Chinese American Student from Pasdena found hanged in Columbia University dorm

Kirk Wu, a sophomore in Columbia College, died Thursday, Columbia College Dean James Valentini wrote in an email to the Columbia community. He was 19 years old.

Wu, a native of Pasadena, California, was an editor of the Columbia Economics Review, a cohort leader of 180 Degrees Consulting, and a member of Columbia Taekwondo.

Staff members from Counseling and Psychological Services and Residential Life will be available to support students in the first floor lounge of McBain Hall, where Wu lived, between 8 and 10 p.m. tonight, according to Valentini’s email.

Valentini also wrote that CPS will offer extended walk-in hours until 11 p.m. tonight, until 9 p.m. tomorrow, and between 1 and 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday in the CPS office on the fifth floor of Lerner Hall. CPS’s main office, located on the eighth floor of Lerner, will open tomorrow at 8 a.m.

He added that the Office of the University Chaplain will offer counseling tonight from 8 to 10 p.m. in the Schiff Room in Earl Hall, and will resume regular hours of counseling tomorrow, from 12 to 5 p.m., in the same location.

Earlier this week, Columbia unveiled the new Live Well | Learn Well website, which is aimed at centralizing campus mental health resources and is one of the many initiatives meant to improve mental health in response to a series of student suicides in the 2016-2017 academic year.

Information about Columbia’s Counseling and Psychological Services can be found here, and about Barnard’s Furman Counseling Center can be found here. Columbia Nightlineprovides free, anonymous peer listening services and can be reached at 212-854-7777 from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. A full list of Columbia’s health and well-being resources can be found here. To reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, call 800-273-8255.