Mar 21, 2007
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In Parts I and II I looked at e-mails from Alan Donovan, President of SUNY College at Oneonta, that were sent to the student body regarding Monday’s tragic and untimely death of a student. The Daily Star reports today that:
An autopsy on a State University College at Oneonta freshman found dead in her dorm room Monday revealed she died of natural causes, Otsego County Coroner James Hurley said Tuesday.
Initial results from the autopsy performed Monday on [name withheld] ruled out foul play, Hurley said, and further test results Tuesday indicated the death was because of pre-existing health conditions. There was no infectious disease or substance abuse involved, he said.
The rumors and speculation Monday and Tuesday, fueled by vague, incomplete content in e-mails from the President’s Office, are now - hopefully - quelled.
SUNY Oneonta should have acted responsibly and respectfully by waiting until they could give the facts to the students and College community. This e-mail from Boston University’s President Robert Brown was issued after a fatal fire on March 18:
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 3:11 PM
Subject: Message from President Brown
Office of the President, Boston University
Dear Students:
As you are probably aware, another tragic fire occurred near campus, on Friday morning, in a privately owned residential building. [name withheld], a student from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, was in the building visiting BU friends and died in the fire. Our thoughts and prayers are with [name withheld] and his family. At the same time, we are reaching out to members of the BU family who were displaced or otherwise affected by the fire and providing them the material and spiritual support they need. I am sure that you also join us in sending our good thoughts to these students.
Our campus has experienced too many tragedies of late, and at times like these it is important that we look out for one another. It is also important that we not retreat to business-as-usual when it comes to matters of personal safety. It is true that the recent fires were accidental, however, we should increase our collective obligation to do what we can to avoid similar tragedies in the future.
For the University, that means going beyond our regular inspections of life safety systems within campus buildings. Over the next several days and weeks, we will inspect our buildings and residential properties to make sure that all of our systems are in perfect working order. We will reach out to students who live off-campus and make sure they have access to information about fire safety and prevention in non-University owned buildings. Additionally, we have asked our staff, especially our Residence Life and campus health and safety officials, to find additional ways in which we can continue discussions with each other about personal safety in our social and living environments.
Finally, we ask you to be more aware of your own personal safety – if there is something we can do to enhance it, please ask. If there are things you and your classmates can do to be safe and avoid accidents, please do them. We care deeply about you, and it is important that we all put the loss and pain we are feeling to a positive end – your well-being.
Take care of yourself, and let’s keep a caring eye out for each other.
Yours truly,
Robert A. Brown
President
This e-mail was sent after - not before - the University had all the facts and could report them with clarity and accuracy; President Brown explains with compassion how the University is reacting to the issue; he outlines the preventative measures that will be undertaken in the future. After a student reads this e-mail, he knows what happened, what didn’t happen, how they’re handling it and why it won’t happen again.
President Donovan, Vice President of Community Relations Blazina, etc. should take notice of how crisis is dealt with effectively and compassionately at other institutions.
Mar 20, 2007
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Cooperstown Central School in Cooperstown, NY will decide next week on whether to implement surveillance cameras that will monitor continuously the inside and outside of the school building, reports the Cooperstown Crier:
“The world has changed enough where incidents occur and if there’s no first hand reference” resolving an issue becomes a problem, said board president Anthony Scalici. “When you deal with one kid’s word against another … that’s just ugly stuff. This puts the grand mediator in there.”
The use of CCTV has proved both useful and problematic in the United Kingdom, the West’s most developed sphere of public surveillance. Video records can be helpful in identifying unknown assailants or vandals.
“It’s not the ‘Big Brother is watching you’ thing, it’s really about watching other people who come into the school,” said high school principal Gary Kuch.
The report goes on to say that:
Cameras have been on school buses for a number of years and will continue to be allowed under the new policy, which replaces a policy solely covering bus surveillance.
One must remember that the main reason cameras are on buses is because the bus driver necessarily faces away from dozens of students for the bulk of their job. This isn’t the case during the school day when all students are assigned supervision, even during lunch and study periods.
The most puzzling section of the report comes from Principal Gary Kuch:
He [Kuch] elaborated by saying that, while the cameras will serve as a deterrent to misbehavior by students, they are being put in place in part to monitor the school grounds for vandalism from tourists and other non-students who use the facility.
If students aren’t the target, there’s no reason CCTV should be used indoors during the day. Turn it on from 3pm - 7am, turn it on outside, turn it on during the summers and vacation periods. If there have been problems with the behavior of visitors, what policies have been implemented to address those problems before resorting to CCTV?
He [Kuch] said the footage would only be held for a few days before being deleted.
Footage must be kept for more than a few days to be used effectively. A simple Google search [view search results here] shows how videos often make their way to sites like Youtube before gaining the attention of parents, school administrators or police. It is naive to think that all non-vandal offenses such as physical abuse will be captured, reported and investigated within 72 hours - this is CCS, not CSI. [nota bene: this report shows 200 instances of abusive behavior over two months]. Archiving the footage on re-writeable Blu-Ray or writeable DVD media would cost just a few dollars a day.
