he said. "Then, right in the middle, he jumps out of his seat, dramatically rips up his test and said, 'I can't take it anymore!' "
Dabaghi was familiar with the staff of the Daily News; he once wrote a guest column for the paper on China. The News dedicated its op-ed today to Dabaghi:
Many of us at the News knew him. Through walks up Science Hill, times in class, meals in Gourmet Heaven and memories shared in Berkeley and Trumbull, the colleges he had called home during his time at Yale, we learned about not only his love for tennis and for China, but also his eagerness to say hello or pause for a minute to make small talk with a passing friend, or even those he had just recently met.
The New York Daily News reports that close friends and family were "floored" by Dabaghi's death.
"It's absolutely shocking," said Jack Newman, founder of the Austin Tennis Academy and Dabaghi's coach for more than five years. "You couldn't ask for a better, smarter guy. He was a rock star and all the things you'd want in a student."
Yale plans to increase its counseling services and mental heath outreach for students.