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23 Oct 2000

By Monica Brady

Harvard University is hard. It's supposed to be. But for some students, it's too hard. Away from home for the first time they face the same challenges as other college students, but have the added pressure of attending the nation's most prestigious, high-profile and high pressure university. Expectations are sky-high, and the workload is tremendous. With the demands of term papers, exams and social stresses some Harvard students, on average one a year, succumb to the pressure by committing suicide. This week, as Harvard students busy themselves with midterms, the university is offering some help for students who may be feeling especially stressed out. They're offering a series of workshops and discussions entitled "Caring for the Harvard Community." We speak to Richard Kadison, Chief of the Mental Health Services at Harvard's Health Services. Female college students don't fit the profile of most suicides. Typically, those who commit suicide are white men using guns. But over the weekend, a University of New Hampshire freshman did kill herself by jumping out of a 6th floor dormitory window. We speak to Scott Chesney, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs at University of New Hampshire. Mr. Chesney is also head of the university's Crisis Response Team.

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Copyright 2000, Used with permission from WBUR-FM, Boston.