Since 2017, three students at the University of Houston Main Campus have ended their lives using Agnes Arnold Hall (AAH), the only building on campus with open verandas on each of its six floors. Two of these deaths have occurred in 2023 alone. Continual refusal to modify the building as it currently exists makes the University not only negligent but complicit in these students’ deaths.

We contend that, given the amount of ongoing construction on campus as a whole, retrofitting AAH is not only financially within the University’s reach but well within its obligation to protect students. That so much of this construction is taking or has already taken place in the immediate vicinity of AAH (e.g., repaving Cullen, removing and replacing the Satellite, SR1 renovation, etc.) only serves to emphasize this point. Any institutional failure to act not only welcomes but ensures another student death in this manner.