UPDATE: Campus Lifeline: A Report on College Suicide, the ground-breaking student project that examined college suicide, has been honored with a prestigious national award: the Associated Press Media Editors’ (APME) Innovator of the Year for College Students. APME was unanimous in its selection of this Campus Lifeline for this prestigious award. This is the first time a JMC student project has received this APME award. More details are available here.
During the Spring 2013 semester, 21 students from JMC and the School of Digital Science, all members of the Web Programming for Multimedia Journalism course, examined the complex issue of college suicide on the Campus Lifeline: A Report on College Suicide website. Through original, in-depth articles, infographics and data-driven interactives, the students examined the following:
• Why data on college suicide is underreported and unreliable.
• The struggles of at-risk groups of students, including returning veterans and international students.
• Gun control as a suicide-prevention method.
• The role of social media as both an aid and a threat to suicide prevention.
• Recommendations on how to reduce suicides and improve the overall mental health of college students.
This comprehensive examination of college suicide by college students has pushed a much-stigmatized issue into the campus consciousness. In the course of their reporting, the students consulted with psychiatrists, researchers, crisis-intervention specialists and family members of college students who have died by suicide.