Columbia College Chicago

The purpose of the proposed project is to create and deliver training and support to students, faculty, staff, and parents to mitigate dangerous behaviors and prevent student suicide attempts. Columbia College Chicago (‘Columbia’); has not yet experienced a completed suicide on campus. However, Columbia has not been, until recently, a residential college. This means that students were most likely to express or manifest dangerous behaviors off campus. This, however, radically changed at the beginning of this academic year. 1489 students now live in dorm like facilities near to campus. In the three-week period between Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2004 we detected 7 suicide threats. Five of these resulted in hospital visits; Columbia, as a specialized college in the arts, media, and communication, recruits a particular kind of student; these are eventual media makers, artists, filmmakers, thespians, product, game, and graphic designers, and all manner of creative careers. In the main, we can characterize Columbia’s stud entry as being primarily creative. We also believe that creative people learn in different ways. Columbia, whose mission directly relates to culture and creativity, realizes the importance of human creativity. Our proposed project supports not only our need for comprehensive services, but also our institution’s unique orientation.