CAMPUS/AREA UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, November 9, 1993
3
Suicide attempts common to campuses
Pain, emotions lead to despair
By Liz Kiinger
Kansan staff writer
Like any other college, KU is not immune to the pain associated with suicide.
About 5,000 suicides in the United States each year are committed by people aged 15 to 24 and for every suicide, there are between one and 200 attempts, said Marcia Epstein, Headquarters director.
Headquarters, 1419 Massachusetts, is one of a number of agencies in Lawrence that help people contemplating suicide or friends and family of someone they feel may try to kill themselves. Last year 600 of Headquarter's 16,000 visits and phone calls were suicide-related.
"It's not unusual for someone to have thought about taking their own life at one point," said Frank DeSalvo, KU's Counseling and Psychological Services director. DeSalvo said suicide was most often associated with relief from pain, whether mental for physical.
"I think if you've ever been in extreme emotional or physical pain the idea of wanting that pain to end is easy to understand," DeSalvo said. "Considering any means to bring that pain to an end is also pretty easy to understand."
Epstein said it was easier for some people to understand why people in physical pain would consider ending their lives rather than someone who was suffering emotionally.
"The people that I'm most familiar with are people who are thinking about suicide because there's a lot of emotional pain going on," Epstein said. "I thinkwe forget emotional pain
is at least as devastating as physical pain."
Epstein said there were four groups of teenagers and young adults considered high-risk for attempting suicide: perfectionists, who put lots of pressure on themselves and are unlikely to let people know they are having problems, people in a psychotic state, who confuse what reality is, those who suffer from long term depression and the severely abused.
DeSalvo said the pressures of college may deeply trouble some students.
"College is a real transition time for
folks," DeSalvo said. "Besides learning about yourself, it's a time to make decisions that may have lifelong implications. It's a real challenging time both academically and socially and in terms of identity."
The pain of the person's family and friends can match the pain of the person contemplating suicide, Epstein said.
"One of the things people say is they don't know what to do," Epstein said. "They're afraid they're going to do the wrong thing. In general people don't know what to do to help someone who's having a hard time."
What to do if you think that someone may be suicidal
Prevention
Listen to what the person says.
Don't leave her or him alone.
Don't leave her or finish the.
Headquarters. 4-1.5 M. for help.
Heartquarters.
KU Psychological Clinic in Fraser Hall
Psychological Clinics 7.3m, 7.0m, 7.0m
sachusetts. 841-2345. 24 hours a day, Free and confidential.
KU Counseling and Psychological Services
at Watkins — 864-227/8,74.
b. to, to, to, Thursday and Fri-
day, and 8 a.m., to 8 p.m. Tuesday
and Wednesday.
- 864-4121. 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday.
Chinese student group aims for communication
Source: Marcia Epstein, Headquarters director
Organization seeks to erase barriers
KANSAN
By Carlos Tejada Kansan staff writer
Shaohu Huang, Guangzhou, China graduate student, said he had a hard time writing his poetry in English instead of Chinese.
"I can only write a few sentences, but I think English is a pretty good language for poetry," said Huang, president of the Chinese Student and Scholar Friendship Association.
"Traditionally, we're not a socially active people," he said. "This way we can keep in touch, and we don't feel so lonely here."
Language problems are not the least of the troubles students from the People's Republic of China encounter, Huang said. But he said the association gave Chinese students a sense of their culture in a faraway land.
Huang said the group included the 240 Chinese students at the University of Kansas, as well as any members
UNITING TO BE HEARD
of their families who live with them in Lawrence. He said the association helped keep the total membership of 300 to 400 together.
"Our group is so big, it's hard to keep in touch with everybody," Huang said. "It changes so much every semester."
Most members want to meet Americans, he said, but language and cultural differences form a barrier.
Huang said the association would join the Chinese Student Association made of students from Taiwan
and the Hong Kong and Macau Student Association in holding a Chinese New Year celebration in February.
Ying Chen, Guangzhou, China, graduate student and treasurer of the association, said bringing the groups
"More and more, we cooperate with other groups," Huang said. "If this continues, then we'll probably have a stronger voice in the student body."
together helped them keep a common heritage.
"We just have fun together and celebrate our culture," she said. "We're not all Americanized. We try to present the traditional ways of our culture."
Chen said Americans often participated in the association's activities, but students still found communication difficult.
"I'm always willing to learn about the United States and American people, but it's still hard to relate," she said.
Huang said both groups needed to communicate more with each other. He said on the individual level, the differences in cultures would disappear when the similarities of human beings showed through.
