Month: September 2025

Concerned about Bullying? Read This.

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Kids in Tompkins County are getting bullied at school, outside of school, and online. The most recent survey of students, in 2023, showed a marked increase in bullying over the previous two years.

39 percent of 8th graders in Tompkins County say they have been bullied at school

About a quarter of students in grades 6-12 reported being bullied at school, with the greatest prevalence occurring in middle school grades, according to the Community-Level Youth Development Evaluation (CLYDE) survey of 3,496 students.

Overall, 27.4 percent of students said they were bullied at school; 20.5 percent bullied outside school; and 20 percent bullied electronically.

Eighth graders reported the highest percentages, with 39 percent, 27.5 percent, and 25 percent saying they were bullied in those categories, respectively

The 2023 results represented an increase in overall bullying behavior since the 2021 CLYDE survey, when 21.2 percent, 18.6 percent, and 20.8 percent of students said they were bullied at school, outside school, and electronically.

The Tompkins County Bullying Prevention Task Force publishes “Bullying Prevention Resources for Schools and Families,” a guide with information about how bullying affects individuals and communities and what we can do to prevent it.

For schools, the guide contains resources for curricula, discussion plans, activity kits, infographics, videos, art projects, coloring books, role playing, pledge signing, clubs, Bullying Prevention Month activities, and special websites for teens and kids.

The task force distributed the guide to all school leaders as well as Parent-Teacher Organizations/Associations in Tompkins County.

“The guide presents a brief overview of bullying and its impacts as well as national and local data illustrating the extent of the problem,” said Scott MacLeod, task force coordinator.

“But the focus of the guide is on providing schools with resources with which to proactively prevent bullying. It lists resources that schools can use to organize bullying prevention activities year-round and especially for National Bullying Prevention Month in October.”

For parents and their children, the guide provides detailed information about how to file a complaint to school officials about bullying, harassment, or discrimination under the New York State Dignity for All Students Act (DASA).

“The Dignity Act is set up so that everyone has a role in supporting a child when bullying occurs,” explained Brandi Remington, TST BOCES Youth Development Coordinator and task force member.

“I want parents and family members to know that they are not alone, if they ever find themselves in this situation, and that the best thing they can do for their child is to work in partnership with their school Dignity Act Coordinator to address the issue and to improve their child’s experience.”

DOWNLOAD Bullying Prevention Resources for Schools and Families

October is National Bullying Prevention Month. The Task Force encourages schools and youth-serving organizations to use the occasion to provide educational programming and activities designed to reduce (and hopefully eliminate) bullying behaviors.

DOWNLOAD Tompkins County Schools Dignity Act Coordinators

Bullying can have negative and even life-long impacts on both victims and aggressors. Bullying can have a negative long-term impact on mental health, substance use, and it even has links to suicide.

According to StopBullying.gov, kids who are bullied are more likely to experience:

  • Depression and anxiety, increased feelings of sadness and loneliness, changes in sleep and eating patterns, and loss of interest in activities they used to enjoy.
  • Health complaints.
  • Decreased academic achievement, school participation, and attendance.

Kids who bully others are more likely to:

  • Abuse alcohol and other drugs in adolescence and as adults.
  • Get into fights, vandalize property, and drop out of school.
  • Engage in early sexual activity.
  • Have criminal convictions and traffic citations as adults.
  • Be abusive toward their romantic partners, spouses, or children as adults.

DOWNLOAD Bullying Prevention Resources for Schools and Families

How to Stop Hazing at Cornell

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Hazing continues to be a problem on college campuses. Accurate statistics on hazing are difficult to obtain because many colleges do not publicly report hazing incidents, even though state laws require them to report, and because most students who are hazed do not report being hazed. In this context, Stop Hazing at the University of Maine reports, based on a national survey, 55 percent of college students involved in clubs, teams, and organizations experience hazing.

Phi Sigma Kappa, one of many Cornell fraternities sanctioned for hazing

Cornell University has reported hazing incidents on its website since 2005. During the Spring 2024 semester, six student organizations were found to have hazed new members and were disciplined for their behavior. In 2011 and 2019, two Cornell University students tragically died because of hazing. George Desdunes died in a so-called reverse hazing incident, in which junior members haze senior members. Antonio Tsialas died in a fraternity rush organized by Phi Kappa Psi. The fraternity was permanently banned from campus as a result.

