> Harry’s parents, Rupert and Alice Armstrong Evans, who have accused the university of shortcomings, want the government to adopt what they have called “Harry’s law”, under which universities would have to publish the annual student suicide rate at their institution, and which faculty those students were studying in.
Is today “Grieving parents demand ridiculous things” day?
As much as Universities should do what they can to protect students, how does naming the faculty provide anything but a way to come up with some kind of half-baked story that *that* faculty was somehow responsible?
> “Nowhere did we read about the number of students who had taken their own life or indeed that, just a year prior, someone on the same course Harry had selected had committed suicide.”
If they had read about it, would they have done different? If Harry was *that much* of a suicide risk, surely it lies with the parents to take extra special care in where he even can be, rather than shipping him off to University (and by the looks of it, his time there coincided with all the lockdown disruption that Covid bought with it – which added extra stress and difficulty to everyone).
Yes lets put more pressure on already overstretched uni staff rather than recognize what an absolutely horrific nightmare we have turned Higher Education into since 2011.
While I am not opposed to universities revealing rates of suicide by institution, by itself it is essentially meaningless. It would need to be contrasted against the suicide rates of a matched pool of people of similar age and other demographics, who weren’t at the university over a similar period of time. This could be national, or even local as there may be some dreadful local services that aren’t fulfilling their statutory duties.
It may be that 11 deaths at Exeter over 6 years is a huge amount if the age matched cohort was only 3, or it could be a massive protective factor if the local rate was 25. Numbers taken out of context and just attached to a university is going to look bad if it is anything over zero.
How is astrophysics as a degree subject? I imagine it might be quite punishing if your main motivation is to actually get into a directly relevant career (sending stuff into space or whatever). The degree must be rock hard as a subject, but I’m guessing there aren’t that many industry places for people who want to somehow be involved in the space sector in the UK so the graduate market must be a bit brutal unless you pivot out into e.g. software or whatever.
University is a kafkaesque experience on some courses, I’d advice a lot of people to stay away tbh
This could create an adverse incentive to universities to avoid admitting at risk students.
University is tough but it is up to students to seek help. It is a sad fact but universities are not schools and the pastoral care is limited, you can have a good relationship with your tutors but they are not going to reach out to you like your form tutor did at secondary school. I know when I was in halls that the admin staff who ran the halls had a few international students under watch because of their issues but that was it. The university did offer support in various ways and it was advertised everywhere, this was back in 2010 and I suspect they have only got better at this as mental health issues have increased.
Mental health issues are terrible. They are never your fault but they are your responsibility to get help for. It is not comfortable to hear but it is the sad truth that everyone with mental health issues has to face eventually (one I know personally).
> Harry’s parents, Rupert and Alice Armstrong Evans, who have accused the university of shortcomings
Alas, it was clearly Harry who was possessed of shortcomings (as we all are). I am in favour of the suicide rates being published, mind you, but only so those likely to kill themselves because they failed an exam can go elsewhere.
That, instead, universities should be forced to alter their operational structure in order to nurse such students through their time on campus instead of focusing on their goal as institutions, would be a travesty.
Instead of spouting the trendy pablum of ‘wellbeing’ this and ‘pastoral’ that, let universities be strident in their rigour. These are not institutions which it is mandatory to attend; nor are they daycare centres.
I wonder if the overly-welcoming kid-gloved atmosphere we now have is not perhaps more responsible for unsuited individuals coming a cropper, in much the way poor Harry did here, than any imaginary environment of ruthless, high-pressure hothousing.
Is this data not available through a freedom of information request? Its shocking that it isn’t already a publicly monitored statistic at each university…
Are there any similar calls to release sexual harassment figures?
There must be an easier way to get rid of kids you don’t like than sending them to the *ahem* right school.
Pressure from parents to do well is far more likely to be the driving factor behind students killing themselves
And that’s before we consider that these figures would be meaningless without adjusting for socio-economic, cultural factors etc in an attempt to establish a causal relationship
Shit idea all round
This simply would not help and you’d end up with a correlation = causation issue. It doesn’t matter how much support a University gives or how publicly they make it known, you are always dealing with a young population dealing with a unique situation (ie supporting themselves away from parents) for the first time, and there will always be a few people who cannot handle that and, tragically, don’t want to seek support for it either.
A much, much more helpful approach would be instead to have a comparison of what support options the universities have for those in need, how well advertised they are and people’s experiences of actually using them. That gives a far more realistic and fair response.
