A Year After Suicide, Students 'Still Slip Through The Cracks'

A year after the suicide of a student at the Kennedy School of Government, her classmates are complaining that isolated students slip through the cracks because the school lacks a sense of community.

Karen A. Watkins, a first year student in the Masters in Public Policy (MPP) program, committed suicide last December. Students are voicing their concern about the school's atmosphere after Jamie A. Smarr, a friend of Watkins, wrote an article about her in the January issue of the Kennedy School student newspaper.

But Smarr says that students enrolled in a challenging professional school program often feel lonely, and there is nothing the Kennedy School could have done to make Watkins feel more included.

"We work together on problem sets, we maintain professional relationships, but we don't get to know people outside of that," says Smarr, a second year MPP student.

"One thing I've learned is that it's a hard life, and I don't think there's anywhere that that's more true than in New England. People maintain a cold, informal relationship," he says.

According to Greg W. Foster, a second year MPP student and representative on the student government, people have no incentive to build close relationships at the Kennedy School because the program only lasts for two years.

"There are a few people on the edge who do not attach to the group inside of class or outside, and I think Karen was one who fell into that," he says.

As a class advisor during the fall semester, Foster says he tried to plan a number of orientation events for new students. But he adds it is difficult to bring classmates together because graduate students often have partners and other interests and do not want to attend school functions.

"As long as it's an effort of just eight to ten people [trying to make the environment friendlier], which is what it usually is, it's very difficult," Foster says.

The school does attempt to improve the sense of community by holding informal gatherings and holiday parties and by dividing the classes into "cohorts" of about 70 students each, who take two classes together and have social events.

Although Foster was in the same cohort as Watkins last year, he hardly knew her.

"Even though I knew Karen, the opportunity did not present itself to build a relationship," he says.

According to Barbara A. Johnson, a second-year MPP student, Kennedy School students need to pay more attention to each other.

There is an advising system in place at the school, but Johnson says it is not publicized enough.

"Everybody needs to take on a little bit more responsibility to be aware of how other people around them are doing," she says. "It's very easy for people to fall through the cracks, and it's possible that [Watkins] did."