Cornell is planning a new hazing prevention program to educate the entire community—all students, faculty, staff, alumni, and parents—about what hazing is, their role in preventing it, and how to report hazing violations. In addition, under the federal Stop Campus Hazing Act, colleges are now required to include hazing incidents as part of their annual reporting on campus crimes required by the federal Clery Act.

From September 22-26 Cornell honored National Hazing Prevention Week, with school leaders urging student organizations, athletic teams, fraternities and sororities to affirm a shared responsibility to create spaces of connection, pride, and belonging that are free from harm. In November, Sorority and Fraternity Life hosts its annual Antonio Tsialis ’23 Hazing Prevention Week.  

No one wants to be hazed because these actions are physically and psychologically harmful and do not build group loyalty. For example, according to a survey 93 percent of Cornell students believe “it’s never okay to humiliate or intimidate new members.” Welcoming new members by including them in celebratory activities such as a special dinner or group trip is a better way of developing members’ loyalty and preventing hazing from occurring.

Everyone believes that he or she knows what hazing is. We read about hazing in the news and see it in the movies. It is an initiation process, where new members join an organization, too much alcohol is consumed, and someone dies because of alcohol poisoning or a dangerous action such as falling downstairs or being punched.

State hazing laws generally reflect this understanding. However, building on research conducted by the University of Maine, colleges generally define hazing more comprehensively as any initiation or recruitment activity that could reasonably be perceived as likely to create a risk of mental, physical, or emotional distress or harm. Such activities lie along a continuum with those creating relatively minor psychological distress such as wearing a beanie or performing a silly skit to the extremely dangerous such as consuming a fifth of vodka or running a gauntlet of members armed with paddles.

Recruitment and initiation activities are rites of passage, rituals intended to confer a new identity upon individuals. By going through the ritual one becomes an insider, someone who understands the group’s values, norms, and beliefs and is expected to enact them when interacting with other members and outsiders. Through rites of passage, students become members of the football team, a fraternity or a sorority, the marching band, orchestra, or an acapella group.

When considering hazing, it is useful to understand two rites of passage: rites of enhancement and rites of degradation. Rites of enhancement are rituals that welcome the newcomer as a valued member, integrate them into the group, and focus on building up one’s identity and loyalty with the group. Hazing is a rite of degradation, which seeks to devalue new members, highlighting how little they know and that they cannot become a full member in the group unless they are willing to be humiliated by engaging in a degrading activity such as wearing a beanie or chugging a quart of vodka.

Groups that engage in hazing mistakenly believe that it builds loyalty and commitment to the group, but this is a myth. For instance, Van Raalte and her colleagues collected data from athletes on their experiences with hazing and team building experiences and examined the relationship between those experiences and team cohesion. They found that the more team building behaviors that athletes were involved in, the more socially cohesive they perceived their team to be and that the more hazing activities they reported doing or seeing, the less cohesive they perceived their team to be in sports-related tasks.

Welcoming or Hazing New Members?

Student groups can prevent hazing by welcoming new members, by using group-building activities to encourage commitment and loyalty, by disavowing hazing, and by teaching members to intervene and stop hazing before it begins. Hazing does not occur in a vacuum; members are always present when it is first discussed and when it occurs. Members can shut down talk about hazing when it starts and when they see others initiating unacceptable behavior.

Ways to be a welcoming, no-hazing organization:

  • Formally commit to being a welcoming, no-hazing organization. While colleges have hazing policies, student organizations should embrace them as their own and affirm their commitment to welcoming new members. Individuals in organizations with a written policy are more likely to enact the expected behaviors than individuals in organizations without a written one. Having a written policy means taking ownership of the problem and teaching members how to prevent it.
  • Review recruitment and initiation rituals to ensure that they are welcoming. All organizations have rituals for initiating new members. If current practices might make new members feel humiliated or threatened, revise them or get rid of them. Create new rituals that make new members feel valued. Among the most valuable activities for building group loyalty and cohesion are special dinners that highlight the organization’s values and special trips that include new and old members in fun activities.
  • Teach members to recognize hazing. Colleges define it more expansively than is commonly understood. Preventing hazing, therefore, requires educating members about what it is. Colleges have online training programs to help educate members, but these are not sufficient. Social norming research highlights the importance of group discussion to counteract misperceptions about hazing. By discussing what hazing is, members’ perceptions of hazing, and the organization’s policy about welcoming members, group leaders underscore members’ obligation to welcome new members and not haze them.
  • Train members how to intervene and prevent hazing. Bystander intervention is popular on campuses because it reinforces students’ responsibility for keeping campuses safe and trains them to intervene safely to prevent problems. Intervening is scary, but one can learn to do it constructively. One key to intervening safely is to do it with others. For instance, if someone suggests hazing new members, one can remind everyone that this is not acceptable group behavior. Simply speaking up is often enough to prevent it.
  • Hold members accountable. When members know what is expected of them, they will comply because they want to be seen as committed to the group. Still, some will misbehave. Members can hold one another accountable by intervening so that the misbehaving members comply with expectations. Unfortunately, even with the best efforts to prevent hazing, a few members may engage in it. In these circumstances, college administration will become involved, initiating an investigation of the hazing incident, a formal hearing for those involved, and a decision about either dismissing the charge or leveling an appropriate punishment. Initially, student leaders may want to deny and cover up the hazing; a better strategy is to engage with the administration to expedite a fair investigation and outcome. If there is a violation, accept responsibility and commit to doing better.

