Privacy, or peril: where, many are asking, is the line between the parents' right to know about their child's mental state and the student's right to privacy?

John Sexton is probably living through a university president's worst nightmare. As leader of New York University, he saw his institution draw focused press attention this fall--unfortunately, much of it centering on the tragic deaths of three students, all believed to be suicides. Two students, Jack Skolnik and Stephen Bohler, jumped from the balcony of the university's Bobst Library. Another NYUer, Michelle Gluckman, jumped from an off-campus apartment window. While it was recently reported that one of the deaths was not a suicide but an accidental fall related to drug use, Sexton still has been confronted by the sad events and speculation at almost every turn. But, just as reporters at the Higher Education/News Media Dinner held in New York City in November were prepared to question him about the incidents, Sexton anticipated their questions (as a competent president should). He not only admitted that the deaths were a tragedy, but quickly turned the discourse into an opportunity to tell the press and the public about how common suicide is on campus, and about the alarming number of students who are now thought to arrive on campus clinically depressed, annually. (Some experts pin that number at one-third of first-year undergrads). "Student depression and suicide are major, national problems for all colleges and universities," he told the press corps that night. He's right.

Parents Out of the Loop

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students, according to The Jed Foundation (www.jedfoundation.org), a non-profit founded by Phillip and Donna Satow, parents who lost their son Jed--a sophomore at the University of Arizona--in 1998. Their foundation works with colleges and universities to reach depressed and troubled students. According to their information, more than 1,000 suicides are expected on campuses this year. The Satows note that suicide kills more young adults than AIDS, cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, birth defects, stroke, influenza, and chronic lung disease combined. What's more, four out of five young adults who attempt suicide give clear warning signs that they will do so.

If indeed this is the case, it's no surprise that parents are now why they are not informed that their college-student children may be in trouble. IHE administrators, in the meantime, are left wondering what they have the power to do about the situation. Where, many are asking, is the line between the parents' right to know and the student's right to privacy? And the dilemma is not just a moral one: Though the conundrum is not ostensibly a business issue, any school president who has suffered through the repercussions of such tragic events understands the impact such occurrences--and their inevitable press coverage--can have on applications and retention. At NYU, students admitted to the press that they were in shock, and parents lamented the fact that they might have been able to take some kind of action, had they only known more about their children's states of mind.

And at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ferrum College (VA), administrators have been dealing with lawsuits related to student suicides. This summer, Ferrum College settled with the parents of Michael Frentzel, a student who committed suicide in 2000. Frentzel's parents claimed that school officials failed to detect the warning signs that preceded their son's death. Details of the settlement have not been disclosed, but the school reportedly admitted "shared responsibility" for the student's death. Meantime, the parents of Elizabeth Shin, an MIT sophomore who set herself on fire in her dorm room in 2000, have a filed a wrongful death lawsuit and are seeking $27 million in damages. The case is still pending, but Shin's parents clearly are holding MIT's mental health care staff, campus life support staff, and campus police accountable for their daughter's death. Specifically, they claim that a misdiagnosis resulted in insufficient treatment.

Such cases are chilling. Parents and friends are understandably angry and bereaved. Still, the tension between the parents' right to know and a student's right to privacy has always existed, explains Kevin Druger, associate executive director of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (www.naspa.org). "But the baby-boomer parents," he says, "have ratcheted it up."

In fact, this is a generation of parents involved in every aspect of their children's lives, say boomer-watching experts. "Primarily being a college generation themselves, they are much more likely to pick up a phone and ask questions," says Druger. "They know about campus life and the dangers there. Talk to administrations on campus now and they will tell you about the 'activist parents' who need and demand information." What's more, point out higher education analysts, they also are painfully aware of the increasing cost of college and the fact that they are paying the bills. As consumers, they feel entitled to know about campus life and how their children are faring.

The FERPA Wall?

Yet the issue is not an uncomplicated one. All college officials know that the solution is not as simple as picking up the telephone and calling mom back home to talk about her son's sessions with the social worker in the wellness center. Students have a right to privacy, as spelled out in the many particulars embedded in the Family Educational Right and Privacy Act (FERPA), which protects the confidentiality of student education records. (The act, as well as links to related topics, can be found at www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa.)

FERPA was passed into law in 1974, during the "Me" decade and the sexual revolution, when students were finally viewed as adults on campus, as opposed to children whose temporary guardianship had been transferred. Administrators sanctioning confidential visits to the campus clinic for birth control and STD tests were a far cry from the in loco parentis model, the norm on campus in the 1950s and early '60s when colleges and universities were surrogate parents, monitoring dormitory visits and providing social chaperones. While retro may be in, it is clear that colleges aren't going back to this model any time soon. Students continue to be viewed as adults on today's campuses, even if they engage in risky behaviors and don't always known when to reach out for help. FERPA is here to stay.

