> Dean Caldera also runs a side consulting business offering “individualized college admissions assistance” for upwards of $4,000 an applicant.
Regardless of whether this is related to an above average suicide rate, this looks bad. I’m quite surprised the administration tolerates it.
edit: I’ll add that I have personal experience with a (former) university staffer who was (a) corrupt, (b) egregiously failing to do their job, and (c) otherwise behaving, on the job, in a manner that was likely criminal and also could have exposed the university to substantial liability and bad PR if anyone had pressed the point. I’m not about to discuss details on HN, but one might conclude that, when a given employee is a bad apple, that they may well be problematic in ways that extend beyond that ways that are obvious to their bosses.
There was not, to my knowledge, an established way for students to blow the whistle on staff with whom they interacted. If there had been, then the situation could hopefully have been somewhat improved.
That's a conflict of interest and grounds for termination. If you worked for a company, and had a side business to teach suppliers how to sell to that company, you'd be fired.
At my Big Corp (tm) we just let someone go because he offered a service to coach vendors on 1) How to get on our supplier list and 2) our internal criteria for vendor selection. He also charged for the service and as IT Ops head had a great deal of say over how this worked internally.
I'm not familiar with this situation, but this is such an immaturely written post. For example, the third bullet point in the summary is:
> On March 1, 2022, Stanford student Katie Meyer died by suicide. During that time, Dean Caldera was running a raffle for her side consulting business.
What is the writer trying to imply, exactly? Are they suggesting that there is something inappropriate about the raffle? Or was the timing of raffle inappropriate? Or was it the consulting business itself that was improprietous? If you have a point to make, just plainly state it, and then back it up with facts. Don't make vague innuendos and try to lead the reader to make connections that don't exist. No one has time for that.
I thought it was pretty clear in what it is saying- not vague at all. Dean Caldera, who is responsible for suicides on campus, has been using her role as a Dean to enrich herself. It is very possible that had she focused on her actual job that some of these suicides may have been prevented.
The consulting business in improprietous. The raffle was inappropriate. All of this is inappropriate.
Sounds like they laid out facts. The Dean had a job to do but was also doing a side hustle. It's not vague to me. If you're giving a poor performance to your well-paid first job, you shouldn't be taking 2nd job.
this document isn't a "laid out facts". This is a document written to cloak truth and make you believe something, without sufficient evidence. I learned all these tricks in my rhetoric education.
Stanford apparently puts a significant number of students in a locked ward at Stanford Hospitals for attempting or discussing suicide.[1] But Stanford refuses to disclose statistics on that.
Those are 5150s. It's done when a person is considered an immediate risk. it's not just stanford that does this- it's a federal law. I know a person at berkeley who was suicidal and she was regularly 5150d (often shortly after she stopped taking her meds). if you're trying to use this as a point that "stanford=bad", please be aware that mental health issues are extremely serious and there is likely another explanation for what you consider to be nefarious data-hiding.
Of course. We've seen this at the high school level near Stanford. Palo Alto's high schools have a significant suicide rate, about 4-5x the national average. The causes of that have been much discussed.[1] The school district takes surveys and has a lot of counseling resources. "Twelve percent of Palo Alto high-school students surveyed in the 2013–14 school year reported having seriously contemplated suicide in the past 12 months." The city fenced the railroad tracks, and has guards and cameras at the crossings. Students of those high schools are now asking for more information about suicides.[2] They're the ones at risk, after all.
wait, you just switched from stanford-the-college to palo-alto-high-schools. which is it- stanford makes you go crazy, or living in palo alto?
I don't think whatever argument you are trying to make is very well thought out. From what I can tell, you have some sort of model where you think that living in the Palo Alto area makes people go crazy/kill themselves, possibly in a way that is associated with the institutional policies of the schools in the area.
If you don't see why that sort of speculation is both stupid and dangerous, I don't think it's worth me continuing to engage. There are any number of explanations for what you observe that don't involve blaming institutions for causing suicides.
I live in the area and am quite aware of what happened around Caltrain- many people die on the caltrain tracks every year. Having a grade-crossing railroad in the middle of a dense suburban area is crazy.
Obviously there are two sides to the story, but we’ve seen horrible and deep corruption in large, respected academic institutions before, so it’s certainly plausible that this essay is substantially correct. Eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_State_child_sex_abuse_sca...
>In another case, a student used the word “suicide” over 100 times in an essay. That student later died and the death was classified “an accident” by President Tessier-Lavigne’s administration.
That's really up to the police to decide, isn't it? There's a lot of important info being omitted about this example.
Stanford has its own police department. So they investigated themselves and decided the most convenient thing for them was the truth. They also didn't address, at all, the fact that the "accident" could have been prevented. The way the RA/RD handled that situation would have gotten him immediately fired at the school where I was an RA, and that's before even touching on the other lawsuit against him.
"President Tessier-Lavigne’s administration might be playing a role in causing student deaths."
A lot of the article discusses the conflict of interest of her side business but I didn't personally see any points that led me to believe she actually caused people to kill themselves.
Her job is to prevent deaths- it's literally why they hired her. By focusing on her side hustle she has neglicted her own job, which has lead to a statistically large increase in deaths. This has been brought up to the administration and they've ignored it. That sounds like the administration is "playing a role"- by not addressing the problem they are letting it grow.
