Stage weapons ban reversed
Published: Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Tyler Hill
Staff Reporter
After a weekend of national media coverage and student outcry, administrators decided Monday to rescind the ban on stage weapons that was enacted in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre.
Last week, Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg told several students that realistic-looking stage weapons would no longer be permitted in Yale theatrical productions. Amid concerns that the restriction was inhibiting free speech, a group of administrators decided Monday to overturn the policy, Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky said. In the future, Yale will require that audiences be warned before performances that include scenes with fake weapons, she said.
Trachtenberg had originally intended to ban all stage weapons, but was persuaded that obviously fake weapons should be permitted, Sarah Holdren '08 told the News last Thursday. Holdren directed this weekend's production of "Red Noses," which was forced to use wooden swords instead of more realistic props. The restriction also affected the opera "Orpheus in the Underworld," which used balloon swords in place of its real-looking stage weapons.
News of the University's reversal was only released when a reporter from the Associated Press called Klasky on Monday evening to ask about the original restriction. Students have not yet been officially informed of the change in policy, Klasky said.
Administrators, including Yale President Richard Levin, weighed in on the decision to overturn the ban after it became apparent that it concerned issues of free speech, Levin said. Although the administration will not censor future shows, he said, the Dean of Student Affairs still has the authority to regulate student productions.
"The fundamental consideration was trading off artistic freedom of expression against concern about the potential emotional precariousness of audiences during the week of a mass murder," he said. "There was a different approach which hadn't been considered at the time, and the approach would be not to censor the show but warn the audience."
But Holdren said she asked Trachtenberg on Thursday to consider allowing the use of realistic-looking weapons if the staff included a warning before each show. At the time, Trachtenberg found that alternative unacceptable, Holdren said. She said that although the change comes too late to affect her show, which ended its run on Saturday, she is glad the administration has considered the issue more carefully.
"Obviously professional theater companies do shows with weapons all of the time and it's up to the audience's discretion whether or not to watch," she said.
Trachtenberg declined to comment Tuesday night about the reversal of her decision, but over the weekend she told the News that student criticism of the stage weapons ban had been exaggerated.
"I think people should start thinking about other people rather than trying to feel sorry for themselves and thinking that the administration is trying to thwart their creativity," Trachtenberg said. "They're not using their own intelligence. ... We have to think of the people who might be affected by seeing real-life weapons."
Dustin Cho '08, chair of the Yale chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said "knee jerk" reactions are common after national tragedies, but that such limitations on free speech inhibit any meaningful dialogue. Generally Yale is very good at protecting free speech, he said.
"It's quite a stretch to say that substituting realistic-looking prop swords with wooden ones showed more sensitivity to the shooting victims," he said. "This was a grave mistake, but I'm glad they took care of it immediately."
Trachtenberg, who has served as Dean of Student Affairs for 20 years, announced in November that she is stepping down at the end of the academic year.
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Original Source: <a href="http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20927"> Yale Daily News - April 25, 2007 </a>
Sara Hood
2007-06-11
Sara Hood
Editor-in-Chief, Yale Daily News - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
eng
Elis decry ban on stage weapon use
Published: Monday, April 23, 2007
Cullen Macbeth
Staff Reporter
Members of Yale's undergraduate theater community reacted with anger over the weekend to Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg's decision to bar performance groups — at least temporarily — from using life-like weapons in their productions.
The new rule is meant to protect audience members who may have connections to last week's deadly gun massacre at Virginia Tech University or who may react adversely to violence on stage because of personal experiences, Trachtenberg said. But many students said the new restrictions represent inappropriate censorship of student artwork and that Trachtenberg should not have implemented them without soliciting student input beforehand.
The new restrictions were put in place to protect people in the Yale and New Haven communities who live or have friends who live in Virginia, or who have seen people die by gun violence, Trachtenberg said. She said the outcry from students upset with her decision has been exaggerated.
"I think people should start thinking about other people rather than trying to feel sorry for themselves and thinking that the administration is trying to thwart their creativity," Trachtenberg said. "They're not using their own intelligence. ... We have to think of the people who might be affected by seeing real-life weapons."
The new restrictions do not ban all types of stage weapons, Trachtenberg said. She said she did not prevent an instructor in theater studies who talked to her on Friday from using a dulled knife to cut a cabbage head in a production, for example.
