What follows is a reflection to be published in the Catholic Campus Ministry Association's Feb/Mar issue of its journal
Crossroads.
Whenever I mention that I attended Kent State University to someone my parent’s age, there is generally the same predictable and unwanted reaction. They pause to momentarily reflect and then ask, as if my alma mater hadn’t already over-inundated me with its history, if I knew about the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings. Many then reminisce about where they were when it happened, and since I currently live in Northeast Ohio, who they knew that was at Kent State.
How could I not know about the nine wounded and four slain on my campus by the National Guard? Kent State made sure that every freshman learned about the protests, visited the May 4th Memorial, and knew that the 58,175 daffodils planted on the hill below the memorial were for each fallen US causality during the Vietnam War. There was a horrific loss of life at Kent State by the hands of our own government – trust me, we know. A tragedy happened, it could have been prevented, it should never happen again – trust me, we know.
Last year, while working as a Resident Minister at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio, we lost two students to suicide in our residence halls. And, yes, like the Kent State shootings it was a tragedy and it should never happen again. But, unlike the deaths at Kent State, it will. Over 1000 college students prematurely end their lives each year and, like all suicides, the leading cause for their suicide is untreated depression. And yet, even with the suicide rates in college students climbing steadily over the last half-century, only 6% of depressed students say they would seek help.
After the first death our campus was in shock. A student had not died in a John Carroll resident halls in decades. I believe that the staffs of the Campus Ministry, Student Affairs, and the Counseling departments responded as best they could. We worked together to provide care to those involved in or affected by the student’s death. We offered counseling, prayer services, academic accommodations, and were personally responsible for checking up on high risk students in throughout campus. There was repeated praise of the “community” felt on campus throughout this time by students and staff alike.
But, even with all we did, it wasn’t enough. Research says that if one student commits suicide on campus it is extremely probable that a second will in the five weeks that follow. Unfortunately for the John Carroll community, everything we did was not enough because after six weeks we lost a second student to suicide. This time the reaction was different. This time the students were angry.
When I received the emergency call to go to Campion Hall around 10 am that Sunday morning, I wasn’t sure I had the strength for what I knew awaited me. Two years as a pastoral associate at the Kent State Newman Center was surely not enough to prepare me for the moments that followed. Prepared or not, other than the police and paramedics who had first responded, I was the second John Carroll staff member to arrive on the scene. There was little for me to do – let a priest into the building to administer an anointing, sit with the friends who had discovered the their friend, put my arm around the RA who called 911 – nothing struck me as sufficient and nothing could have been.
As the days and weeks moved forward, the role of campus ministry and resident ministers in such a crisis began to take shape. We provided the services you would expect in such a situation –prayer vigils, funeral arrangements, and so on – but we also found ourselves doing so much more. Our students were angry, afraid, and generally unable to cope with such loss. They wanted to know how this could happen on their campus and why it wasn’t prevented from happening a second time. They wanted to know why the counseling center wasn’t doing more, why the Office of Residence Life didn’t have more suicide training for its Resident Assistants, why the Academic Vice President hadn’t…the list of grievances was long, and rightly so, we were grieving.
Personally, I was unable to adequately respond to most of these complaints, but in fielding them I began to discover my role in the residence halls. Resident ministers are a powerful medium of ministry on a college campus precisely because we live with the students and the students know it. Resident ministry begins when the rest of the university staff goes home for the day. The ministry that happens simply because a student smells freshly baked chocolate chip cookies at 11 pm from down the hall is priceless. More pastoral conversations took place in my ministry because of freshly baked dessert than any other pastoral tool. The smell of cookies had such a profound affect on students that I often wonder why there isn’t a session on baking at the Frank J. Lewis Institute. Many of these encounters were as simple as learning a name or talking about a class, but often they dove deeper into a girlfriend issue or a problem at home. Even when our conversations were as short as, “Are those homemade? Yes. Can I have one? Yes.”, the students began to feel the comfort and stability their emotional and spiritual lives lacked.
Beyond shared bakery, during our time of crisis our students experienced solidarity with the resident ministers unlike what was possible with other campus ministers or staff members. Not only did we share living space, but we shared emotional space. Some students knew that I slept poorly on Sunday mornings because of the two Sunday morning calls I received that year. Many knew that it scared me when my room phone rang because the call on the other end was rarely positive. And most were aware that even with the long hours I spent studying and grading papers, I was still available to them whenever they needed me for anything from math help to a game of Mario Kart.
Reflecting on my year in resident ministry and the tragedies we faced I have come to better understand the role, and necessity, of a resident minister. First, a resident minister has the unique capability of making students aware that they are cared for at all times and in all aspects of their lives. Our resident ministry theme that school year, if we had one, was
cura personalis. Comparable to no other position at a university, a resident minister can care for the whole student, whether in the cafeteria at lunch time or in a residence hall lobby at 2 am.
Second, resident ministry is a ministry of solidarity. Whether it’s in a time of tragedy or it’s just the rowdy kids on Thursday night, resident ministers live and walk with students in a distinct way that no other faculty or staff do. This shared experience is a base for relationships and helps ease crossing the difficult boundary of insecurity that so often prevents good ministry.
Finally, I learned that no matter what a university does to prevent suicide, it is not avoidable entirely. No matter what steps a university takes to implement suicide prevention programs (and these do help!), we cannot put a stop to suicide completely. In the dreadful times when we must respond to such crises, the times when we wonder if we have done enough or could have done better, there is only one question to ask: did we love each and every student to the best of our ability at the time we encountered them? If the answer is yes, no matter how are hearts grieve with them and for them, we should know that our work as ministers was done well. Resident ministry expands the time-frame in which we can minister to students allowing us to provide loving care where otherwise we could not.
When I tell people that I was a student and resident minister at John Carroll University during the 2009-2010 school year, none will dwell on the statement for long. But, for me and for the entire university, it was a tragic, painful year in which I continue to search for the hope and faith to care for each and every student that walks onto my campus and through my door. May God grant us all the energy and love to do just that.