The Board should have prepared and distributed a cost-benefit analysis of this project that includes the following:
Total expenses. Cameras and installation, storage/media [and necessary hardware], planned and unplanned maintenance, signage and public notification costs, training sessions for users, cost of staff time to maintain storage of footage, etc.Projected costs of annual vandalism. How many instances of vandalism occur? What is the total dollar value of incidents annually over the last 10 years? Based on the data, observations and the trends exposed by both, what issues are likely to come up?
Student behavior data. The district should have compiled data of disciplinary behavior that can predict (in a general sense) what happens, where it happens and when it happens. Analyzing this data can tell the Board very quickly whether CCTV will address problems effectively.
Is this information available on the District’s website? Was it given out at School Board meetings and made available for pickup to those who couldn’t attend? If anyone has a copy, let me know - I’ll scan and post it here.
UPDATE at 3/20/07, 4.53pm:
A reader e-mailed the Board’s policy on the use of cameras. It is available for download in MS Word and Adobe Acrobat formats. Click the following to view the files or right-click and ‘save as’ to save them.
ccs_camera_policy.doc [MS Word Document, 980kb, opens in a new window]
ccs_camera_policy.pdf [Adobe Acrobat, 566kb, opens in a new window]
The policy is less than comprehensive.
Mar 19, 2007
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Today the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld a ruling that a 16-year old student is guilty of misdemeanor stalking for yelling at another student almost 200 times:
According to court documents, the teen identified only as Jeffrey K. yelled at the girl close to 200 times over two months in 2004 at Omaha Westside High School. He shoved a chair directly into her path, causing her to stumble, repeatedly called her a “whore” and threw food at her, yelling “eat some more, fat ass.”
… and where was the discipline? Educators tout “behavioral interventions” [a phrase popular enough to be the title of a journal] designed to deal with “a multitude of dispositions” to create a “safe school environment” where a student can pursue an education without harassment, intimidation or any other artificial obstacle.
I’ve prepared the following test for those educators:
Q: How many times should you allow one student to harass another [physically or verbally] before dealing with the situation effectively?
A. 200
B. 9,384
C. 52
D. 1
We know that Omaha Westside High School chose A - you don’t have to. [Hint: Westside High failed.] Others can e-mail me their answers or leave them in the Comments section.
Disciplining students involves not only dealing efficiently and effectively with the offender, but also focusing primarily on the victim’s [and other students'] rights to a free environment. The issue here is liberty; the victim’s freedom from harassment is more important than the offender’s freedom to behave like a jerk and get away with it over and over again.
Students hardly report harassment of any kind. The onus is on staff to see the offense - and with 200 offenses, there were opportunities to catch at least a few - and involve the administration to handle the situation effectively. That administration also needs to have the resolve to remove the offender from the school environment instead of wringing their hands over the sad exclusion of a miscreant. My guess is that the time for removal came well before incident #173. Maybe even before #100.
Mar 19, 2007
Posted | 6 comments
Another student forwarded a new e-mail from SUNY Oneonta’s administration:
From: Students Enrolled in the Current Semester on behalf of BROADCAST
Sent: Mon 3/19/2007 3:12 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Announcement from the President’s Office
TO: The Campus Community
FROM: Alan B. Donovan
DATE: March 19, 2007
As a follow-up to my earlier communication, it is with deep
regret that I inform you of the loss of [name withheld], who died
today. Kirstylee was a freshman majoring in Childhood Education at the
College.
The entire College community extends its concern and sympathy
to Kirstylee’s family and friends. The College flag will be flown at
half mast for three days in her honor.
This message was sent less than 3 hours after the first. A real commitment to “concern and sympathy” would have included waiting to disclose the student’s name until after the family was notified and a general description of the circumstances could be issued. I won’t address the callous language in both e-mails (“found dead,” “died today,” etc.); it speaks for itself.
At this point, the College has put out a name and face that will undoubtedly focus and contribute to the speculation and gossip. Shameful.
The family is dealing with unimaginable grief. They need not be forced to deal with an unnecessary loss of dignity.
Mar 19, 2007
Posted | 3 comments
I received this forward today from a student at the State University of New York - Oneonta campus:
From: Students Enrolled in the Current Semester on behalf of BROADCAST
Sent: Mon 3/19/2007 12:34 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Announcement from the President’s Office
To: The Campus Community
From: The President’s Office
March 19th, 2007
It is with deep regret that I announce that one of our students was found dead in her residence hall room this morning. The case is currently under investigation by University Police but preliminary details indicate that the death was not caused by assault or violence. The Counseling Center is offering aid to all students affected by this situation.
The student’s name will not be released until the family has been
notified. [ed. note: bold added]
Alan B. Donovan
This e-mail is clearly an attempt to stave off fears about related acts of violence on campus, but a pseudo-press release without any real facts (other than a reporting a female student’s death) generates the type of viral talk it intends to squelch. Whereas they may have eliminated speculation of foul play and a general threat to student safety, they have also invited gossip about the student’s cause of death. This quick intervention (just a few hours after discovery) may be well-intentioned, but it is classless, harmful and disrespectful. Notifying appropriate parties takes precedence over halting a rumor mill - especially when the college’s actions fuel another.
Donovan, SUCO’s President, should - but probably doesn’t - realize the profound lack of respect he and his office have shown toward the student and her family. The family should be outraged.
President Donovan should be ashamed of these actions and amend crisis-handling policies appropriately. If those policies are already in place and this was an administrative slip-up, disciplinary action, including an apology, is in order.
