WWU officials push for more education, openness about suicide

Suicide usually happens in silence.
Close friends and family often are the only people to know the truth about how someone ended their life. Obituaries rarely mention suicide. Many media have a policy against reporting it.
In January, Western Washington University took the unusual step of including the student's name in a campuswide email about a suicide off campus. While WWU Director of Communications Paul Cocke said the decision to release the name was not a policy shift, it appears to be part of a more open discussion of suicide and mental illness since the arrival of President Bruce Shepard in 2008.