This weekend's productions of "Red Noses" and "Orpheus in the Underworld" were affected by the rule change. "Red Noses" had to substitute wooden swords for more realistic-looking ones after learning of the rule from Trachtenberg on Thursday.
The University overstepped its bounds by prohibiting the ways in which students can express themselves on stage, said Dara Lind '09, who has managed and produced several campus performances.
"Personally, I am very strongly anti-censorship as far as the arts are concerned," she said. "I don't understand what gives the college the right to try to circumscribe artistic expression like that."
Lind is a staff columnist for the News.
Students should be left to decide for themselves what is appropriate to include in their productions and should be able to use theater to realistically portray a range of topics, including those relating to gun violence, Yale Drama Coalition Vice President Mike Leibenluft '10 said. While he was in high school, Leibenluft said, he worked on a show about the Columbine High School shootings that documented witnesses' reactions to the violence.
"I think the fact that it assumes that we first of all can't deal with these issues in a dramatic setting and also we can't take responsibility for the theater that is produced and the reaction it has from Yale students is pretty shocking," he said. "I was incredibly surprised by it. I think it's totally inappropriate."
Leibenluft said Trachtenberg should have consulted with students before implementing the new regulation.
But Yale Dramatic Association President Emmett Zackheim '08 said he is not concerned by the ban because he thinks the normal rules governing the use of weapons in theatrical productions will be reinstated before long.
"I don't think it's a disaster for everyone involved in theater," he said. "It essentially doesn't concern me. I probably wouldn't have done the same thing necessarily, but I'm not really concerned by it."
Trachtenberg has not yet decided whether the new restrictions will be in place permanently and will review the decision as "things settle down," she said. She said she consulted with representatives from the Theater Studies Program and did not make a "unilateral decision" about the rule.
Lind and several other students formed a "FEAR NO ART" Facebook group over the weekend to protest Trachtenberg's decision and discussed ways to try to get the rule reversed. The groups have not yet decided on a definite plan, she said, but they may stage a rally on Beinecke Plaza or attempt to set up a meeting with Trachtenberg to discuss the rule.
"As far as collaboration is concerned, it will probably just be easiest to take public action," Lind said. "The best way to prove that art gives much more to the student body than it takes away is to have public art and demonstrate to people what the benefit is of having unrestricted artistic expression."
The continuation of the new restrictions could hamper the theater community's willingness and ability to put on a wide variety of shows, YDC founder Eyad Houssami '07 said. He said he would have "strong reservations" about agreeing to produce a show that requires stage weapons — such as the one he put on for his senior project, which required a shotgun — if the ban on realistic props remains in place.
"When you're using realistic props, it doesn't make sense to substitute them with children's toys, because you are making a mockery of the play and of the character," Houssami said. "I feel like by banning weapons from the stage at Yale, we are kind of silencing a potentially fruitful debate on violence and the nature of violence in America today."
The University had rules in place before last week that limited the kinds of weapons students could use in productions, Trachtenberg said, but she does not know the exact provisions.
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Original Source: <a href="http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20886"> Yale Daily News - April 23, 2007 </a>
Sara Hood
2007-06-11
Sara Hood
Editor-in-Chief, Yale Daily News - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
eng
Weapons to go off stage
Published: Friday, April 20, 2007
Courtney Long
Staff Reporter and Copy Editor
In the wake of Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech in which a student killed 32 people, Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg has limited the use of stage weapons in theatrical productions.
Students involved in this weekend's production of "Red Noses" said they first learned of the new rules on Thursday morning, the same day the show was slated to open. They were subsequently forced to alter many of the scenes by swapping more realistic-looking stage swords for wooden ones, a change that many students said was neither a necessary nor a useful response to the tragedy at Virginia Tech.
According to students involved in the production, Trachtenberg has banned the use of some stage weapons in all of the University's theatrical productions. While shows will be permitted to use obviously fake plastic weapons, students said, those that hoped to stage more realistic scenes of stage violence have had to make changes to their props.
Trachtenberg could not be reached for comment Thursday night.
"Red Noses" director Sarah Holdren '08 said she first heard about the changes in a phone call from a friend as she arrived at the Off-Broadway Theater on Thursday morning. At the theater, technical director Jim Brewczynski told her about the new regulations. The pair then met with Trachtenberg, who initially wanted no stage weapons to be used in the show, Holdren said, though she later agreed to permit the use of obviously fake weapons.
In a speech made before last night's opening show of "Red Noses," Holdren said that Trachtenberg's decision to force the production to use wooden swords instead of metal swords will do little to stem violence in the world.
