<p>link doesn't work. you may have posted it incorrectly.</p>
<p>If a student is a danger to himself or others, it does not seem extraordinary that the school would free itself of that student; however, I presume that there is more to the story than what is in the Post, and I suspect you'll be perfectly safe seeking psychological help at Harvard. I assume extreme action will only be taken in circumstances which warrant it.</p>
<p>No, sorry, that is ****ed up.</p>
<p>It's a sad state of affairs when people become so afraid of liability that they feel the need to do something like that.</p>
<p>However, corranged is probably right that there must be something else that they're not mentioning. They certainly didn't save themselves a lawsuit by taking this course of action, so there must be something that made them decide to do it.</p>
<p>link doesn't work</p>
<p>That isn't fair, and the school deserves to lose the suit. But only if that story is telling the whole story and not just spicing it up for readers. If they story left something out, I might change my mind, but as is, that is wrong.</p>
<p>That kind of thing is not at all unusual, including at schools like Harvard. </p>
<p>This is bad. If someone needs help they are entitled to it and entitled to privacy. They couldnt fire someone under these circumstances</p>
<p>but i totally empathize with GWU's pov... it could be fatally dangerous to have a total pyschopath around the college. it's not as if the suicide rate in gwu is not high enough, and research has proven that depressed people just flock together and become more depressed (ever wondered why emokids in your school all hang out together)</p>
<p>Don't know anything about the study you cited, but you might want to brush up on the abnormal psych--depression, which is what the kid complained of, has nothing to do with being a dangerous psychopath. In fact, psychopaths are <em>less</em> likely to suffer depression than average folks are.</p>
<p>where do you get off to call this kid a psychopath?</p>
<p>thats such a lovely word to describe a person that suffers from the most common psychological disorder in the world.</p>
<p>psychopath
One entry found for psychopath.
Main Entry: psy·cho·path
Pronunciation: 'sI-k&-"path
Function: noun
Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary
: a mentally ill or unstable person; especially : a person having a psychopathic personality</p>
<p>psychopath is a totally legit word used.</p>
<p>yeah but generally speaking you would not lable that guy a psychopath!
psychopath connotates someone violent and crazy not some one emotionally suffering like this poor guy... he had two of his friends die, felt like crap and suicidal, knew something was wrong and tried to get help for it! its not like he even attempted suicide or anything</p>
<p>This is from the Washington Post story:
"The suit says that Nott was not suicidal and never threatened suicide, but that he did have general suicidal thoughts; aware that his roommate would be out of town for the weekend, he checked himself into GW Hospital in the early morning of Oct. 27, 2004, for mental health treatment. Later that day, while still in the hospital, he received a letter from Sawyer saying that he would not be permitted back into his dorm, under the residential hall psychological distress policy.</p>
<p>The next day, while still in the hospital, he received a letter from Donnels charging him with a violation of the Code of Conduct's endangering behavior policy, according to the suit. He was issued an immediate interim suspension, told not to return to his Francis Scott Key Hall room, barred from GW property and threatened with arrest if he returned to campus. Nott was informed that if he withdrew from the University, the charges would be deferred. The letter was carbon copied to several university administrators.</p>
<p>The suit says Nott left the hospital Nov. 1, 2004, and met with Gieseke, the assistant director of SJS. Nott says he was told if he withdrew from school voluntarily, his suspension would not be shown on his record; but if he fought the charges and lost, he could face suspension or expulsion, and the charges would go on his record. He ultimately withdrew from GW on Nov. 8; he permanently withdrew in April 2005 and transferred to the University of Maryland."</p>
<p>Think about exactly how desperate and frightened. a person needs to be to check into a mental hospital because their roommate is out of town and they are having suicidal thoughts. Of course, Nott had to be very afraid of killing himself for him to have taken such steps.</p>
<p>That his suit says he was "not suicidal" at that time sounds like denial. Many people have mild suicidal thoughts, but have NO intention of killing themselves. They certainly wouldn't check into a hospital because of fleeting suicidal thoughts that they have no plans of acting on. People do check into mental wards when they are very frightened of kiliing themselves or others.</p>
<p>Think about it: Would you want a roommate who checked into a mental hospital when you went out of town because presumably you were no longer there to protect him from himself? If you were that desperate as to check yourself into a mental hospital because of suicidal thoughts, do you really think that you would be mentally ready to handle the rigors and independence of college?</p>
