On the campus of the University of Virginia, where I work, I was recently approached by someone handing out flyers for the university’s counseling services center, which was trying to raise awareness about depression. The flyer sought to destigmatize depression by listing celebrities who suffer from it. Clearly, the intention was to lower the psychic barriers to seeking help, to catch the distraught and the possibly suicidal who might otherwise suffer alone.

This humane purpose harmonizes with pressing institutional interests, as the shootings at Virginia Tech in the spring of 2007 and Northern Illinois University this past winter made clear. Earlier, there was a much-reported case at MIT in which the university failed to prevent the suicide of a student and was successfully sued by her parents. For today’s college administrator, then, risk-management for the institution may take the form of therapy for the student.