The New York Times notes:

At least nine students at N.Y.U. have committed suicide since 2002, including four in 2004.

This student, Andrew Williamson-Noble, jumped from the library atrium.

Two earlier student suicides took place there, so the university “made several changes in 2005, including the installation of plexiglass panels around the perimeter of the atrium. …The plexiglass panels — which are about eight feet high — apparently did not prevent Mr. Williamson-Noble from jumping to his death.”

There are certain universities – Southern Illinois, Brandeis – where the students are smarter and more mature than the administrators.

The administrators are childish, impulsive, absurd. The students, as expressed in their newspapers’ editorials, are constantly hushing and calming them.

And so it is again at Brandeis University, whose hot-tempered president — most recently seen shutting down its museum for no good reason and creating an ongoing scandal — has exploded with rage at a Harpers magazine article that says his university hasn’t handled money well lately. He’s threatening to sue.

Of course it’s true that Brandeis, like many other American universities, has fucked up its endowment this way and that way and this way and that way. But Harvard bleeds a billion every minute, and do you see Harvard suing people?

University President Jehuda Reinharz recently sent an e-mail to the faculty listserv in response to the November 2009 Harper’s Magazine article “Voodoo Academics: Brandeis University’s hard lesson in the real economy.” In this e-mail, Mr. Reinharz explained the problems he had with the article and claimed that the article’s financial figures were inaccurate or, at times, completely false. Additionally, Mr. Reinharz explained that the article’s author, Christopher R. Beha, was motivated to write an article casting Brandeis’ finances in a negative light because his aunt Ann Beha’s architectural firm was rejected by the University in its bid for a 2004 building project. [This is so embarrassing. Look at the world view the president of a major university harbors. The aunt did it!] In response, says the e-mail, Brandeis is considering taking legal action against Harper’s. While this editorial board believes that the University should take action to correct any incorrect facts Harper’s published, we do not believe legal action is the correct choice.

While Harper’s Magazine’s descriptions of the University’s economic woes may be exaggerated, there is no denying that Brandeis’ financial status is less than ideal; thus, another lawsuit is the last thing the Brandeis community needs straining its pocketbook. The University is currently playing defendant in two high-profile lawsuits – one involving the Rose Art Museum-and recently reached a settlement on a third involving the demolition of the Kalman Science Building, and we imagine these lawsuits are coming at a hefty cost to the University, win or lose. At a time when Brandeis is looking to cut funding to nearly every one of its departments, Brandeis simply does not have the resources to spend on a lawsuit that Mr. Reinharz admitted in his e-mail “is an arduous task and one that is difficult to prove.”

… has died this academic year.

Andre Narcisse, nineteen years old, was found dead in his bed by his roommates. No cause of death has yet been given, but it was not foul play.

Annie Le, a pharmacology graduate student, was murdered; Sylvia Bingham, who had just graduated, was hit by a truck while riding her bicycle to work.

Arizona State University police say a graduate student fatally shot himself in a professor’s office.

ASU police commander James Hardina says the shooting occurred about 11:40 a.m. Monday.

Police say the student was apparently talking with a professor when he pulled out a gun and shot himself once on ASU’s main campus in Tempe.

The name of the student has not been released.

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Update: A little more information, from the Arizona Republic:

… The student apparently walked into the professor’s office [in the Architecture building], pulled out a gun and shot himself without warning… The student apparently had battled depression for most of his life… He was a third-year grad student [in architecture] on track to graduate. He had been a student of the professor’s, but [a police spokesman] said he was unsure if he was currently in the professor’s class.

Most suicides go off and do it someplace solitary.

Some, like this one, seem to seek out someone they care about or hate or whatever and do it in front of them.

A friend of mine in college — her father called her mother on the phone from work one morning, said a few words to her (the two of them were estranged) and then, into the phone, so the mother could hear it loud and clear, shot himself to death.

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Another Update: Details, from ASU’s newspaper:

A male graduate student committed suicide in front of a professor at around 11:40 a.m. Monday in the College of Design South building on the Tempe campus.

