Graphic by Megan Eloise/The Gazelle

Lyle White’s departure from our campus was a shock. He was bright, or so people told him. He was well-liked, and his innocent, baby face deflected any sense that he could be rude or mean. He was pretentious and consumed with the prospect of being pretentious, pleading for his friends to tell him whether or not it was true. I was one of those friends.

Shortly after his final article in The Gazelle, my close friend Lyle took a leave of absence. Many within our community see taking a leave of absence as a negative thing, as giving up. This simply is not the case. A leave of absence is a tool. It is a tool to help all students who need it to take time to focus on their wellness, mental or otherwise. It also allows second semester seniors who haven’t done any work on their capstone to avoid failing out of university.

Lyle had to resort to this because he exhausted all other options. He’d done what any other NYU Abu Dhabi student would have. He whined on Confessions; he told all of his friends he was considering a leave of absence, he told his ex-girlfriend he was considering a leave of absence. He told security guards he was considering a leave of absence. He even resorted to hitting up the completely well meaning and totally genuine individuals who commented on his Confessions posts, only to be viciously rebuked, with one poster divulging that she really only did it for attention and to seem like a good person, and that, like her offline behavior would suggest, she actually hated anyone outside of her clique.

He moved on to his next resort, and yes, it is an uncomfortable one to discuss. He felt he had nowhere else to turn, except up the stairs from the ground level, left and to the barrier overlooking the city between A6 B and C. Luckily for us, he bonked his head onto the grime-coated barriers installed by administration as the core and most financed aspect of their mental health policy. Each time, the panels stood firm; just like the conviction of the Dean who would insist Lyle was too much of a potential risk for bad press to remain on campus. Lyle returned to his room, knowing he needed to call Health and Wellness tomorrow, only to realize that it was Thursday — he would have to wait until Sunday to schedule a counseling appointment for sometime within the next two to six weeks.

At this point some of you readers might be thinking to yourselves: “Lyle? he was just another privileged white male who tried to explain things to me.” You’d be wrong. He was so much more. You needed him. Just like you needed Johanna. Just like, when you accidentally put your dress shoes on the top shelf of your closet, you needed REACH. Just like when you needed the UAE club to explain why machboos wasn’t just biriyani. He was an integral part of our campus.

But back to where we were; after exhausting what he felt like were his only options, he turned to the Health and Wellness, a much maligned institution on campus. Many absurdly claim that the university is doing nothing on the issue of mental health. This is totally unfounded. We’ve been told over and over again, for nearly the past three years, that the university is working hard to rectify the issue and ease student concerns. Working hard is certainly not nothing; fighting protracted licensing battles is certainly not nothing.

Many others claim that the services offered by the university’s health center are barbaric. This is again untrue, as the university only promotes the most proactive and cutting edge practices. Present courses of treatment include immediate deportation, locking students in cages filled with bats until they no longer feel melancholic or having them see one of the universities counselors, of which there are between zero and one.

I am a promoter of The Reckoning™ (the non-generic name for bat-cage therapy) and immediately sending students home on leaves of absence. I additionally advocate for sending those who look like they might develop mental health issues home preemptively, because it takes pressure off of the counselors.

If we have to rely on counseling, how could we? The one counselor (who may have just left) is already too busy getting licensed (believe me getting the bat handler a visa was hell) to possibly serve any purpose. Others say there is a hiring issue, even the editors-in-chief of this great publication said so; again this is not true. Lyle was rightly sent away. He was a threat to himself, others, and most importantly the university’s reputation.

While it pains me to see him go, I am happy (thanks to The Reckoning ™) to take up the mantle as the literal crusader our little university in the Middle East needs.