"We're not the students you see in your classroom or lab every day," Huang said. "We're not just the students who don't speak English well and get good scores on tests. If you take the opportunity, you'll find that we're all different."
Doug Hesse / KANSAN
Building a place of space
Jose Fernandez, Argentina senior, holds a wood frame while his partner tightens a bolt. Fernandez and his partner were "defining space" around midnight Sunday night with their architectural project and providing a creative outlet to relieve stress. About 10 projects were made for an architectural studio class and will remain in the courtyard between the Art and Design building and Lindley Hall until the end of the week.
Student reports man entered car and stole money
A man took $60 from a KU student and forced him to drive around town Friday night before the suspect got out of the car and ran away, said Sgt. Rick Nickell of Lawrence police.
Jonathan Martin, Kansas City, Mo., sophomore, told police he was sitting in his car at the Dillons store at 1740 Massachusetts St. about 11:20 p.m. Friday, waiting for some friends who were inside. The suspect got into the car and told Martin he had a gun.
The suspect told Martin to drive him to a bank, the report said. Martin went to the automated machine maker at the Mercantile Bank at 23rd Street and Ridge Court. Martin withdrew $50 from his account and gave it to the suspect.
The suspect then asked Martin for more money, and Martin gave him $10 more, according to the report. The suspect ordered Martin to drop him off in the area of Murphy Drive in Southwest Lawrence. He told Martin
he would return the money if Martin gave him his name and address. Martin gave the suspect a false address before the suspect ran away.
Martin described the suspect as a black male in his early 20s, 5 feet 8 inches tall and 170 to 190 pounds. No arrests have been made, and police continue to investigate.
Crime Stoppers award nets information on false alarm
KU Crime Stoppers has awarded $100 to an anonymous caller who gave information about a false alarm at Templin Hall on Oct. 12.
CAMPUS BRIEFS
The award was announced yesterday by Danny Kaiser, chair of KU Crime Stoppers and assistant dean of student life.
The caller's information led police to question two unidentified suspects. They were ordered to appear in Lawrence Municipal Court on Nov. 2 to face charges of setting the false alarm that forced the temporary evacuation of Templin.
Anyone with information about false alarms or other campus crimes should call Crime Stoppers at 864-8888. Callers remain
anonymous and may be eligible for cash awards if their information leads to an arrest.
Students report assault at Mississippi Street lot
Four KU students claim they were assaulted by a man with a gun Oct. 30 in a parking lot off of Mississippi Street near the Kansas Union, Sgt. Rose Rozmairek of KU police said yesterday.
Patricia Walesheck, White Bear Lake, Minn., sophomore; Jennifer Dillon, Lawrence sophomore; William Mohl, Lawrence sophomore; and Lori Murphy, Lawrence sophomore, stopped their car in the parking lot after they thought they were being followed, Rozmairek said.
The person who appeared to be following them stopped his vehicle in the lot. He then got out of his car and started an argument with the students.
At one point, the suspect pulled out a small caliber handgun, according to the police report. He left without firing the handgun.
The suspect was described as a black male 20 to 22 years old. He was 5 feet, 1 inch tall
weighed 145 pounds, with short hair that was shaved on the sides.
Student tickets available for basketball tournament
Thousands of student tickets are still available for the preseason National Invitational Tournament basketball games at Allen Field House next week.
Student tickets cost $6 for two games and can be purchased at the Allen Field House ticket office, said Bernie Kish, ticket office manager.
Only 900 student tickets for the tournament had been sold as of late Tuesday, Kish said. About 6,300 tickets are still available. Kish said unsold student tickets would be sold to the public beginning on Thursday.
The Jayhawks play Western Michigan at 8:30 p.m. next Wednesday in Allen Field House. Also on Wednesday Santa Clara and California will play in San Jose, Calif. The
winners of each each game will meet at 8:30 p.m. next Friday in Allen Field House.
Ticket holders can receive a $3 refund for their Friday game tickets if KU loses on Wednesday, Kish said.
Alliance donates $300 to clean neo-Nazi graffiti
A Lawrence anti-racism group will try to heal wounds inflicted on the city's Jewish community.
The Lawrence Alliance will present the Jewish Community Center with a $300 check at 9 a.m. today. Lisa Blair, coordinator of the Alliance, said the money would pay for cleaning up neo-Nazi graffiti that was sprayed on the center's building on Sept. 5. She said the money would also help pay to make the walls of the center easier to clean in case of future attacks.
The money came from donations from the community, Blair said.
Briefs compiled from Kansan staff reports
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