Even without the deaths if these parts of the allegations are correct, it seems like a firing is in order:
> In May 2021 WSCUC, Stanford’s accreditation regulator, launched a formal investigation into President Tessier-Lavigne’s administration.
> In an unsigned and undated letter, President Tessier-Lavigne’s administration lied repeatedly to WSCUC investigators.
> President Tessier-Lavigne’s administration forged and destroyed critical case notes and fired a low-level administrator that spoke out against the administration’s misconduct.
Does anybody have any references for this statement: "In an unsigned and undated letter, President Tessier-Lavigne’s administration lied repeatedly to WSCUC investigators."
I'm trying to understand what's meant by that, and I can't find anything referencing it online.
The whole point of literally all executive positions is to be the designated scapegoat. Or, more precisely, you are specifically responsible for mitigating events outside your control.
If the governing body has failed to follow through on its own policies, over multiple years, that has resulted in poor outcomes, firing the head of government isn't finding a scapegoat.
It's taking basic responsibility.
Somewhere between being a line manager and a director, you lose the ability to blame other people for your organization's failures. It's why you get paid the big bucks.
Not sure we read the same article. New processes and offices to help with student stress - a response to increased stress and chance of suicide. That wasn't done vigorously enough to prevent all incidents.
Of course in prior administrations there was no such office, and a much lesser rate of student stress and depression. Different situation.
Sure the President is ultimately responsible. But not for the deaths - for not pressing reforms fast enough?
I read the article, I'm not sure why you aren't sure you read the article.
There are numerous, specific complaints about specific actions, conflicts of interest, and misconduct, not just a general "not pressing reforms fast enough".
Edit: I don't claim to know the truth behind these allegations, but the allegations themselves are quite clearly more the "not pressing reforms fast enough" and trying to cast them in that light does not appear to be good faith discussion.
My whole comment was intended to convey that the furor sounds like generalized criticism of a President, almost unrelated to the specific problems that occurred. All too common nowadays, to just fling criticism and claims around and hope something sticks, with no honest attempt to connect to the tragedy.
Sure conflicts of interest are concerning. How does that get a student into a bathroom with a drug overdose? And so on.
> In sum, 1) An internal Stanford document finds repeated failure by Stanford staff, 2) Both Giammalva and Madarasz quietly depart Stanford, 3) Giammalva has been accused of past misconduct, and 4) the Dean overseeing all this, Lisa Caldera, has been the subject of an ethics complaint. Despite this, President Tessier-Lavigne’s administration released a public statement in January 2022 chastising the lawsuit from two Stanford faculty over their dead son and called any criticism “unfounded.”
> These are no isolated incidents. On March 7 2019 Stanford cyclist Kelly Caitlin died by suicide in what was her second suicide attempt that year. Between the first suicide attempt and the second one, Stanford denied Kelly access to two psychologists she requested on campus.
> President Tessier-Lavigne’s administration responded in an unsigned letter that I believe was designed to mislead regulators. The letter lies about the date of certain events, lies about the materiality of events, lies about the nature of events, lies by omission, and created a fiction to deceive regulators.
> Not only did President Tessier-Lavigne’s administration deceive WSCUC regulators, but the two and only original investigative case notes that provided a direct glimpse into the matter were destroyed and forged.
So, take the contrast between the difficulty that students have getting help from her when it is her main job to help them, vs how easy it is to her "side hustle" clients to reach her:
> On the intake form for Caldera College Consulting, customers can suggest time availability Monday-Sunday in the Morning, Midday, Afternoon, and Evening. On Instagram Dean Caldera has also shared a direct deposit link to her Venmo bank account so customers have “an easy way to connect to my services.”
vs:
> Mental health at Stanford is an afterthought. The administration’s neglect is single-handedly responsible for my breakdown. I spent 45 minutes on hold with [Stanford] during an emergency trying to get help before my parents rushed to get me.
> I got upset and hung up on the crisis line. They didn’t call back or follow up in any way.
> “No help when we needed it — had to fly out from the East Coast to save my son myself.”
> Two Stanford faculty are currently suing the University after their son, Eitan Weiner, died in a fraternity bathroom. The lawsuit alleges Eitan “died as a result of Stanford's knowing and intentional failure to follow its own policies and procedures.”
Lots of blame for a bathroom overdose etc. Somebody didn't respond properly to the process - but not the President. As observed elsewhere, a President's job is to be scapegoat, which is correct and I agree with.
Regardless of whether this is related to an above average suicide rate, this looks bad. I’m quite surprised the administration tolerates it.
edit: I’ll add that I have personal experience with a (former) university staffer who was (a) corrupt, (b) egregiously failing to do their job, and (c) otherwise behaving, on the job, in a manner that was likely criminal and also could have exposed the university to substantial liability and bad PR if anyone had pressed the point. I’m not about to discuss details on HN, but one might conclude that, when a given employee is a bad apple, that they may well be problematic in ways that extend beyond that ways that are obvious to their bosses.
There was not, to my knowledge, an established way for students to blow the whistle on staff with whom they interacted. If there had been, then the situation could hopefully have been somewhat improved.