Mary Heydweiller sat numbly at her computer, staring at a picture of a smiling blonde girl sitting at a formal dinner table. Her ’emergency only’ cell phone, having rung only a short time before, telling her that her best friend was dead, now lay silent.

Heydweiller, a 2005 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, was getting her master’s degree in applied linguistics in Mexico. Normally, in situations where something was wrong, she would call her best friend since high school, Tracy Halpin, who was a senior accounting and finance major at Syracuse University, for support and guidance.

So when Heydweiller still needed a way to get in touch with her now-deceased best friend, she went to the place where Halpin’s presence still existed: Tracy’s Facebook profile.

‘Tracy had posted a message on my wall a couple of days before she died that I hadn’t had time to write back to her about,’ Heydweiller said in an e-mail from her apartment in Mexico. ‘I wish I had been able to leave her a message before she passed away so she could have seen it, but her message on my wall means a lot to me because it was like she was still talking to me even though she was gone.’

Heydweiller re-read her last comment posted at the beginning of the school year on Halpin’s Facebook wall, a place on the Web site where people are able to post comments to and about the user. It was still the most recent post: ‘I miss my best blonde friend. lots. can’t wait to see u tre, hope cuse is treating you well.’

But since hearing the news of Halpin’s death, Heydweiller was going to use Facebook as a way to inform the world of the tragedy as well as letting herself start to grieve the loss of her friend.

‘I was too upset to plan anything out and there’s so much more I could have said, but I just wanted to write what I was feeling at the time,’ Heydweiller said in the e-mail.

The Internet has become such a routine part of a college student’s life that it’s no surprise it plays a large part in death. With popular Web sites like Facebook, MySpace and LiveJournal, people are able to document their entire lives online. And with this ever-growing personality of the Web, it’s not uncommon for someone’s first reaction to go online and find out as much as he or she can when dealing with a death.

The Internet now plays a role in everything from informing friends and family of a death to arranging memorial services and even helping with a personal mourning process, said Mary Jo Custer, director of the Division of Student Affairs at SU.

Recently though, the Internet has played a controversial role when dealing with the online property of the deceased. Across the country, different cases are being brought to court to decide who owns the rights to the e-mails, journal entries and encrypted files of the dead. Some companies, like America Online, Google and MSN, have all opened user files to families with proper documentation. While others, Yahoo! being the most adamant, have fought for privacy rights and have had to go to court before releasing anything.

‘What we are talking about is a fairly complex and gray area that people are trying to figure out right now,’ said Paul Gandel, vice president of the Office of Information Technology and Services at SU.

The issue of electronic privacy is not just occurring with major online content providers, but also at every college across the country. The right to a deceased student’s electronic property differs for each university.

At SU, when a student dies, their account is completely closed and not even a parent or guardian is able to see it. Only if the school is subpoenaed and taken to a court will it reopen a deceased student’s files, Custer said.

‘The world of technology changes very fast and oftentimes challenges our basic assumption. We’re thinking about (the situation) very seriously as policy changes and the situation changes,’ Gandel said.

The process for closing a student’s account is a very automatic one, said Judy Holmes, a technical writing specialist for Computing and Media Services. When a student dies, Student Affairs is notified, either by Public Safety or a local hospital. The office immediately calls the registrar’s office, as well as CMS, and tells them to change the student’s account from active to inactive so that very little information can be found by people who are curious, Custer said.

‘Basically, when a student’s status changes for whatever reason, CMS is notified and the account closes. So there are no electronic remains as far as the account change,’ said Matthew Snyder, director of communications and media relations for Student Affairs. ‘Once the account closes, that’s it on the SU point of view.’

CMS goes through the same process for a deceased student as it does for someone who graduates or takes a leave of absence from SU. The only difference is the account is closed immediately instead of waiting for an automatic cleanup of inactive accounts, Holmes said.

E-mail is not the only part of an SU student’s online access that closes with the account. All personal Web sites made through the university server are shut down and all files they have saved on the server are locked, Holmes said.