David Solnick, a 59-year-old student in the graphic design program, was talking with Associate Professor Mookesh Patel inside Patel’s office when the student pulled out a handgun and shot himself, ASU Police spokesman Cmdr. Jim Hardina said.

Solnick died instantly, police said, and he never posed a … danger to anyone around him.

“At this point, we have the weapon, the student is deceased and there is no threat to the campus,” Hardina said about 20 minutes after the incident was reported.

Hardina said the department will not release details of the conversation between Solnick and Patel until the investigation is complete.

Patel was unavailable for comment.

Solnick was preparing to graduate in December, according to his personal blog. He also received his bachelor’s degree from ASU.

According to the blog, he had worked as a visual designer since the 1980s in the areas of ceramics, print and paint and was working on a series of pictures of two of his friends…

… Chase Mejia.

Mejia has been a solid camp performer at every stop he has ever made. His top end speed and size may have held him back from some big offers, but he is amazingly quick off of the line and is almost unstoppable in a one-on-one type of situation.

This skill set has taken him from Division I to [CAUTION: This link leads to Not Safe for Work links.] a much bigger industry in no time flat.

**************

Thanks to Dave for the link.

… in his dormitory room. He kills a fellow student and then is shot by police. He is apparently alive, under treatment at a local hospital.

It looks as though Nicolas Sarkozy’s son, 23 and doing his second year of university over again, will NOT be running the billion-euro enterprise that is La Défense.

A Johns Hopkins undergraduate was killed a few days ago by a hit and run driver.

… Miriam Frankl, a junior molecular and cell biology major from the Chicago area, was surrounded by dozens of friends at Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where she was taken after the accident at 3:15 p.m. Friday.

Frankl had serious head wounds, as well as other injuries, Moses said. She remained on life support, dying at 2:30 a.m.

The university released a statement Saturday saying Frankl’s parents “told us they were deeply moved and comforted by the presence of so many of Miriam’s friends at the hospital with them.”

… The death of Frankl, who was a member of Alpha Phi sorority, coincided with Hopkins’ Greek Weekend. Organizers postponed events and asked that participants at other events wear red in honor of Frankl and to support her sorority sisters.

Anna Johnston, a senior at Hopkins and one of her friends, said five or six of her good friends gathered at the hospital shortly after the accident, but as the evening wore on 70 Hopkins students came to be with her and her family.

“She had a lot of strength and personality and had a lot of confidence,” said Johnston. Her favorite color was purple, and friends around the Hopkins campus began wearing small purple ribbons Saturday in her memory.

A petite woman with freckles and short brown hair, Frankl had recently become interested in science and had begun working at a Hopkins laboratory that studied the brain. While Johnston said Frankl spent a lot of time in the library, she also was devoted to working with the sorority and was supposed to plan the recruitment of new members in December.

Johnston said her friend was very poised, loved scarves and getting other women interested in the sorority. She was learning to cook and Johnston believes she might have been on her way to a Greek Weekend cook-off when she was struck…

He was one of two students stabbed after a fight broke out at a university-sponsored dance.

The other student survived.

The student killed was a football player for the school.

… Jean Sarkozy, who [has] yet to complete a university degree, is all but assured of being elected to the presidency of Epad, the public corporation that runs the La Defense office park, after his candidacy was endorsed by his father’s ruling UMP party.

Epad brings in more than 1 billion euros a year, and has plans to triple the size of La Defense, a cluster of office sky-scrapers to the west of Paris.

“Whatever I say, whatever I do, I’ll be criticised for it,” Jean Sarkozy, who only recently cut his long blond hair into a more respectable serious style, said Monday night in an interview with the Le Parisien newspaper.

On Tuesday, UMP officials rallied to the young Sarkozy’s defence.

“The political scene is made up of people who started very young, very early, without having too many diplomas, and we’re lucky because this acts as a social elevator,” said UMP spokesperson Dominique Paillé.

