Speaking Up Can Make a Difference

I’m very sorry to hear this.

By a strange coincidence, I wrote a note today about suicide in the Facebook Group “You know you went to Princeton...” The subject was a video clip from Murder She Wrote, and an alumnus asked, “Someone died at Princeton?” Here is my reply:

I don’t know anything about the TV show, but your question reminds of a suicide in what we used to call “The New Quad.” In brief summary, in the spring of 1962, a student showed several of us his closet full of guns. I was surprised, but not shocked (because I had grown up in New Mexico, where many of my neighbors had closets full of guns). So I never reported it.

A year later, while I was a grad student in California, I learned that the student had shot himself. I felt terrible. So I swore that I’d never again ignore a potential suicide. 

Over the course of my career as a professor, I’ve “responded” several times. Some people thought that I was a busybody, but I’m sure that it made a difference in some cases.