Student Affairs has also set up smaller things to be changed on a student’s account to make it easier for the family of the deceased. This includes changing the address for in-campus mail for each deceased student to 306B Steele Hall, the Office of Student Affairs. This is done so if the computer system malfunctions and doesn’t recognize the death of a student, the parents of the deceased will still not get any regular mail from SU.

‘We get the mail, so the parents won’t get upset … because it still impacts them,’ Custer said. ‘That’s only if the system somehow kicks in, which is very, very seldom, and it hasn’t happened in three or four years. But we put it in place because we don’t want it to happen.’

When any tragedy occurs at SU, a group called the Critical Incident Management Team comes together to plan the right course of action.

‘Part of the response (for an incident) is notifying people of what happened. And we’ve learned, sadly through practice, the best ways to go about doing it,’ said Kevin Morrow, director of SU News Services. ‘First and foremost we try to reach out to parents and family members. From there we try to identify who are the people who are close to the individual, how can we best reach out to them on an individual or small-group basis, so they are hearing it from a friendly voice first.’

The group was formally created after Sept. 11, 2001, as a way to fix major problems on campus. It is co-chaired by Custer and the Rev. Thomas Wolfe, dean of Hendricks Chapel.

The group is made up of a representative from Human Resources, the Counseling Center, Hendricks’s Chapel, the Dean’s Office, the communications office, an academic dean from the school of the deceased, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, the Office of Residence Life, Undergraduate Affairs and Public Safety.

The first thing the CIMT must do in case of a student’s death is contact the family; no information can be released beforehand. The group works closely with the local police department in the home town of the deceased to make sure all the right information is provided.

Once the family is told, the CIMT contacts people close to the deceased. This is to provide them with the right resources for mourning if they need, as well as give them the opportunity to start planning for the memorial service.

‘You look at (the incident) as concentric circles,’ Wolfe said. ‘Who’s in the center – it’s the victim or somebody impacted by the scenario. So we say, ‘What do we know and who needs to know,’ and we then have to get the correct information and make sure it is confirmed information. But in the meantime, we know that very seldom do things happen in isolation. So we have a roommate, a boyfriend or girlfriend, somebody, core friends who might have been around, so we begin to reach out to those people.’

Getting word out to the community as fast as it is possible is the main objective of the CIMT.

The communications office gathers as much confirmed information as possible and then sends mass e-mails to the campus. These e-mails are used to inform people on what happened, but more importantly, they provide information and dispel the rumors on campus, Morrow said.

‘Word gets around that something happened to a student, and not always does the correct information travel round,’ Morrow said. ‘So that’s why it’s very important for the university to gather all of the facts and for us to go on record so everyone knows, ‘Here are the facts of the situation, here are what happened.”

Many times information spreads faster from person to person, by electronic means, such as e-mail, instant messages and cell phones, than the CMIT can officially release it. This becomes a real problem when the parents have not been notified, but students know something is wrong and need information, Wolfe said.

‘There used to be a time where you could keep a lid on it for a while. Not a secretive lid, but (enough time to) get your process in place, make sure your checklist is all done and all the right people are notified and then it goes public and to the media and to the community. So it is tricky,’ Wolfe said.

To counter this situation, SU uses a system of e-mails called Broadcast News or SU News Alerts to inform about 24,000 students, faculty and staff syr.edu accounts. Once all the necessary information is confirmed, the first e-mail is sent to the community, usually on the same day the incident occurs.

Creating an e-mail that informs the community of the death of a student is a very difficult thing, given how personal death can be and how impersonal the Internet is. The Office of Communications deals with this situation by learning from past mistakes and keeping the whole process very respectful and informative, Morrow said.

‘Sadly, through the years, we have had occasions where students have died,’ Morrow said. ‘You (create e-mails) in a way that’s informative and respectful to the individual who has died and to that person’s family and friends. There is no sense in being sensational about someone’s death.’

