[lbo-talk] A public square

Dennis Claxton ddclaxton at earthlink.net
Wed May 23 09:44:13 PDT 2007


Joanna wrote:


>It's totally fucked up. The high-school kids I know wind up having
>homework the ENTIRE summer to prepare for AP classes.

It gets worse:

<http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-mental23may23,1,1470839.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage>http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-mental23may23,1,1470839.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

From the Los Angeles Times

THE STATE

Suicides a symptom of larger UC crisis

As more students with mental health problems enroll, campuses lack the resources to cope. By Richard C. Paddock Times Staff Writer

May 23, 2007

DAVIS, CALIF. ­ As 20-year-old Jennifer Tse was dying in January, she typed a message on her laptop to the coroner's investigators she expected would examine her body. The lonely UC Davis sophomore, depressed and struggling with her studies, had swallowed cold pills, antidepressants, dishwashing liquid and insect poison.

"It's kind of rather sad, it's no way out," she wrote as she described her blurred vision, shaking muscles and a sense that her head was detached from her body. "Hopefully my IQ will stay at the same level. If I end up dead, then oh well."

For five days, no one seemed to notice her absence until her roommate realized something was amiss, used a screwdriver to open the locked door to Tse's room and found her body on the floor.

Tse's death is another grim statistic in what university administrators say is an escalating mental health crisis on campuses across the nation.

She was one of at least nine students who committed suicide at UC Davis during the last three academic years. Her death came four months after a high-level UC committee concluded that the university's overtaxed mental health services fell "significantly short" and that the 10-campus system must urgently expand its counseling programs.

"We have had an increasing number of students with serious mental health problems while services are lacking," said UC Santa Barbara Vice Chancellor Michael Young, co-chairman of the Student Mental Health Committee. "We just don't have the appropriate level of support to have healthy campuses."

[....]



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