But what began as a well-intentioned law to guard student privacy has also become the reason why institutions are cautious about intervening in mental health issues and other "delicate" problems, such as alcohol abuse and drug addiction.

"This is a classic example of two well-intentioned concepts that are diametrically opposed," observes Michael Goldstein, an attorney and practice leader for Dow, Lohnes & Albertson (www.dowlohnes.com), a large Washington, DC Law firm. On one hand, he says, schools have to respect student privacy and abide by the legislation that protects it. On the other hand is the debate about what, precisely, an institution should do if it has knowledge of a situation that is threatening to a student. "How do you deal with that?" Goldstein asks, adding that colleges and universities are desperately looking for the bright line.

Wiggle Room 

One higher ed association source notes that suicide and related liability issues are often brought up in the e-mail forum of the National Association of College and University Attorneys (www.nacua.org). "The question is: What lawsuit do you want?" says this source. "Does an institution want to answer to the parents, or to the U.S. Department of Education (which has the authority to disqualify IHEs for financial aid if they violate FERPA regulations)?" Thankfully, disqualification is based on repeated FERPA violations, which gives IHEs some wiggle room when they have knowledge of a student in trouble and simply must step in.

The Fine Points

Through the debate--and the recent grief surrounding the NYU tragedies--there are traces of a bright line forming. First of all, via amendments made to FERPA in the Higher Education Reauthorization Act of 1998, schools have already been given the go-ahead to notify parents of students under 21 who are found violating policies about alcohol or drugs. Schools are also allowed to--but not required to--have a parent notification policy in place.

Such fine points are what Nancy Tribbensee, deputy general counsel for Arizona State University, scrutinizes on a daily basis. Tribbensee--along with other privacy experts such as Peter Lake, co-author of The Rights and Responsibilities of the Modern University (Carolina Academic Press, 1999)--is well-versed in issues around the suicide crisis, and what, exactly, schools can do about it. She has crafted a one-page position paper which she hands out at seminars, and which cites a number of sources including an article that she co-authored with Lake for the Fall 2000 Stetson Law Review, "The Emerging Crisis of College Student Suicide: Law and Policy Responses to Serious Forms of Self-Inflicted Injury" (www.law.stetson.edu/lawrev/abstracts/PDF/32-1Lake.pdf).

Tribbensee's point of view: Don't let FERPA scare you. "There's no need to work around it. There is nothing to prevent schools from taking appropriate action," she says. "FERPA isn't the obstacle. What is difficult is the complicated nature of mental illness ... I think presidents and deans are coming to understand this better." FERPA, she notes, actually holds higher ed administrators to a lower standard than, say, a medical doctor. A breech of confidentiality with a medical professional has much more serious legal ramifications. Still, working within FERPA means that IHE leaders must tackle this issue head on, and go through the painstaking effort of creating a system of student outreach and parent notification. Schools that don't put programs in place for spotting students in trouble and reaching out to them may be sorry, she warns.

Policy and Outreach al ASU 

"Courts are moving toward imposing a duty on colleges and universities to share information with parents and families, if that information might prevent a suicide," says Tribbensee. But she adds that it is unlikely that courts will hold schools responsible for directly preventing suicide. (The two aforementioned cases don't give the higher education community enough information about precedent, as yet. The MIT case is still to be decided, and the Ferrum case was settled out of court.)

Privacy, or Peril?

Tribbensee helps ASU navigate outreach and policy by participating in the Student Assistance Coordinating Committee, architected by an ASU VP of Student Affairs. The committee's purpose is to spot students in trouble, formulate a plan for reaching out to them, and follow through with parental notification if it is necessary. The committee is made up of representatives from various ASU offices and departments: Counseling, Student Life Advocacy, Residential Life, the Department of Public Safety, the campus police, and, of course, the general counsel's office. Tribbensee says that most troubled students will likely be in touch with al least one of these offices for some reason or other. Each of these offices, she goes on to explain, also reaches out to faculty and staff, as well to urge them to be on the lookout for troubled students--those who might harm themselves or others. The committee works under a case management model meeting monthly to discuss troubled students and ways to help them. Any committee member can call an emergency meeting at any time, Tribbensee adds. Committee members respond immediately to emergency situations.

