THE fourth suicide at NYU this academic year brought yet another public relations spin effort from the university. This is the second sentence of the letter to the university community sent by Marc Wais, vice president for Student Affairs: “The young woman was a transfer student from California who began her studies here this semester and lived off-campus.”
Note: “California” (meaning not-New York-savvy), “off campus” (meaning not NYU property), “this semester” (meaning she was new, not our fault).
Back when the third suicide of the academic year hit in October, Wais informed us the building that student went off was “not owned by NYU” and the death might have something to do “with drugs and alcohol.”
That same week, university President John Sexton sent out a notice that despite the sad events, he thought it would be appropriate to circulate his annual state-of-the-institution report. In it, he evangelized that NYU’s “purpose – our possibility – is to become one of a handful of leadership universities in the world.”
He noted, “We are committed to moving forward; however, if we are to achieve what we wish, we will have to overcome sometimes daunting obstacles, and we will do that only if we are creative, nimble, patient and willing to pull together for common purpose.”
NYU has imperial aims. A suicide epidemic doesn’t help the “common purpose.”
At least with this fourth death, the university didn’t stall in informing the school community. But the official notices must stop trying to spin the deaths. The people in the PR department must unlearn what they were taught at PR school: Do not make trying to control this story your paramount aim. Instead, make honesty your No. 1 goal.
Good things will flow from this approach: Interested parties will see that honesty and integrity is the way NYU operates.
As it is now, NYU is acting like a multinational corporation blindly defending an unsafe product, insisting the product is healthy despite mounting evidence and public perception that it is not.
These suicides are a problem. Something is wrong.
OK, she was new. Perhaps the school isn’t doing enough to make transfer students feel at home?
Off-campus? Well, is there enough housing for all NYU students? Despite Herculean building efforts, I think not. So off-campus students should be thought of as belonging as much to the university community as everyone else and made to feel that way.
Where is the soul-searching?
NYU spokesman John Beckman has been telling reporters that there had been no suicides at NYU for five years before the current rash. He quotes statistics that for a college-age population, the expected suicide rate is one per 10,000 per year and that NYU has 19,000 undergraduates, meaning that even with the four deaths, the rate for the half-decade is “remarkably low.”
Stop it, please. Start acting with your hearts.
Allen Salkin, a former Post reporter, is an adjunct professor of Journalism at NYU.