'Giving Them the Help They Need'

By ERIC HOOVER

The author of a new book on student suicide says colleges need to think about a lot more than liability

Gary Pavela was a head resident at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign when a 19-year-old student jumped from a 10th-floor dormitory window. Mr. Pavela rode with the student, "WR," in the back of an ambulance, not knowing that he was already dead.

Later, Mr. Pavela assembled some of the comments WR had written in the margins of notebooks. "Help, I'm scared," the