Thoughts of suicide haunted Anita Rutnam long before she arrived at Syracuse University. The Winchester, Mass., teenager had a history of mental illness and had even attempted to kill herself. During her junior year of college, she tried again. On a February morning in 1998, just days after a campus counselor recommended she be hospitalized for her suicidal tendencies, Rutnam threw herself off the eighth floor of a Syracuse dormitory and fell 90 ft. to the patio below.
Miraculously, she survived the plunge. But three years later, Rutnam still feels the effects of that day. She walks with a limp, has not been able to finish college--and is suing her former school for malpractice and negligence. Her suit, which is awaiting trial, asserts that, given the campus counselor's advice, school officials should have done more to prevent her suicide attempt.
This incident and others have thrown a spotlight on an issue that is causing growing concern in dorm rooms and student centers. Are colleges providing adequate care for students who may be struggling with a range of mental illnesses? In the Syracuse case, a spokesman for the school contends, "The university tried repeatedly to help Anita, and we felt that they acted appropriately." But lawyers are busy there and elsewhere.
After accidents, suicide is the second biggest killer of kids in college. And while the number of students who kill themselves on campus is no higher than that of 18-to-24-year-olds in the general population, a series of sensational incidents has raised the question of whether troubled students are getting proper attention.
Last year alone, six Columbia University undergraduates or recent students died in incidents linked to clear or presumed mental disturbances. Among them was Kathleen Roskot, a sophomore stabbed to death by her boyfriend, a Columbia dropout, who later killed himself by jumping in front of a subway car. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, four students have committed suicide in the past three years. And Harvard University is still dealing with the fallout from a grisly 1995 murder-suicide in which a female student, who was feeling rejected by her roommate, stabbed her to death and then hanged herself.
So what are the schools' responsibilities to at-risk students, particularly those who may be genetically predisposed to mental illness? College can be a breeding ground for psychiatric problems. Poor eating habits, irregular sleeping patterns and experimentation with drugs and alcohol--especially combined with the academic stress of college life--may all play roles in triggering mental problems. Additionally, many of the major psychiatric illnesses, including depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, often do not manifest themselves until the late teens or early 20s.
Two decades ago, kids with severe forms of those illnesses may have been too sick to go to college. But with the advent of antidepressants and mood stabilizers like Prozac and Zoloft, many of these students can thrive on campus. College counselors say the number of students requesting mental-health services has climbed considerably in the past decade.