Colleges Stunned by Professor’s Stabbing

It took just a few slashes with a small knife to strip Pomona College of some of its innocence.

Homecoming this weekend wasn’t like others at the college in Claremont, a hamlet of trees and PhDs.

Discussions at the homecoming football game focused on the Oct. 30 stabbing that shocked the campus.

Why did Jared Essig, by all accounts a troubled student, allegedly stab his mentor, beloved philosophy professor Frederick Sontag?

With the 76-year-old professor known for his devotion to students now on the mend, many wondered about the fate of Essig, 22, who will be arraigned today on charges of attempted murder.

“I get the sense from students on campus that they are now scared for Jared and his future,” said senior J.B. Waterman. He said that his roommate Essig, now a senior, had spent time in mental hospitals in his sophomore year. “He needs to get help for his mental problems, not go to prison.”

Pomona College is the oldest and most prestigious of the seven Claremont colleges. The cluster of small liberal arts schools is a bastion of academic isolation nestled at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. About 35 miles east of Los Angeles, the New England-style town seems a lot further away from typical urban problems.

“It’s unprecedented. We’ve never had anything like this at Pomona . . . a student behaving violently toward a professor,” said Ann Quinley, dean of students.

On the quiet campus, where some of the 1,500 students even leave their apartment doors open when they go out, violence is something generally limited to discussions in sociology class, and arrests generally are for drunkenness.

Quinley said the incident has caused students to examine their own behavior, as well as that of others.

“It’s trouble in paradise,” said Gabriel London, 23, a graduate attending a pregame barbecue Saturday at the Sontag Greek Theatre, named in honor of the professor and his wife, Carol.

“Jared is a good guy who has struggled with his mental problems,” said London. “It’s tragic that it has taken this kind of incident for everyone to recognize how bad he was suffering.”

Experts say going to college adds new stresses to students’ lives and can affect their mental health. About 37% of Americans aged 15 to 24--many of whom are college students--have a diagnosable mental illness, according to the research at Harvard Medical School.

“We’ve long downplayed the developmental problems that are still going on at that age,” said Bob Albert, a retired professor of psychology at Pitzer College, one of the Claremont colleges.

At Pomona and its sister colleges, Quinley said, students can seek the services of the counseling center. Each year, she said, a few have to be institutionalized.

And college campuses aren’t immune to violent outbursts. In 1995 a Harvard junior stabbed her roommate to death and then hanged herself. The rape and murder by a fellow student of Jeanne Clery in 1986 in a Lehigh University dorm room spurred a congressional act requiring colleges to disclose crime statistics.

But at Pomona, the headline “Sontag Stabbed by Student, Expects Full Recovery” across the top of the campus newspaper is still hard for many to fathom.

“There is almost a surreal atmosphere on campus. A kind of intense shock,” said Margot Stokol, 19, a sophomore and student aide for Sontag. “When some students saw the blood everywhere, at first they thought it was a Halloween prank.”

Sontag lost 3 pints of blood after the knife was plunged into his neck and chest. The stabbing occurred after the student he had mentored for four years was released from jail. He had been arrested the day before on suspicion of shoplifting at a supermarket, along with vandalism and appearing intoxicated in public.

Essig’s behavior led police to contact a mental health agency that decided the student was no threat to himself or others, authorities said. Police released Essig and gave back his possessions, including a pocketknife with a 2 1/4-inch blade.

Quinley said she called Essig’s parents from her office and the professor decided to let the student spend the night at his home. But as Sontag drove Essig to his dorm to pick up some clothes, the professor said the student grew agitated and pulled out the knife. Sontag told police he was then stabbed twice.

Moments later, Essig was detained by campus security nearby after authorities said he told them he had just killed Sontag. Essig is being held in lieu of $1-million bail in the Twin Towers jail medical facility.

Stuart Holmes, Essig’s attorney, said he would not comment on the case beyond saying he expects to ask the judge in court today to continue the arraignment for 48 hours so he can discuss the case with his client.

Quinley voiced concerns that the police had given the student his knife back and said she should have at least been warned that he had it when she and Sontag picked him up at the jail.

Claremont police Lt. Gary Jenkins responded that Tri-City Mental Health had deemed Essig safe, so police had no choice but to return all his property.

Sontag, who is now recovering at home, said he has forgiven Essig.

Students first learned of the incident from an e-mail Quinley sent to everyone on campus the day after the incident. She didn’t reveal the name of the assailant. “People were waiting to see who didn’t come to class,” said one senior.

Alex Nichol, an 18-year-old freshman from San Francisco, said professors who live in the cloistered atmosphere of the college neighborhood seemed more shaken than many students.

“Everyone on the faculty is just blown away,” said Leo J. Flynn, the George Erving Thompson Memorial Professor of Government. “I’ve been here 33 years and I’d never thought this would happen.”