"Calling for an end to violence onstage does not solve the world's suffering: It merely sweeps it under the rug, turning theater — in the words of this very play — into 'creamy bon-bons' instead of 'solid fare' for a thinking, feeling audience," she said. "Here at Yale, sensitivity and political correctness have become censorship in this time of vital need for serious artistic expression."
Holdren said she is primarily worried about the University's decision to place limitations on art, rather than the specific inconvenience to her production.
"I completely understand that the University needs to respond to the tragedy, but I think it is wrong to conflate sensitivity and censorship," she said in an interview. "It is wrong to assume that any theater that deals with tragic matter is sort of on the side of those things or out to get people; they're not — they're out to help people through things like this. I want my show and all shows to be uplifting to people. That's why I'm upset about this — it's not because my props were taken — it's about imposing petty restrictions on art as the right way to solve the problems in the world."
Brandon Berger '10, who plays a swordsman in the show, said the switch to an obviously fake wooden sword has changed the nature of his part from an "evil, errant knight to a petulant child."
"They're trying to make an appropriate gesture, but they did it in an inappropriate way — they've neutered the play," he said. "The violence is important to what it actually means. What these types of actions do is very central — it is not gratuitous."
Susie Kemple '08, an actress in the show, said Trachtenberg's way of dealing with the Virginia Tech massacre was not beneficial to the students' own mourning process.
"It is problematic because all of us were incredibly shocked by the events at Virginia Tech," Kemple said. "We turn to extracurriculars in our grief [and] the Yale administration makes the healing more difficult. None of the shows are about massive gun violence — this show is about showing and explaining the human experience."
Berger also said he finds the ruling inconsistent because forms of stage violence that do not involve weapons — such as hangings — are still permitted.
"Red Noses" will end its run Saturday night.
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Original Source: <a href=http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20843> Yale Daily News - April 20, 2007 </a>
Sara Hood
2007-06-11
Sara Hood
Editor-in-Chief, Yale Daily News - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
eng
Memorials are a positive force after tragedy
Published: Thursday, May 3, 2007
Opinion articles
Danielle Tumminio
Guest Column
4/17/07. When students from Virginia Tech struggled to make sense of the horror that struck their campus last week, they erected a banner on their student center with the date of the massacre. It provided a reminder of a time and a place, a way to express a trauma through white lettering on black canvas. It was an attempt to remember.
Theirs is not the first — nor, unfortunately, will it be the last — commemoration of a tragedy. This desire to remember seems built into us. We sing, sculpt, hold one another, dance, write poems and pray in order to find solace in our most tumultuous moments. Using these forms, we try to incorporate trauma into our lives so that we can give meaning to events that feel meaningless. If we're going to move forward from the horrors we experience, this process seems essential. Otherwise, evil becomes something like a dangling participle not properly integrated into a sentence. It hangs there, and it has, quite literally, the last word. There's no hope in a worldview like that.
So through our memorials, we try to find meaning. Perhaps that's why our nation's capital is peppered with commemorations of wars and those who represented our country in them. Through carved stone, we remember our history. Likewise, after the Columbine shootings, students draped flowers over Rachel Scott's car and sat on its hood, sobbing in grief. Leaning against red Acuras, we remember our loves. Or following Hurricane Katrina, memorial services were held in worship spaces across the country. In our religious homes, we remember the possibility of hope.
But if there are right ways to remember, there are certainly wrong ways to remember as well. "Just move on" and "It's time to get over it" are common phrases in our culture, and they imply that the only way to recover from a traumatic event is to forget it.
The trouble with these cliches is that they conflate remembering with reliving. Reliving traps us in the past, keeps us from existing in the present and building hope for the future. But remembering is different: It is the means by which, again and again, we try to defeat pointless horrors by giving them some perspective. That's the transformation that must occur if we are to prevent the dangling-participle problem.