Broadcast News e-mails try to include the individual’s name, hometown, major, age and the necessary information about what happened and where it occurred. It also includes what is missing from the e-mail, like information on the memorial service and ways to contact surviving members, Morrow said.

Although Broadcast News e-mails are currently the main way to inform students, there are many problems with the system. The main issue is some students do not often check their syr.edu e-mail address. Although it is SU policy for each student to have and routinely log into syr.edu e-mail, other e-mail addresses are opened equally, if not more often. And because it is sometimes difficult for a student to transfer their syr.edu e-mails to other sites, many times the school e-mail address is forgotten altogether.

‘I check (my school e-mail) once a week, but I never worry about it. Most times, teachers ask which ones you prefer and send you stuff there,’ said Rosemond Jean-Baptiste, an exercise science and psychology graduate student. ‘I don’t like the idea that if the university felt I did something wrong, they have the option of checking it … (plus) the Hotmail one has more features.’

It is known to CMS that some students don’t check their accounts and have other ways to inform the campus of a death, Custer said. The school puts all information of the SU Web site and contacts television, radio and publication media, both on and off campus.

‘Some people think that e-mail is the only mechanism, but we had to realize that, no, e-mail is not the only mechanism. When students do pass away, the university uses various means to alert the community it has happened,’ Custer said.

The CIMT also does extensive outreach to the multiple layers of people affected by a student’s death. Beyond going to the dorm or house the person might have lived in to offer counseling or support, the group finds out what kinds of organizations or groups the deceased was involved in. Specialty e-mail lists are then made specifically for these people in hopes of connecting everyone better, Custer said.

‘(The e-mail lists) are so everyone that has a desire to be with friends and family of that student can communicate,’ Custer said. ‘The students usually identify a need for communicating easier, so we will develop it for them.’

The grieving process is different for every person, and it’s always done in a very personal and unique manner. Because of this, it may seem strange to some that others go to online profile sites like Facebook and MySpace or blogging sites like LiveJournal, but it is where people feel comfortable, said Richard O’Neill, associate professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University.

‘I think it’s a positive thing to leave an opportunity to say goodbye to someone they know,’ O’Neill said. ‘It’s become a way that people communicate with each other … I think people who send a message actually feel connected to people on the other end. It’s new, but it doesn’t feel strange.’

The process of grieving is such an individual thing that it should not be limited to traditional methods, Wolfe said.

‘I think it’s a generation thing; I think it’s how (young) people communicate with each other,’ Wolfe said. ‘I watch my daughter and if she wants information, she goes online … I think it’s great that people have that kind of outlet.’

Checking profile sites like Facebook have become a routine reaction to hearing a name, especially when dealing with the death of the person. People are very motivated to learn as much information as possible when death happens near them, O’Neill said.

‘I remember reading something about (Tracy Halpin), and I looked up her name because I didn’t know who she was and I was interested,’ said Michelle Halpern, a freshman magazine journalism major. ‘I think as long as students don’t abuse it … then I feel like it’s kind of nice, like if they want to write something on their wall and let others know things. For example, I saw a note from her friend saying how she was a great person, and I thought that was kind of nice.’

Others are not so comfortable with people observing profiles of the deceased.

‘I don’t think that’s right,’ said Maggie O’Hara, a freshman child and family studies major. ‘The person has passed away and people are stalking around (his or her profile). I wouldn’t want somebody to read about things that happened to me after I died. I feel like it’s the golden rule, ‘treat others how you would like to be treated,’ and you don’t know if the person would like that or not.’

Overall, when dealing with death, the Internet essentially plays a role. It makes it easier to communicate and gather people, deal with any issues that arise and create more of a system for every step of the procedure, Wolfe said. But no matter how much easier the Internet makes the process of death, there is nothing like physical human contact to help the grieving process.

‘(The Internet) is a wonderful gift … but there is nothing like coming together,’ Wolfe said. ‘There’s this power in the cooperate experience. And you find people that have the same feelings that you have, then that’s what you need. The Internet can not replace human contact.’

Published on March 6, 2006 at 12:00 pm