Kelly Sprinkle tried to pull himself together as he flew over the Atlantic Ocean.

The interim dean of Hendricks Chapel became a world traveler this semester, but not in the way he would have liked. He’s been called to Madrid and Strasbourg, France this fall after the deaths of two Syracuse University students at the Abroad centers.

SU lost four students and two professors in 10 weeks this semester – a tragedy rate many say the university has never seen.

Jordan Schaffer, a freshman in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, committed suicide on Sept. 10.

Matt Wanetik, a junior political science and international relations major, died on Oct. 3 while studying abroad in Strasbourg, France.

Alec Waggoner, a first-year graduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences, died on Oct. 26 after he was hit by an SUV while riding a bike in Thornden Park.

Gleidy Espinal, a junior accounting and finance major, committed suicide on Nov. 5 while studying abroad in Madrid.

Michael Freedman, an associate professor of anthropology, died of lung cancer on Nov. 13.

Donna Arzt, a law professor, died on Nov. 15 after a long-term illness.

Sprinkle said his heart still skips a beat when the phone rings early in the morning or late at night. What he had planned for the day can change in an instant. As he knows all too well, a phone call like that means he’ll soon be on a plane halfway across the world.

He said he uses the plane rides to think about how he can take care of the students left behind at the centers. He wonders what the students are thinking about, how the host families are feeling.

The university has a plan for when tragedy strikes one of its students. But this is an internal protocol, something that has almost become a pattern during the past few months.

‘Not again’ flashes through Thomas Wolfe’s mind when he finds out a student has died, he said. His heart sinks every time. There’s a family that needs to be informed. Roommates and friends and classmates are all hurting, said Wolfe, senior vice president and dean of student affairs.

But for Wolfe, the bottom line is finding how to care for the university community at that moment. And though he said he’s in disbelief at the sheer numbers of this semester, he said the university is in a response pattern.

‘You just start looking at it like the only thing that happened,’ Wolfe said. ‘It’s really important that every time something like this happens, we treat it like it’s never happened before. With fresh eyes, fresh response. You know it’s in the context of a semester that’s very difficult, but it’s very important that this be seen with the same measure of care as the previous one.’

But his role is different this year. He’s approaching his 19th year at SU, and he said he’s never seen anything like this. The most he remembers is two student deaths within a year.

Wolfe served as dean of Hendricks Chapel for the last decade before he moved to the Division of Student Affairs this summer. That meant leaving his post as co-chair of SU’s Critical Incident Response Committee, which handled much of the university’s response to student deaths this semester.

Wolfe served as co-chair of the committee since it was created after the Sept. 11 attacks. SU administration considered establishing a critical response team, and Sept. 11 was what Wolfe calls ‘the watershed.’ The Virginia Tech shootings also changed the landscape of how SU reacts to tragedies, Wolfe said.

He and Mary Jo Custer passed the committee’s reigns to Sprinkle and Terra Peckskamp, interim director of the Office of Residence Life. Wolfe said a student died within days of Sprinkle and Peckskamp inheriting the positions.

Sprinkle acknowledged the year’s rough start, but said the university learns new response skills with each incident.

‘In the end, which we may not see right now, it probably makes us stronger professionals in that we know we can do what we have to do,’ Sprinkle said.

Immediately after each death, it’s SU’s policy to notify the student’s family in person by contacting the local police department to send an officer to the home. The Critical Incident Response Committee meets in Chancellor Cantor’s office to draw out a plan of action. A message is sent out to the university community. Counselors and representatives from Hendricks Chapel are dispatched to information meetings held that day for those who knew the student who died.

‘It’s like dropping a pebble in a pond,’ Wolfe said. ‘There’s that point of impact.’

Wolfe added that the greatest disturbance is with the family. Then the ripple expands, to a roommate, a significant other, floor mates and classmates. Meetings are organized for clubs and groups composed of people who felt close to the individual. Whoever that community trusts to help them is sent, Wolfe said.

‘We try within that first day to gather at the chapel,’ he said. ‘Not as a memorial, but as a place for us to structure our feelings for a moment.’

Wolfe said he’s learned how to handle his emotions – to hold them aside so he can respond. So he can do his job. So he can help his students. After dealing with the death of a student he knew, Wolfe said he knows to address his own emotions later.

One of the first times SU sent the dean of Hendricks Chapel to an Abroad site after the death of a student was in 2002. Administration sent Wolfe and a priest from the Counseling Center.

‘I had just gotten to London,’ Wolfe recalled. ‘Literally, I just checked into my hotel and changed clothes and freshened up from my flight. And I was walking across and I had my briefcase in hand, and my cell phone rang. I hadn’t even gotten to the center yet, and my cell phone rang. And it was the chapel. And a student from the Hendricks Chapel Choir had been killed accidentally at a state park on a climbing trip.’

Wolfe was shocked, as he had travelled with the student on a choir performance tour. He flew home just in time to give remarks at a memorial ceremony.

The deaths this semester have hurt the campus community because they have been unexpected, said Tanya Bowen, interim director of the Counseling Center.

She said this semester has been surreal.

‘People just feel vulnerable,’ Bowen said. ‘There’s been nothing like this on record. Anyone I’ve talked to has never seen anything like this in all their years.’

Bowen said the center found this semester that the groups who felt close with a student who’s died often don’t want someone from the outside to help process their feelings. Groups of friends spend time together to deal with their reactions, she said. Bowen said the office has gotten better at responding as the semester went on.

‘I can’t say we’ve had a tremendous response as far as individual services,’ she said. ‘Our most significant role has been working with the groups that have been impacted.’

And in the case of Abroad centers, those groups come in small numbers. The Strasbourg program Wanetik was in only had 42 students, and the Madrid location Espinal studied at had 88 students.

The smaller centers – including Madrid and Strasbourg – have fewer counseling resources than the university’s main campus, said Jon Booth, executive director of SU Abroad. Counselors were flown out from main campus and one traveled from Florence to Strasbourg.

Booth said part of the grieving process for the students includes planning a memorial service. There are also concerns for the host family, and an entire process with bringing the students’ family overseas to claim the body and bring it back to the United States.

‘When I got the call from (the Madrid director), I said ‘I can’t believe this is happening again,” Booth said. ‘By the law of averages, when you have 2,400 students studying abroad each year, is that this may happen. It’s everybody’s worst nightmare. But to have it happen twice in one semester, I couldn’t believe it. It’s just emotionally very draining.’

Booth said having to take care of students throughout the semester prompted the department to put more work into adjusting its protocol for incidents like these.

‘The tragedy of having a young, vibrant life snuffed out so early is devastating.’

shmelike@syr.edu

Published on December 3, 2008 at 12:00 pm