MIRROR: “University Cancels Classes For 30,000 Students After Suspected Suicide, Mental Health Crisis.”
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced that its Tuesday classes would be canceled in observance of a “Wellness Day” as a “step in addressing mental health” while police investigate a reported suicide and an attempted suicide that happened over the weekend, according to a Sunday announcement from Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz.
Investigators received a call about an attempted suicide at around 3 a.m. Sunday morning, and police logged a student death at another UNC residence hall on Saturday morning, WRAL News reported.
“We are in the middle of a mental health crisis, both on our campus and across our nation, and we are aware that college-aged students carry an increased risk of suicide,” Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said in an announcement. “This crisis has directly impacted members of our community – especially with the passing of two students on campus in the past month.”
“We almost have a second pandemic on our hands with mental health and suicide,” Clare Landis, a responder for Peer2Peer, a student-led group that offers free mental health sessions to UNC students, told WRAL News. Landis said there has been an increase in calls to Peer2Peer over the past two weeks.
I hate to ask the obvious question, but is it possible that university policies are contributing to the “second pandemic”?