Following the tragic suicides of six University students in 1970, including Student Government President Art Ensminger, the student body voted to establish a suicide prevention hotline with the Baton Rouge Crisis Prevention Center. Now, 39 years later, some dissatisfaction with the center almost ended this long-standing relationship.Despite a few weeks of shaky relations with the BRCIC, the University decided to maintain its relationship with the center after BRCIC officials promised to increase the center’s presence on campus.During a telephone conference with SG President Colorado Robertson and University officials Thursday afternoon, the BRCIC vowed to institute new training programs for University faculty and students and to make services more visible to target audiences. “The things they have been doing, they’ll be doing more often,” Robertson said. “And they’ll also be advertising more to the students.”Every semester, students pay two dollars in fees to fund the partnership with the BRCIC. The $100,000 annual program provides students with a 24-hour suicide hotline and suicide prevention training programs.Though the crisis center has continually provided these services to students, Robertson said he didn’t feel students were getting a full range of services for the amount of money paid to the institute. Robertson suggested a nationally-based organization to replace BRCIC if they were unable to be more active on campus.Because of its proximity to campus, the BRCIC has the power to act more effectively than a national service, which would only be able to provide suicide hotline services.”The BRCIC can offer a wider variety of services in terms of training, the hotline phone and being available to people from residential life if they have a potential suicide situation,” said Drayton Vincent, Student Health Center director.When SG presented their complaints to BRCIC, the crisis institute said it was eager to maintain its relationship with the University because of a long-standing history of service to the students and the importance of those services to an at-risk group.”Personally, I am very passionate about it because I was a student there, and Art Ensminger was a friend of mine,” said Norma Rutledge, BRCIC executive director. “University students are part of a higher-risk population and are certainly a group who can feel alone in a crowd.”To better serve the University, the BRCIC proposed adding new suicide prevention and intervention training programs for administrators and students.Annual two-day assistance training courses for residential counsellors, a one-day training program for campus police called “Suicide 101,” and training for student organizations and student leadership are included in the new programs. BRCIC will also begin an active e-mail campaign to inform students about available services during stressful times like finals week.Robertson said the need for the BRCIC to spend more on advertising and communicating to students is especially important.”They haven’t had a presence in print on campus in several years, and its important that students know about all the services provided for them, especially ones as serious as suicide prevention,” Robertson said.—-Contact Adam Duvernay at [email protected]