NYU Freshman's Suicide Raises Adjustment Issues

A freshman's suicide at New York University over the weekend has shocked the NYU community and raised questions about whether more needs to be done to prevent future tragedies, according school officials.

Early Saturday morning, a student from California, Allan Oakley Hunter III, 18, leapt from the roof of a 15-story Union Square dormitory and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

"It's been a flood of tears and shock in the last two days," Hunter's father, Allan Hunter, told The New York Sun.

While his son, who was known as Trey, loved New York and all that he was doing here, he was still struggling to settle into a routine, Mr. Hunter said.

"I think it's kind of a myth to believe that, okay, you're 18, you get into college, and you're all ready to be launched," Mr. Hunter said.

"This was a kid who was just overwhelmed in the early months of college, that got out of his rhythm with too little sleep, not the right foods to eat. He was basically running on empty."

The president of NYU, John Sexton, sent an e-mail message to members of the university community Saturday afternoon, urging students and faculty to seek counseling through the university's mental health center, the Wellness Exchange, should they feel vulnerable.

The apparent suicide of the College of Arts and Science student is the first on the campus since the 2003-04 period, when six students committed suicide.

An adjunct professor of Italian who taught Hunter, Tiziana Rinaldi, said he was an intelligent, kind person, and a gifted writer, but he could be shy. "This is an intimidating world for a lot of people," Ms. Rinaldi, who has taught freshmen at NYU for nearly a decade, said.

"It's hard to adjust as a freshman, and the bigger the campus, the further away the city is from where you're from, the harder it's going to be for the kids to adjust." It is estimated that 1,100 college students commit suicide annually; it is the second leading cause of death for college students behind unintentional injury, according to suicide prevention organization that focuses on college students, the Jed Foundation.

At NYU, freshmen are required to attend programs informing them of common issues and experiences, and of the counseling options available to them, the associate vice president of student affairs, Marc Wais, said.

"If students are already struggling with emotional problems, the added stresses of the pressure of college and a new environment can trigger dangerous behavior," a spokesman for the Jed Foundation, Courtney Knowles, said.

One of the biggest signs or symptoms of emotional distress is changes in behavior, Mr. Knowles said, and when students do not have people around who know them well, those changes might not be as obvious."

Hunter had 40 close friends at home, his father said. "He just wasn't in the town long enough for people to know him."

On Saturday morning, Hunter had a spat with a girl he dated for 18 months prior to coming to NYU but with whom he had amicably split, his father said. At 5:07 a.m., Hunter simultaneously sent his father, mother, and brother a text message that said simply, "I love you."

Mr. Hunter said he believes that his son jumped just six minutes later.

Hunter was a grandson of a former California congressman, Allan Oakley Hunter, who led the Federal National Mortgage Association, known as Fannie Mae, as it grew to importance in the 1970s, according to a 1995 obituary in the New York Times.