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| A Virginia Tech student at Tuesday night’s candlelight vigil. (Taylor Howard/DP) |
When I heard about the shootings, the first thing that came to mind was a Penn undergraduate’s response to a column I wrote last September on inadequate support for international students.
“I can tell you that I never before felt so lost as I did in the first semester here at Penn,” the student wrote in an e-mail. “I got depressed, clinically diagnosed…”
“None of the American students could understand how I felt, and I felt misunderstood in almost everything, jokes I said, my humor, my reasoning, etc. The other international students were busy with their own depressions save a few, but many students developed a barrier to these conversations as they are scared of being affected themselves. Also being at an Ivy, students hardly have enough time for themselves, rather than worrying about this international awkward kid that has nothing to offer for benefit.”
The student then said he had considered suicide — an “easier” route than the “torture” of having no one to talk to — before entering a program at CAPS, “which really saved me.”
Other isolated international students also wrote me. One wanted to read more about a case I cited — that of Sinedu Tadesse, a lonely Ethiopian student at Harvard who killed herself and her roommate in 1995 after she failed to connect with counselors on campus.
When I first read them, these e-mails confirmed my original notions: International students, who must acclimate both to a new culture and to the college environment, are at greatest risk of isolation on today’s campuses (which isn’t to say Cho Seung-Hui’s self-perpetuated alienation derived from being Korean; he had legally lived here since 1992 — though mostly among other immigrants in Centreville, Virginia — and was mentally ill).
Today, I reread the emails and think I should have taken every precaution and forwarded them to CAPS. Recent media coverage of Cho’s mental state has made us all rethink our past actions and ask two questions: What can I do to help? And could it happen here? But long after we stop asking, the answers will remain: It could happen here, but we can minimize the risk with certain steps.
Like reading Melanie Thernstrom’s Halfway Heaven, an insightful account of how Tadesse became excluded by Harvard’s preexisting social circles and slowly spiraled into a secluded delirium. Steps like revising the advising system so students actually have a faculty member with whom they feel comfortable talking.
Steps like plotting an actual course for students with “trouble getting acclimated.” Currently, a faculty resource guide tells advisers to refer such students to Penn Women’s Center, the English Language Programs Office and the Weingarten Learning Resources Center, among other groups.
That sounds like a very precise way to let a student fall through the cracks. And if I sound alarmist, it’s only because Penn’s sirens have been ringing for nearly 20 years: A 1989 study found that black Penn students leave school more often than others because they feel a “widespread sense of racial isolation.” At 12 percent of Penn’s population, international students may be the new isolated minority group.
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April 20th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Thank you for this much-needed post, and reminding of of this ongoing problem! We at Penn can certainly do a better job of reaching out, of not assuming that between the International House and ethnic clubs everyone is having all of their needs met. We can do better!
April 20th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Cho was NOT an international student. He was a US permanent resident, attended high school, middle school, and most of elementary school here. His family moved here when he was eight.
Most students in the American school system from the age of eight will be thoroughly Americanized and no different from someone born here at all.
This is just a case of one crazy student, who happened to be Korean, no need to make a big deal about that fact.
April 20th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
english major - If you had read the article, you would have realized that the author addressed that, writing “which isn’t to say Cho Seung-Hui’s self-perpetuated alienation derived from being Korean; he had legally lived here since 1992 — though mostly among other immigrants in Centreville, Virginia — and was mentally ill.” Nice job actually reading the article before being indignant.
April 24th, 2007 at 12:51 am
i wonder what people will do when this whole world comes to a crashing hault. Soon, people wont be able to blame it on nationality or religion,or gender or mental stability or lack there of. What people need to realize is that we bring this on ourselves. What ever happened to the Golden Rule?
Why is it that children and adults alike can name all the presidents and can explain physics or some jazz like that..but no one can seem to remember or even understand something as important as the 10 commandments. Where we are actually taught how to treat one another without a horrific out come. I dont want to sound preachy, but we all need to look at how we ourselves have contributed to the way the world views things. Its just something I feel we should consider.
April 24th, 2007 at 2:48 am
Beeble beeble beeble. We should try harder to teach people not to commit massacres. Much, much harder.