This power of memorializing is something I've experienced in my own life. I was a junior at Yale on Sept. 11, 2001. I remember that the phone lines were down, and I couldn't call my family. When the trains were running again, I returned to the New York suburb in which I grew up. I felt isolated and frightened. When the Amtrak drew near Manhattan, the train slowed and passengers huddled near the windows, gazing upon a skyline that had changed forever. It looked tilted — just like my reality — even though rising grey smoke held the place where the towers once stood. Then the conductor asked us to keep a moment of silence, and it became our memorial, our remembrance of a horror that shaped our lives. They were strangers on that train, but they shared something with me — they were mourning, too — and they became my community at a time when I felt profoundly protected. In that memorial, I was offered a sign of hope that I was not alone. I will never forget that, nor should I.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, I, and so many others, observed endless memorials. Some were noble, some bittersweet and some gut-wrenching: signs for missing people in Grand Central Terminal, military planes that kept watch over Manhattan with their deafening drones, chaplains for the cleanup crews and the putrid stench from the pyre of the Twin Towers. Those memorials challenged and changed our understanding of a horror. The same goes for the students at Virginia Tech. As they wear their school colors and attend candlelight vigils and invite a nation to mourn with them, they bear witness to nightmare. That experience will transform them, in their grieving and their remembering, in their hope and their search to make sense of the insensible. To forget the tragedy would be to forget who they were, who they are and whom they will become. But how they remember is their choice.
9/11/2001. 4/20/1999. 8/23/2005. 4/16/2007. These are the dates that form us. These are the dates that are seared into our memories. These are the dates we cannot — and should not — forget.
Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio is a 2003 graduate of Yale College and a fourth-year student at the Yale Divinity School.
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Original Source: <a href=http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/21058> Yale Daily News - May 3, 2007 </a>
Danielle Tumminio
2007-06-11
Sara Hood
Yale Daily News, Editor-in-chief - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
eng
Pychoanalysis won't fully explain VT killer
Published: Friday, April 27, 2007
Opinion articles
By: Carol Duh
My parents immigrated into this country in 1982. My parents told me a Taiwanese parable while I attended the same schools as Mike Pohle, one of the 32 victims of last week's massacre. In the story, a teacher took his class on a field trip to the mountains of Taiwan. On the way home, they encountered a swarm of killer bees. The teacher removed his clothing to attract the bees away from the children to his flesh.
I heard the echoes of this parable while reading about Liviu Librescu, the professor who blocked the classroom door with his body while the gunman demanded entry. While he did this, students escaped through the windows. No doubt that being stung by bullets was agonizing. There was little dignity in these painful deaths, only in their sacrifice.
And what of the bee?
The bee who stings out of cowardice dies soon after, so we cannot ask. Panicked, we call in the world-class bee experts to explain the situation. This response, though gratifying, is in vain. Like Wall Street analysts who offer their best predictions after the fact, the analysis will not provide us with the protection we need. The bee and Seung Cho perceived threats that were not real; their behavior escapes appreciation.
Let's try anyway. His parents were South Korean immigrants who sent a daughter to Princeton and a son to Virginia Tech — a feat worthy to boast of across many oceans. College is the frame upon which immigrants hang their hopes, but sometimes it comes at a price. The drive that steers us toward hard work is often frustrated by the apparent frivolity that pervades American campus culture. Fraternity keggers, society taps — these seem to be the cornerstones of the American college student's anxiety. To the ethic of a different culture, they are laughable. Seung Cho's complaints, through lunacy, tap the drumbeat of this disappointment.
Seung Cho's two defining characteristics continue to be his mental health and his immigration status. Experts dissect the belongings strewn about his dorm room, scrambling for a diagnosis. Depression. Paranoia. Obviously. It is insulting to the millions of positive mental illness survivors to dwell on this. On the other hand, we could further probe the reality of cultural disparity and the specific causes he cited for his intense dissatisfaction with his experience in the United States. Yet to draw conclusions about immigration from his story is an enormous disservice to the core of the nation's foundation and strength. Both of the gunman's prominent characteristics lead to a dead end.
I know a man who spent 17 years in prison. He told me that the scariest inmates are the ones who are there for life. The lifers languish in hopelessness, and claim this as license to be brutal and sadistic toward everyone else. Another man I know was born deaf and contracted AIDS in his late teens. A few years ago, Michigan tried to prosecute him for sexual predation when he, with a willful heart, transmitted the virus to 13 different people within the span of six weeks. He remains unrepentant.
Why do people sink into despair? The painful simplicity of the answer escapes psychoanalysis: laziness. Seung Cho chose bitterness as his permanent sanctuary, allowing himself to drown. Yes, he was unwanted and weak, and he elicits a kind of sympathy. Perhaps the shore seemed distant and we all know that without constant encouragement, the race is long. But we do it. We brush ourselves off after devastating exams, awkward dates, even outright evidence of human unkindness. As every first-generation student will tell you, we are too lucky to be given so much. As Seung Cho embraced his victimhood, we should embrace this explanation and free ourselves from this futile search into his psyche.