13 comments
> Harry’s parents, Rupert and Alice Armstrong Evans, who have accused the university of shortcomings, want the government to adopt what they have called “Harry’s law”, under which universities would have to publish the annual student suicide rate at their institution, and which faculty those students were studying in.
Is today “Grieving parents demand ridiculous things” day?
As much as Universities should do what they can to protect students, how does naming the faculty provide anything but a way to come up with some kind of half-baked story that *that* faculty was somehow responsible?
> “Nowhere did we read about the number of students who had taken their own life or indeed that, just a year prior, someone on the same course Harry had selected had committed suicide.”
If they had read about it, would they have done different? If Harry was *that much* of a suicide risk, surely it lies with the parents to take extra special care in where he even can be, rather than shipping him off to University (and by the looks of it, his time there coincided with all the lockdown disruption that Covid bought with it – which added extra stress and difficulty to everyone).
Yes lets put more pressure on already overstretched uni staff rather than recognize what an absolutely horrific nightmare we have turned Higher Education into since 2011.
While I am not opposed to universities revealing rates of suicide by institution, by itself it is essentially meaningless. It would need to be contrasted against the suicide rates of a matched pool of people of similar age and other demographics, who weren’t at the university over a similar period of time. This could be national, or even local as there may be some dreadful local services that aren’t fulfilling their statutory duties.
It may be that 11 deaths at Exeter over 6 years is a huge amount if the age matched cohort was only 3, or it could be a massive protective factor if the local rate was 25. Numbers taken out of context and just attached to a university is going to look bad if it is anything over zero.
How is astrophysics as a degree subject? I imagine it might be quite punishing if your main motivation is to actually get into a directly relevant career (sending stuff into space or whatever). The degree must be rock hard as a subject, but I’m guessing there aren’t that many industry places for people who want to somehow be involved in the space sector in the UK so the graduate market must be a bit brutal unless you pivot out into e.g. software or whatever.
University is a kafkaesque experience on some courses, I’d advice a lot of people to stay away tbh
This could create an adverse incentive to universities to avoid admitting at risk students.
University is tough but it is up to students to seek help. It is a sad fact but universities are not schools and the pastoral care is limited, you can have a good relationship with your tutors but they are not going to reach out to you like your form tutor did at secondary school. I know when I was in halls that the admin staff who ran the halls had a few international students under watch because of their issues but that was it. The university did offer support in various ways and it was advertised everywhere, this was back in 2010 and I suspect they have only got better at this as mental health issues have increased.
Mental health issues are terrible. They are never your fault but they are your responsibility to get help for. It is not comfortable to hear but it is the sad truth that everyone with mental health issues has to face eventually (one I know personally).
> Harry’s parents, Rupert and Alice Armstrong Evans, who have accused the university of shortcomings
Alas, it was clearly Harry who was possessed of shortcomings (as we all are). I am in favour of the suicide rates being published, mind you, but only so those likely to kill themselves because they failed an exam can go elsewhere.
That, instead, universities should be forced to alter their operational structure in order to nurse such students through their time on campus instead of focusing on their goal as institutions, would be a travesty.
Instead of spouting the trendy pablum of ‘wellbeing’ this and ‘pastoral’ that, let universities be strident in their rigour. These are not institutions which it is mandatory to attend; nor are they daycare centres.
I wonder if the overly-welcoming kid-gloved atmosphere we now have is not perhaps more responsible for unsuited individuals coming a cropper, in much the way poor Harry did here, than any imaginary environment of ruthless, high-pressure hothousing.
Is this data not available through a freedom of information request? Its shocking that it isn’t already a publicly monitored statistic at each university…
Are there any similar calls to release sexual harassment figures?
There must be an easier way to get rid of kids you don’t like than sending them to the *ahem* right school.
Pressure from parents to do well is far more likely to be the driving factor behind students killing themselves
And that’s before we consider that these figures would be meaningless without adjusting for socio-economic, cultural factors etc in an attempt to establish a causal relationship
Shit idea all round
This simply would not help and you’d end up with a correlation = causation issue. It doesn’t matter how much support a University gives or how publicly they make it known, you are always dealing with a young population dealing with a unique situation (ie supporting themselves away from parents) for the first time, and there will always be a few people who cannot handle that and, tragically, don’t want to seek support for it either.
A much, much more helpful approach would be instead to have a comparison of what support options the universities have for those in need, how well advertised they are and people’s experiences of actually using them. That gives a far more realistic and fair response.