Suicides

Columbia has had its share of suicides like most other elite institutions of higher learning (but unlike NYU, which has had far more).

If you or someone you know has made even a passing remark about suicide, it is suggested to contact Health Services immediately.

Partial list of suicides

This list is very incomplete since major media outlets, for the most part, stopped reporting on college suicides during the 1960s.

Date	Person	Position	Notes
October 4, 1898	Henry E. McDermott	Assistant Professor of Chemistry	Prussic acid
November 11, 1901	Richard Mayo Smith	Professor of Political Economy	Jumped; possible accident.
February 21, 1902	Isaac N. Henderson	PhD Candidate	Self-inflicted gunshot
January 27, 1906	William N. Van Reypen Jr.	Law School student	Self-inflicted gunshot
February 27, 1906	Ralph C.B. Moore	Student	Drowning
January 23, 1907	Lathrop Smith	Law School student	Self-inflicted gunshot
November 16, 1907	Lucien M. Underwood	Professor of Botany	Slit throat
December 5, 1914	Robert H. Jones	Student	Self-inflicted gunshot
August 8, 1919	John Hipp	Student	Multiple: slit wrist, throat, and jumped
October 16, 1921	Dorothy Wilson	Student	Jumped under train at 125th Street New York Central / Metro North
August 28, 1924	Francis E. Brooks	Professor of French	Hanging
March 9, 1925	Henry Mead	Student	Jumped from sixth floor of Hartley
March 14, 1926	Walton White	Student	Hanging
September 21, 1927	Oscar Petty	Professor of Linguistics	Drowning
May 13, 1928	Rollin F. Lewis	Student	Hanging
May 23, 1928	David Halfant	PhD Candidate in Economics	Self-inflicted gunshot
June 7, 1929	Russell G. Smith	Professor of Sociology	Jumped
March 9, 1930	Louis Finkelstein	Law School student	Jumped
May 11, 1933	Edgar F. Grossman	PhD Candidate in Philosophy	Self-inflicted gunshot
June 16, 1937	Fred Lester Acer	Student	Lethal dose of sleeping medication
October 21, 1939	Robert E. Chaddock	Professor of Statistics	Jumped
April 13, 1941	Marvin Krueger	Assistant Professor of Education	Gas
September 11, 1941	Rudolf Schoenheimer	Professor of Biological Chemistry	Toxic acid
May 3, 1942	Marion Ellis	Student	Gas
January 15, 1948	Habeeb Ahmed Faruqi	Teachers College student	Jumped from ninth floor of Furnald
October 5, 1951	Dorothy Bordes	Student	Hanging
October 20, 1953	Edward R. Fenn	Student	Self-inflicted gunshot
February 1, 1954	Edwin Howard Armstrong	Electrical Engineering professor	Jumped from a building
July 21, 1954	Madeline Jean Sommers	Summer student	Fire
January 3, 1955	Lawrence Goldsmith Jr.	Student	Sedative overdose
April 28, 1958	Frank William Ritchie Jr.	General Studies student	Self-inflicted gunshot
April 17, 1960	Michael Bogost	Student	Potassium cyanide
November 26, 1961	Richard Kulick	Dental School student	Self-inflicted gunshot
May 4, 1965	Deborah Daniels	Teachers College student	Jumped
November 25, 1968	Christine Gallant	Librarian	Sleeping pill overdose drowned in bathtub
February 18, 1974	Hsio Min Feng	Professor of Chinese	Jumped in front of subway in Queens
September 24, 1988	Jonathan A. Spohn	Student	Jumped or fell from fourteenth floor of John Jay; death may have been accidental.
August 20, 1991	Myeng Soek Oh	SEAS student	Jumped from the window of his sixth floor apartment after learning he had flunked out.
September 20, 1998	Shirley Yoon	Student	Jumped from twentieth floor of East Campus
September 21, 1998	Darren Pascual	Student	Hanging
March 24, 2000	Brian Malmon	Student	Suicide while on leave
April 20, 2000	Puneet Bhandari	Student	Train collision
December 6, 2000	Andrea Melendez	Student	Jumped off stairwell in McBain
November 9, 2001	Nick Kemnitzer	Student	Jumped from East Campus apartment
December 13, 2003	Fraser Lunan	Student	Suicide while on leave
May 7, 2006	Richard Ng	SEAS student	Jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge
September 23, 2008	Petrus Schaesberg	Adjunct Professor	Jumped from building
January 31, 2009	Eric Harms	SEAS student	Hanging in bathroom of Hartley
October 23, 2011	Tian Bu	CC student	Hanging in bedroom on third floor of River
August 27, 2012	Martha Corey-Ochoa	CC student	Jumped from fourteenth floor of John Jay the night she moved in
January 24, 2013	Tejraj Antooa	SEAS student on leave	Unknown, in his family home on Long Island