“Jean is the son of a political genius, so it’s not surprising that he’s precocious,” said UMP regional counsellor Thierry Solère.

“I can tell you that Jean Sarkozy, at 23, might just have more talent than his father did at his age,” UMP official Patrick Balkany said.

Sarcastic endorsements have proliferated online. The twitter feed jeansarkozypartout or “Jean Sarkozy is everywhere” sprung up Monday night, with comments like Florent Latrive’s: “Jean Sarkozy, candidate for L’Académie française”, referring to the French-language council of wise men, or Bertrand Lenotre’s “Jean Sarkozy is chosen as the model for the next bust of Marianne,” an honour already bestowed upon French beauties Catherine Deneuve and Letitia Casta…

An undergraduate chemistry student slashed the throat of his lab partner during class. It sounds as though she will survive, though her injuries are very serious. She lost a lot of blood.

LAPD detectives were seeking a motive in the stabbing of a UCLA student by a classmate, and people across the Westwood campus remain stunned at the sudden violence.

… Students in the chemistry lab watched helplessly Thursday afternoon as their classmate suddenly slashed the neck of the female student, causing serious injuries.

The attack occurred just past noon on the sixth floor of Young Hall, prompting swift police mobilization and leaving students shaken by the violence as word spread across campus.

Police have booked [Damon] Thompson on suspicion of attempted murder.

Thompson was arrested inside Young Hall minutes after the incident. The name of the victim has not been released. She was rushed to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, which is on campus, in critical condition. She underwent surgery and her condition was improving.

Los Angeles Police Department detectives said they don’t know the motive for the attack. A law enforcement source said there might have been a verbal altercation before the slashing, but details were unclear. Both students were seniors, and some campus sources said they may have been lab partners.

… UCLA student Saad Ahmed said the violence left even unflappable med and pre-med students in shock.

“There was blood all over the place, so much blood where you thought, ‘Is she going to make it?’ ” Ahmed said. “People were panicking, they were in disbelief, saying, ‘How could this happen at UCLA?’ “

The echoes with the recent Yale incident are disturbing.

Annie Le’s murderer may have been a young lab technician (he apparently failed two lie detector tests and has defensive wounds to his chest) whose refusal to give the investigators a DNA sample meant that police raided his apartment last night in order to get one. They led him away in handcuffs.

If reports that Le was asphyxiated, and that she was found fully clothed, are true, the crime seems less about erotic obsession than about rage. Did the guy feel Le had dissed him in some way?

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Piling on to the sadness at Yale is the death of another student — a recent graduate — while riding her bicycle in the city:

Sylvia Bingham ’09, a Yale graduate who was passionate about social justice and the environment, died Tuesday morning. She was 22.

Bingham was en route to her job in Cleveland shortly before 9 a.m. when a truck collided with her bicycle. She passed away at St. Vincent Charity Hospital soon after. The truck driver did not stop, but police located him that afternoon using information provided by witnesses.

… Professor Hannah Brueckner, the director of undergraduate studies for sociology who got to know Bingham during her senior year, described her as a “fearless intellectual, a skilled field worker, and a committed activist.”

… “She showed up on my birthday with a box of dainty little madeleines that she had baked for me,” [a Yale friend] said. “I think that cookie and that act represent her persona perfectly: she was bursting with creativity and was a teeny, quirky fashionista.” …

A graduate student, Annie Le, has been missing since Tuesday.

… things are hotting up at another local university, Howard. Montgomery removed its non-functional president swiftly, and with little bloodshed, but Howard’s problem isn’t confined to one person. Its entire administrative apparatus fails to function.

Hundreds of students have been gathering in front of the administration building to protest crucial paperwork that never appears, buildings disabled students can’t enter, and a general attitude of arrogance and apathy on the institution’s part.

Students protesting
curricular changes at
the Victorian College
of the Arts and Music
(part of the
University of Melbourne)
paraded about with
Save the VCA
written on what
UD‘s parents taught her
to call their tushies.