How should we, the children in the parable, react to this event? When confronted with people who churn bitterness into poison, the natural reaction is fear. We buy bigger guns, go to college closer to home and dead-bolt our doors. Such malevolence seems intolerable to tempt with risk. Fear is the pulse of Seung Cho's madness, and this is the lesson he expected to teach.
Yet Seung forgot his role in the parable — the bee was never a teacher. We see the families of Virginia Tech. Grief is agony, but it will not kill us. Seung Cho underestimated the goodness his psychosis would beget. Enduring traits of the human spirit enable the sacrifice of the Taiwanese schoolteacher and the Virginia Tech professor to transcend cultural borders to show that no matter where you are, the broken heart continues to beat. This country may not always safeguard us, but retreat will not protect us. The teacher's pain was apparent, his message clearer still. Seek comfort not in bitterness, but in courage and hope. We are always safe in their arms.
Carol Duh is a senior in Trumbull College.
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Original Source: <a href="http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20957"> Yale Daily News - April 27th, 2007</a>
Sara Hood
2007-06-11
Sara Hood
Editor-in-Chief, Yale Daily News - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
eng
Mental hygiene weighs tough options
Published: Friday, April 27, 2007
Maggie Reid
Staff Reporter
In her sophomore year at Yale, Naasiha Siddiqui '07 found herself facing more problems than just the sophomore slump. Siddiqui was severely depressed, and when she checked into the Mental Hygiene Department at University Health Services, she was forced to leave school on medical withdrawal. Ever since, she has struggled to balance manic depression with a college career — taking three forced withdrawals and one voluntary leave of absence, and applying for readmission five times.
"I was really frustrated," she said, referring to her first forced withdrawal in the fall of 2001. "Their attitude was, 'She's unstable, we don't want her at school right now.' In one respect, it seemed like discrimination because I was doing all I could to try to stay in school. But on the other hand, the administration should have some say over when students aren't fit to go to school."
Mental illness has long been a hot-button issue on college campuses, but in the wake of this month's shootings at Virginia Tech, even greater scrutiny has been placed on university support systems for students with psychological illnesses. At Yale, the Mental Hygiene Department specializes in counseling and crisis intervention for suicide and depression cases. But in seeking to protect the psychological health of its students, Yale's mental health services must walk the fine line between enabling students to receive treatment while remaining in school and protecting the student's health and safety — or the health and safety of others — by sending seriously depressed students off campus.
For the most part, universities across the country find themselves in a sticky situation with regard to mentally ill students. Universities may be found liable if they fail to detect and respond to cases that result in suicide or murder. But privacy and anti-discrimination laws limit the amount of information about students' mental health to which administrators have access, and the laws may prevent administrators from forcing students to take involuntary medical leaves.
In general, the laws forbid universities from disclosing information about a student's health records to parents or administrators, including residential college deans and masters, without the student's consent. The exception comes when health officials believe that the health and safety of the student or of others are at risk. But Yale administrators said the definition of such an emergency is often blurry.
Because of the subjectivity of such cases, the decision whether or not to force a student to withdraw is made on a case-by-case basis, YUHS Chief Psychiatrist Lorraine Siggins said.
"Most students who take a medical withdrawal ask for it themselves," Siggins said. "However, occasionally a student who had attempted suicide and is considered to be a danger to self and others is asked to take time away from school for treatment and to get their mental health issues stabilized."
According to University policy, if a student is forced to withdraw for mental health reasons, he or she may not reapply until two semesters have passed, including the one during which he or she left. With such serious consequences, administrators said, withdrawal cannot be forced simply based on strange behavior or a possible diagnosis of mental illness, Siggins said.
Yale officials said the forced withdrawal policy serves the best interests of vulnerable and potentially reckless students. When students are severely mentally unstable, Siggins said, they can lack the presence of mind to voluntarily seek the medical help and time away from campus that they need to resolve health issues.
But Siggins said students are expected, as dictated by University regulations, to return to school as soon as doctors confirm that they have recovered.
The YUHS Mental Hygiene Department seeks to address mental health problems before they reach the point of necessitating a forced withdrawal. It offers mental health and counseling services to all enrolled students throughout the year, Siggins said, and because mental health issues can be dangerous and pressing, the department makes a concerted effort to be easily accessible, providing an on-duty psychiatrist 24 hours a day.
