Letters to the editor: Students want more communication with Residence Life

Special interest ho~sing coup

After reading this past week's Loquitor, I realized that I have been jaded. I realize that people are probably sick of hearing about Residence Life and all of the controversy surrounding the situation. However, I am responding to the article in the Loquitur that was titled, "Special interest ~ousing encourages community." I am, supposedly, living in Intensified Study.

Last spring, during room selection, I picked a room in Intensified Study, where I expected to be living with a group of people that would have similar expectations as myseJf. How wrong I was!Not only I am living with people that did not even pick Intensified Study, but the rules that J requested by living in Intensified Study are not even enforced.

Then, when I try to ask people to respect the rules, I get a harassing note under my door.

Immediately, I knock on my RAs door to begin to correct this situation. My RA, basically,pretends to care. She tells me how we're going to have a hall meeting to discuss this problem, as well other problems. Now let me tell you, I got this note in January and I've yet to see this meeting.

The day after I get the note, I head to Residence Life because I prefer to show them the note myself. I talk to my RD, who photocopies the note, and then proceeds to do nothing. So what does article in the Loquitur have to do with my situation? I find it very ironic that Shayla HasicStamps says ''The school will support any positive, learning and living experienceon campus that provides a different learning and living option;' but bas never supportedthe currentIntensified Study environment.

Because of the lack of authority, I have had to endure numerous comments, situations, and harassments by some of the other residents that live around me. Who's to blame? Quite frankly, I am not sure. On one hand, the RA is to blame because she shoqld enforce the rules that are set by Intensified Study. On another hand, Residence Life Directors arc to blame because they should have responded to the harassment that I received. Let's add a third hand and blame the residents on my floor who prefer to ridicule and harass me rather then be the adults that they claim to be. How ironic it is to endorse the very thing that you won't support!

Candice Marple

Denied a voice

Don't get me wrong, I love Cabrini College and I love all that it stands for. That is why I feel a need to make the Cabrini community aware of Residence Life's failure to communicate. Up until March 25th, I never had a bad thing to say about Cabrini. My arrival to Cabrini as a first year student could not have been better. I was greeted at the door by all of the RAs in Woodcrest, one of them being my own, Catherine Pirrone, or as we all know her as Kat. I was fortunate enough to have an RA wbo did all she could to help make me and the other girls in Woodcrest feel at home. There were endless nights that we shared stories about· our past which helped break down the barriers that separated us. The girls came to know Kat as our confidante, authority, doctor, teacher, and older sister.

When told that Kat had not been rehired as an RA for the upcoming year, the residents of Kat's hallway, on our own free wm, wrote letters to Mr. Carpenter stating the reasons why we believed Kat deserved to be an RA for the years 20022003.

Never did we dreamthatthose letters would be listed as a rea,;on for Kat's removal. Kat's termination was something that we, as a floor, felt was unfair and that somehow, somewhere Residence Life had made a mistake.

Simply put, we wanted answers. J:Iowever,when questions were asked, we were met with intimidation and ignorance. Kat's termination completely blindsided us. I frequently have heard the word "community" spoken throughout the beliefs that Cabrini holds so dear. In the essence of community that Cabrini prides itself for, they have failed to communicate with the residents of Cabrini College. Through this, Cabrini has broken down and clieapened what they stand for. In this situation we have been Qenied a voice. The only glimmer of light that I have seen so far was in passing, when I met President Iadarola. She has been the only person who has offered her ears and has told me she would look into it. Even though I am still waiting, I truat dilt iltte wiiiu ie _.. riaN: thing. I want Cabrini to be like the Community I have imagined it to be. I guess I will just have to wait and see.

KimReagoso

Students psychological well being, university's responsibility?

Renee DiPietro staff writer

Massachusetts Institute of Technology - a school where many of the country's best of the best students go. Let's just hope that not many more of its students end up like Elizabeth Shin.

Elizabeth was a smart girlsalutatorian at her high-school graduation and an accomplished clarinetist-yet she committed suicide. Elizabeth had been threatening suicide for a while but her family was never notified because M.I.T. was protecting her confi- dentiality. Instead, the school allowed her to deteriorate and never disclosed to her parents that a school psychiatrist had considered hospitalizing her and that she had attempted suicide numerous times. Elizabeth's family saw her the day before she burned herself to death in her dorm room.

Now, two years after her death, the Shins are filing a $27 million wrongful death suit against M.I.T. in a Massachusetts superior court.

M.I.T. is suggesting that Elizabeth's parents knew more than they let on and chose to ignore evidence of her troubles.

The big legal question is, who was responsible for Elizabeth Shin? There is no •legal answer yet; but what might not be dis~ cussed in the court are the people who wore the pain of their friend day in and day out. Their friend cut herself frequently, threatened to stab herself with a knife, overdosed on 1ylenol and had the lowest of lows. But they stayed with her. They took turns staying up late with her late at nights after she was released from mental health service. They begged the school, the dean, to help their hopeless friend. But their request went unanswered for the most part.

While binge drinking is epidemic, suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students. "About one-third of col- leges recent!y surveyed reported at least one suicide in the previous year." There have ·been 12 suicides sincel990 at M.I.T.

Is there a solution':' I do not know. I know there are a lot of mandatory programs at other schools, such as the University of Illinois that makes suicidal students undergo four weeks of mandatory assessment sessions.

"Of the 1,500 students who have gone through Illinois's program over the last 17 years, none have committed suicide." So that sounds like .o·ne solution. But before any programs there has to be awareness. If you know someone who is suicidal you cannot hesitate in getting him or her help.

Elizabeth's parents told the New York Times that when they visited their daughter the day before she died that "her eyes did look tired and puffy." Her parents knew that she had a lot going on, "what with her studies, her clarinet performances, her fencing meets. That was M.I.t., they thought, and that was Elizabeth, always pushing herself."

Always "pushing themselves" has been the evolving national image of college students, but it is resulting in the most troubled student body that has required more mental health care than every before. Eye-opener? Me too. Me too.