Each student is looked at on a case-by-case basis. If, for example, a student has an eating disorder, appropriate members of the committee form a sub-team to determine who is best to approach that student and offer help. If the student has formed a good relationship with someone on campus, that person might be chosen to reach out. Says Tribbensee, "Our goal--best case--is to work directly with the students and provide enough counseling to help them make positive decisions." The outreach includes informing a student about resources on campus and asking for a promise to get help. "If a student promised to make contact with an office, someone on the committee follows up on that," she says. If the committee thinks the family should be notified, a student is first asked for the name of someone to call. Asking first is one clear way of respecting student privacy, explains the deputy general counsel. "If there is total refusal to comply, and we think concerns are high enough, we contact a family member," she adds.

The hope is to have a plan that gets the individuals at risk on the right track and does not create even more apprehension for a student, says Tribbensee. Sometimes the thought of family contact is more anxiety-provoking for a young person than it is helpful Then again, she points out, some students are simply not in the frame of mind to decide what to do. This is something the committee must determine.

The Role of Reauthorization

Expect suicide--and other crisis issues--to be analyzed even more acutely as legislators review the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, due for revamping this year. FERPA, part of the act, may be altered yet again to give colleges and universities even more Leeway in parent notification, notes Peter Stokes, executive VP of Eduventures (www.eduventures.com), an educational analyst firm. There is a current effort to rank the safety of K-12 schools, he notes, and it may be possible that legislators will ask that IHEs be held more accountable for campus safety.

"It is conceivable that these kinds of measures could be placed on higher education institutions," says Stokes, "and that could be a problem." It is a natural inclination for colleges and universities to "spin" their safety reports, he observes, even though accurate reporting is mandatory under the Student Right to Know Act. But, "If you are trying to move up in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, you aren't going to announce too loudly how many violent crimes you had on campus," he points out.

And if safety is difficult to discuss, how much harder is it going to be to talk openly about suicide or related issues, such as alcohol and drug abuse? Difficult as it is, though, it is time to start the dialog, says Tribbensee, who urges presidents and deans to be proactive. Talking about the issues and setting policy are the best ways to manage these issues on campus, she maintains.

From Tragedy, Help for Students

If your school Web site doesn't link to Ulifeline.org, it should.

When Donna and Phillip Satow learned in 1998 that their 20-yearold son, Jed, a sophomore at the University of Arizona, had committed suicide, one of their first inclinations was to speak with UA President Peter Likins. Looking back on that first meeting, Donna Satow now understands how Likins may have been apprehensive.

"We live in a litigious society," says Donna Satow. "0ur first reaction wasn't about bringing a lawsuit, but about finding out what happened." As it turned out, Jed's action, like that of most young people who commit suicide, was triggered by a traumatic event. In Jed's case, it was the breakup of a relationship.

But if Likins was fearful about legal fallout, he certainly didn't let it show when he met with the Satows, Donna remembers. Instead, he very sincerely asked the couple what they wished him to do. "I have 38,000 students on campus," she recalls him saying, explaining that he wanted to find a way to help any of the 38,000 who might be in trouble.

That was the day, she says, that the seed was planted for The Jed Foundation

(launched in 2000) and its Web site, Ulifeline.org (launched in 2003). The Satows have dedicated the past few years to creating suicide prevention resources and ways for students to access them. The site is a confidential haven for students. "It is meant to be a complement to the mental health center," Donna explains. Students visiting the site can answer questions that screen them for their risk of suicide, and they can also visit an online mental health library. They access free information by using a password.

Ulifeline.org is designed to be a transparent part of a college or university's own Web site. (The pages related to suicide include links to that school's particular mental health facility.) Subscriptions to Ulifeline.org are free to colleges and universities; there are already 160 active IHE subscribers and 40 more waiting to implement Ulifeline.org as part of their Web sites.--JMA

Suicide and the Young Adult Mind

New research points to a surprising developmental reason for teen depression and suicide.

The term "teen angst" is not for naught. New research cited by Dr. Bernadine Healy, a health columnist for U.S. News & World Report, explains why teens and young adults may be so susceptible to serious depression and suicide.

While researchers have long known about the stages of brain development during the early years of life, it is only recently they have discovered that the adolescent brain goes through another formative stage that can last into the early 20s. It is believed that the lower part of the brain, the amygdala (a bundle of nerves that transmit fear, anxiety, and anger), rules during this stage of life. Later on, the frontal lobes (monitoring reason and logic) become stronger, helping to level out the more turbulent thoughts and feelings of adolescence.

That is why teens and young adults can be ultrasensitive to triggers of emotional pain, the new research suggests. Failing a class or the rejection of a peer or romantic partner can seem devastating, Healy writes. Also interesting: While it has been found that those who suffer from depression and attempt or commit suicide have abnormally low levels of the mood hormone serotonin, the Food and Drug Administration has now cautioned that serotonin-booster drugs (which have helped so many adults) can actually contribute to suicidal feelings in young people.

Still no easy answers, but it's time to get the word out.--JMA