<p>I would bet money that the same thing would have occurred if the young man had had a physical problem that indicated a serious illness that was potentially life threatening without major ongoing treatment. If, for instance, he got admitted to a hospital with severe abdominal pain, and said that he sought treatment for that pain only because his roommate was out of town and not able to help him, would it be OK for the colllege to let him stay in the dorm when that illness wasn't treated?</p>
<p>And do know, that if one is so suicidal as to be accepted into inpatient treatment, and overnight stay is not likely to be enough treatment. It's not as if hospitals take everyone in who shows up on their doorstep.</p>
<p>While I don't know what Harvard's rules are on this kind of situation (One can probably find it in the freshman handbook which probably is on Harvard's site), I would imagine that its policies are very similar to GWUs.</p>
<p>I also think it's important that we are only reading part of the story: the student's side. As a person who years ago worked at GWU's counseling center, I strongly doubt that GWU expelled a student only because the student was suicidal. I bet the student was offered a medical leave to get treatment, but refused to follow through, and consequently, expulsion was the only way to protect the student from himself.</p>
<p>A suicidal person doesn't need to be living in a dorm or attending college until they get the intensive mental health care that they need to become emotionally healthy again. Staying on campus, attending class, would make them a risk and perhaps to others (It's not unusual for suicidal people who are angry to turn their rage on others, perhaps commiting murder/suicide as did a female student at Harvard several years ago, who killed her roommate).</p>
<p>NorthStarMom,</p>
<p>Good post as always.</p>
<p>What do you think about these two aspects of the university's behavior?</p>
<p>Keeping the students situation off of the students record so that they could enroll at an "unaware of the problem" college. And, using this as leverage in forcing the student to leave without a fuss.</p>
<p>Beprepn</p>
<p>"Keeping the students situation off of the students record so that they could enroll at an "unaware of the problem" college"</p>
<p>It may be that due to privacy laws, GWU could not put the reason for expulsion on the student's record. Perhaps due to the expulsion's being medically related, GWU it couldn't even put the expulsion on the student's record.</p>
<p>I think the privacy laws may also prevent the university from telling parents about the student's medical problem. Perhaps, though, the university would hope and assume that the student would share that info with relatives even if the university could not. The university also might hope that since parents usually control the purse strings, parents wouldn't allow a potentially suicidal student to transfer until the student had gotten treatment and been cleared by a mental health professional.</p>
<p>When I was a Harvard student, my roommate asked me to push her if I would push her out of our 18th floor dorm window (and then she got mad at me when I told a dean, who called my roommate in and talked to her. My roommate lied and said that I had exaggerated what she had said, so there was nothing the dean (now Brown's president) could do).</p>
<p>Fortunately, my roommate did not commit suicide, although a year later, another student jumped to his death from the 18th floor of my former dorm.</p>
<p>When I was at Harvard, two students whom I knew killed themselves. One jumped in front of a subway train in Boston. The other hanged himself. I know of one other who committed suicide about 4 years after graduation: carbon monoxide poisoning.</p>
<p>When I was at Harvard, I knew a student who was hospitalized for being suicidal. After release, she continued in Harvard, graduated, and later went to law school and obtained a job so prestigious that I read about her in a magazine.</p>
<p>It would be a tough situation. At first i was disgusted that a school could expell someone when they were at their most vulerenable, but then i thought back to my time at boarding school. There was a suicidal girl who kept trying to hang herself, her roommate was a real mess as she was frightend to sleep incase the girl killed herself overnight. The school in the end asked the girl to leave to go back to her family and recieve proper medical treatment. I can see how it could be a real challange to try to protect other students from that sort of occurance. However, it seems they way they went about it (according to the article) was not the most sensitive way to handle the matter.</p>
<p>As for calling a depressed person a psychopath, that is not really the right term. A psychopath is someone who tends to act without caring about their actions impact upon other people (i am not a psychologist so i suppose i am open to being incorrect). A depressed person would not come usually come under that heading and that could be considerd quite an offensive statement to some people who suffer from deep depression.</p>
<p>
[quote]
the dean (now Brown's president) could do).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My W and I are thinking of going to parent's day next fall in large part to see her in person.</p>