I volunteered for Ithaca’s Suicide Prevention & Crisis Services, so I am very passionate about eliminating this incredibly misleading stigma surrounding our school. Here’s something I posted on another thread asking the same thing:
Cornell does NOT have a large amount of suicides. Not recently, not in the past, and almost definitely not in the future. There are very few suicides in the Ithaca area compared to other towns of its size. The problem is that often when people do take their lives in Ithaca, they do so by jumping into the gorges, which is very dramatic and very public. When people quietly take their lives in their own home, it is not publicized. When someone jumps off a bridge and there are potential witnesses, or at least people wake up to the sound of ambulances, it is widely known. However, most of the people who do kill themselves in Ithaca are NOT CORNELL STUDENTS. Many are from out of town or are adults living in the Ithaca area. People often make jokes about the nets surrounding the gorges, but they are there for safety and preventative measures. It’s not like people jump off all the time. It happens very rarely.