Officials review campus counseling

The end of the school year brought more good news than just the relief of summer and a seemingly endless supply of sunny days.

The 2004-05 academic year passed without any University students committing suicide — compared to last year when two students, Simon Carlyle Sitterson IV and Ziyun “Tim” Mao, committed suicide during spring exams.

There were four student suicides in the 2002-03 academic year.

While officials said they are pleased that there wasn’t a repeat of previous years, they remain wary and say there is still much work to be done.

“Of course the lack of suicides is great, but it is not statistically significant,” said Winston Crisp, chairman of last year’s Suicide Prevention Task Force.

The task force was created to look at the national problem of suicide among college students.

The report prepared by the task force agrees that statistics concerning suicide must be evaluated for periods longer than one year due to the varying number of on-campus suicides each year.

To address mental health problems, the task force suggested creating the Mental Health Advisory Committee.

The committee now reports to Melissa Exum, dean of students.

“The committee is structured to look at a wide variety of issues and how the University should be responding to them,” Exum said.

One of the main problems identified by the Suicide Prevention Task Force was the need for an adequate amount of staff for the University’s Counseling and Psychological Services, Exum said.

According to the report presented by the task force, counseling services at UNC added four members, including a full-time psychiatrist and psychologist, in the fall of 2004.

Unlike a mental health system paid for by the state, the program uses student health fees and is not affected by budget cuts.

The advisory committee also is focusing on the continuity of care and the adequacy of services for students referred to mental health professionals outside the campus community.

The dilemma regarding continuity of care deals with making sure students who choose to study abroad have access to mental health services while away from campus.

The suicide task force report also states that counseling services is not equipped with enough resources to ensure that students who are referred to outside services receive adequate care.

The Mental Health Advisory Committee is reviewing these problems.

Exum said the key is to treat each student individually. “Different things work for different people.”

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.