Creating a welcoming student organization and preventing hazing requires sustained effort. New members join and some old members leave every year, requiring the organization to renew its commitment to being a welcoming, no-hazing organization annually. Fortunately, student leaders have excellent resources to help them. For example, Cornell University’s excellent hazing website defines hazing, has valuable information on building group solidarity without hazing, bystander intervention training, and reporting and dealing with hazing when it occurs. Check it out: https://hazing.cornell.edu/

—By William J. Sonnenstuhl

William J. Sonnenstuhl is Emeritus Professor, School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR), Cornell University and a member of the university’s Fraternity and Sorority Advisory Council

Suicide Prevention Month @ Cayuga Health

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Cayuga Health and its partners within the Centralus Health system are conducting an awareness campaign throughout September to engage their communities and internal health teams to mark National Suicide Prevention Month.

“We’ll continue to build a healthier, more supportive community for all”

Health leaders set up information tables across the Centralus campuses, featuring items such as pins, bracelets, pens, and bags. The resources are designed to spark conversation, promote awareness, and show solidarity.

They also launched a cascading communication plan across all Cayuga and Arnot facilities to heighten the system’s initiative to prevent deaths by suicide. The efforts are being shared on The Pulse, an intranet reaching all members of the Centralus health system.

“This month is a meaningful opportunity to reaffirm our shared commitment to mental health and suicide prevention, and I’m confident that, through collaboration, we’ll continue to build a healthier, more supportive community for all,” said Andreia de Lima, Chief Medical Officer, Cayuga Health/Centralus Health.

“Conversation, awareness, and solidarity”

If you or someone you know feels the need to speak with a mental health professional, you can call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 9-8-8, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741-741.

Mental Health Guide for Tompkins Schools

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Five Ithaca-based mental health organizations have released the 2025-26 edition of their resource guide, “Mental Health Support & Suicide Prevention for Schools in Tompkins County.”

If you have a comment, concern, or suggestion about mental health in Tompkins schools, please feel free to email it to The Sophie Fund: thesophiefund2016@gmail.com.

National and local surveys document the seriousness of a mental health crisis affecting young people. In a survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 40 percent of high schoolers said they experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. Twenty-nine percent reported poor mental health, and 20 percent said they had considered taking their own lives.

A survey of high school and middle school students in Tompkins County came up with similar patterns. Forty-seven percent said they felt anxious or worried on most days, 35 percent felt sad or depressed on most days, and 34 percent said that “sometimes I think life is not worth it.”

To support Tompkins County schools, the resources guide was first launched in 2024 by the Suicide Prevention & Crisis Service of Tompkins County, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Greater Central New York, National Alliance on Mental Illness Finger Lakes, Mental Health Association in Tompkins County, and The Sophie Fund.

“For our school personnel, this can be a hearty quick reference guide with options that can be tailored to a student’s needs—or a fellow colleague’s needs,” said Tiffany Bloss, executive director of the Suicide Prevention & Crisis Service.

“There are many opportunities for no-cost trainings to enhance the comfort level and confidence in talking to someone else about their mental health.”

After a brief “Mental Health & Suicide Prevention 101” introduction, the guide details the mental health and suicide prevention education and training that the organizations are ready to present to Tompkins school administrators, teachers, students, and parents.