"In the course of an academic year, we see between 16 percent and 20 percent of the student body," Siggins said. "For students who have continuing mental health problems, we can provide treatment throughout the year."
But although officials say Yale's mental health counseling program focuses on reaching students before they reach a crisis point, Yalies who have gone through counseling at the Mental Hygiene Department said that Yale could do a better job of removing barriers to getting help.
Susan* voluntarily entered the counseling program at YUHS during the first semester of her sophomore year. Although she told them she needed immediate attention for urgent anxiety and depression, she had to wait over a week before she was allowed to see a therapist, instead meeting first with a clinical social worker.
"Unless you are suicidal, they make it very difficult to see someone," Susan said. "This is particularly scary when it comes to mental hygiene problems."
Susan said the narrow-minded focus on suicide detection to the exclusion of other problems deterred her from using campus psychiatrists and led her to consult a therapist in a different state whom she can only visit once a month.
But she added that though it can be difficult to get an initial appointment, once a student has made an first visit to the YUHS clinic, it becomes easy to get further appointments with a therapist.
Siddiqui said the prospect of being forced to withdraw can also prevent students from going to seek help.
"Mental hygiene can be very alienating," Siddiqui said. "Since I had my experience, a lot of my friends have been afraid to go to mental hygiene because they don't want to get kicked out of school. It's not a very welcoming place."
Some students said the mental health department is too quick to act in cases of suspected depression. One student who had been referred to a YUHS psychiatrist said that fear of liability in the event of a suicide or murder makes Yale administrators move too swiftly to hospitalize or force the withdrawal of a student.
During a psychiatry session, Ryan,* a junior at Yale who has withdrawn because of his bipolar disorder, said the therapist kept asking him if he ever had suicidal thoughts, and specifically if he was drawn to sharp objects or tempted to hurt himself. Ryan said that though he ultimately was given a choice whether to withdraw, officials pressured him to do so.
While the attention to suicide might be helpful in preventing crisis situations, Ryan said, the manner in which it was addressed was unhelpful.
"I might have been suicidal, but I wasn't looking to withdraw," Ryan said.
Ryan said that he has seen private psychiatrists who never mentioned hospitalization, but that college doctors are more ready to hospitalize their patients because of the fear of liability in the case of a suicide.
Outside the examining rooms of health services departments, universities often find it difficult to determine when psychiatric help is warranted, since it is difficult to know when a student's erratic behavior stems from mental illness rather than the vagaries of ordinary college life. Though Yale prides itself on providing many levels of supervision, from peers and professors to the residential college system, some students worry that this method of observation and personal counseling is not necessarily effective.
"I talked to my master and dean about my problems, but they didn't even notice anything was wrong before I brought it up," Susan said.
In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, deans and freshman counselors have discussed the protocols already in place to deal with students who may seem to have psychological problems.
Freshman counselors in Branford and Silliman said they discussed mental health risks at their weekly meetings with their deans last Monday. But their rules about watchfulness or guidance did not change in the aftermath of the shootings, counselors said.
"We talked about the incident, but we did not get any official instructions," freshman counselor Amy Broadbent '07 said.
Although there is no specific protocol for the freshmen counselors to follow if they become aware of a possible mental health issue, they said they are trained to talk to students who come to them with problems and to take them to see professionals at YUHS. Counselors said they deal with mental health issues on a case-by-case basis, and have confronted problems ranging from severe depression to slight anxiety over classes or relationships.
"We have liaisons in the mental health department if we have any questions or to help us navigate the bureaucracy," said Howard Locker '07, a freshman counselor in Silliman. "The dean did not specifically tell us to be more on the lookout [after Virginia Tech], it's something I think most counselors are innately attuned to do in the wake of such a tragedy."
Siggins said that although 90 percent of the students who come in for therapy do so on their own, the rest usually come to the clinic at the suggestion of their deans, coaches or friends. But she said there is no difference in the amount of attention paid to students based on how they were referred.
"We always take student peer concerns very seriously," Siggins said. "We treat each student on an individual basis."
*The names of some students have been changed to protect their medical information.
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Original Source: <a href="http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20991"> Yale Daily News - April 27, 2007 </a>
Sara Hood
2007-06-11
Sara Hood
Editor-in-chief, Yale Daily News - Sarah Mishkin <sarah.mishkin@gmail.com>
eng