DOWNLOAD: Mental Health Support & Suicide Prevention for Schools in Tompkins County

The guide compiles handbooks and toolkits to assist Tompkins schools in developing mental health promotion and bullying prevention programming as well as suicide prevention strategies in their school communities. The guide points to recommendations for youth use of social media issued by the U.S. Surgeon General and the American Psychological Association.

“Tompkins County’s mental health nonprofits offer beneficial mental health programs designed for students, teachers, and parents,” said Sandra Sorensen, executive director of NAMI Finger Lakes. “Bridging the gap in education and community services is important to all of us. We already have great evidence-based programs designed and ready to go at no cost to our schools. The guide outlines all of our programs and highlights our collaborative nature. We are here to serve and assist.”

The guide also includes 5 Simple Steps, a downloadable “safety plan” young people (or adults) can consult if they are feeling overwhelmed with a deteriorating mood.

DOWNLOAD: 5 Simple Steps

The five organizations requested an opportunity to meet directly with the Tompkins County school superintendents and their leadership teams to provide a presentation on the support services available and respond to any concerns or questions they may have. The organizations have met with the Ithaca and Trumansburg districts, but Lansing, Groton, Dryden, and Newfield have not scheduled a meeting.

If you or someone you know feels the need to speak with a mental health professional, you can call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 9-8-8, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741-741.

What Happened to Cornell’s Mental Health Review?

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In 2020, a task force handed the Cornell University administration a 34-page Mental Health Review Final Report containing 130 core and sub recommendations for improving support for student mental health and well-being on the Ithaca campus. Five years later, Cornell has failed to present a full account to the Cornell or Ithaca communities of how it handled those recommendations as it had pledged to do.

Cornell University campus

Our daughter Sophie ’14 died by suicide in Ithaca in March 2016 during a health leave of absence from Cornell. We wrote to Cornell University President Martha Pollack in April 2017 asking her to commission a task force for a comprehensive review of Cornell’s policies and practices related to student mental health.

In our letter, we observed “systemic failure” in Cornell’s mental health policy and practice affecting areas such as suicide prevention, mental health counseling, and sexual violence. We wrote that we witnessed “an institutional mindset reflecting complacency and defensiveness that appears to prioritize Cornell’s public image over the welfare of students struggling with mental disorders.”

In January 2018 Pollack rejected our request. But in September 2018, she announced the establishment of a Mental Health Review (MHR) after graduate and undergraduate student organizations petitioned the administration to launch a review.

The MHR task force began its work in Fall 2019. As we had requested, the task force was led by external experts, including Michael Hogan, a former New York State mental health commissioner and a widely recognized expert in suicide prevention.

In April 2020, the task force handed the Cornell administration a report on its comprehensive review, which called for “culture change” and made recommendations for improvements in areas such as mental health and medical services, academic policies, student well-being, and proactive support for struggling students.

The task force characterized recommendations as “immediate,” requiring “limited time and resources”; “intermediate,” which “may take a year or more to achieve”; and “aspirational”—“goals that involve a significant investment of staff time and financial resources, or long-term culture shift.”

When making the report public in October 2020, a six-month delay owing to campus focus on responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, Cornell announced the creation of a seven-member Executive Accountability Committee.

The committee’s four “executive sponsors” and three “change leads” would evaluate and work toward implementing the MHR report’s “robust series of recommendations” in three key areas—academic community, campus community and clinical services.

A statement from the committee posted to the Cornell Health webpage announced: “Progress Updates will be provided by members of the Executive Accountability Committee at the end of each academic semester. Updates will include progress toward specific recommendations from the Mental Health Review.”

The MHR task force had recommended “a widely representative permanent committee on mental health to ensure the implementation of immediate recommendations, and to monitor progress and conduct further review of those recommendations that will require more time and resources to enact.”

The Sophie Fund, which we established in 2016 as a nonprofit advocacy organization supporting mental health initiatives for young people in the greater Ithaca community, commended the task force’s recommendations and the Cornell administration’s commitment to a transparent process for implementing them. We publicly thanked Pollack and Vice President for Student & Campus Life Ryan Lombardi for “recognizing the need for continuous attention to student mental health.”

Over the next two years, however, the Executive Accountability Committee provided sparse and incomplete updates on the implementation progress. In 2022, Cornell halted the specific recommendations updates and disbanded the Executive Accountability Committee.

In October 2022, Pollack announced that Cornell had adopted the international Okanagan Charter and launched a “Health Promoting Campus” initiative.

Cornell administrators said that responsibility for the MHR recommendations and campus mental health policies and practices would now fall to a 25-member Student Well-Being Council (and its six subcommittees) under a “campus-wide Community of Practice.”

On April 30, we asked Pollack’s successor, President Michael Kotlikoff, “to provide a report to the Cornell and Ithaca communities on the status of the 60 core recommendations (130 including sub-recommendations).”

In a letter to Kotlikoff, we wrote that such a report “will illustrate the concrete improvements deserving of recognition that have been made over the past five years as the result of the review commissioned by President Pollack. It will highlight the areas where work still needs to be done, and how Cornell intends to proceed in those areas. Finally, transparently fulfilling a commitment to hold itself accountable will enhance confidence and respect in how Cornell is supporting its students’ well-being and acting as a responsible and valued part of the greater community.”

Kotlikoff declined our request, which was repeated in a series of four further email exchanges in May, June, and July. He explained that Cornell has moved on from a focus on the MHR recommendations in favor of the “Health Promoting Campus” initiative.

On May 7, Kotlikoff wrote:

“Cornell adopted the Okanagan Charter in 2022. This commitment is the next phase of our Mental Health Review, representing a holistic approach focused on promoting health across all aspects of our campus. Through this commitment, we have made significant strides in enhancing support: mental health and well-being have been complemented by policy changes aimed at fostering a supportive environment for our students, guidelines to make policies more health-promoting, embedding well-being into classroom settings, and continuing to provide training to students, staff, and faculty in how to identify individuals in distress.”

Thanking us for our “continued advocacy on behalf of student mental health and well-being in the Cornell and greater Ithaca communities,” Kotlikoff wrote on May 29:

“Since the publication of the Mental Health Review Final Report in 2020, Cornell has made significant progress in implementing in full or part many of the recommendations outlined in the report, as was shared via reports published through October 2022. However, because the landscape of student needs, service delivery, and institutional priorities has shifted dramatically in light of the profound changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, other recommendations have necessarily evolved or been reconsidered. These shifts led Cornell to move from a focus on meeting MHR recommendations to the October 2022 adoption of the Okanagan Charter and launch of the Health Promoting Campus initiative.”

On July 15, Kotlikoff wrote that Cornell has adopted “a much more rigorous assessment and evaluation approach to our work.” He shared that a publication, authored by a Cornell health administrator, “has revealed marked improvement via a simultaneous increase of student flourishing and substantial decreases in levels of students’ anxiety, depression, and psychological distress.”

Kotlikoff, though responding promptly and with courtesy to our emails, did not agree to our request to meet with him to discuss our concerns in person, referring us instead to subordinates in the Cornell administration.

Our current concerns about student mental health at Cornell go beyond the status of the MHR recommendations, as we wrote in our initial letter to President Kotlikoff on April 30.

We said that our concerns include the constant turnover and lengthy gaps in filling key positions at Cornell Health, which we said “raise questions about the administration’s commitment to ensuring robust and consistent leadership for student mental health.”

From our April 30 letter:

“In early 2020, the university created a new position of Assistant Vice President of Student & Campus Life for Health and Well-Being who would be responsible for overseeing student mental health and well-being on the clinical side of Cornell Health and importantly on the academic side of Cornell’s various schools. The AVP was put in charge of supervising implementation of recommendations in the MHR Report, which she declared “underscores the need for significant culture change at Cornell.” At the end of 2021, the AVP announced her resignation citing “all-consuming and exhausting” work that included leading the university’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Despite the critical importance of this particular leadership role for student mental health and well-being and specifically for implementing the MHR recommendations, the Cornell administration left this AVP position leading a 200-person staff vacant for two and a half years until finally promoting an internal applicant in mid-2024. Cornell Health has now had three directors in six years.

“Cornell Health’s Counseling & Psychological Services, which provides essential day-to-day clinical support for Cornell’s students, has also seen three directors in six years, with the most recent director leaving the position just weeks into the current academic year with no permanent replacement appointed thus far seven months later.

“Another key unit, Cornell’s Skorton Center for Health Initiatives, has likewise had three directors in the past four years. As you of course are aware, the Skorton Center is charged with directing campus public health education and training programs for issues such as mental health, alcohol and drug addiction, sexual assault, hazing, and suicide prevention.”

By Scott MacLeod and Susan Hack

Scott MacLeod and Susan Hack are co-founders of The Sophie Fund, established in memory of their daughter Sophie, who died by suicide in Ithaca during a health leave of absence from Cornell.