Last Spring, the campus community lost Lucas Lee ’25 to suicide. Since then, Andover’s Senior administration has met every other Monday, working to create a “Student Safety and Risk-Reduction Plan.”
Amy Patel, Dean of Health and Wellness, gave an overview of the senior administration’s postvention plans. She described the necessity of implementing postvention after administrators had time to formulate a systematic response.
“Every organization should have a postvention. It’s for when something tragic happens, often a death. It could be a death for any reason, but it’s typically thought of in a setting of death by suicide. But it’s a plan, because you’ve got to be systematic,” said Patel.
Patel continued, “There’s a ton of research and evidence about what ways you can respond to reduce further risk in a community and be most supportive. Then there’s also a ton of data, unfortunately, that’s been acquired about some steps that can increase risk at a very vulnerable time for a community. We didn’t have one in place. One of many things that we needed to do once there was a little bit of time after the Spring Term was to document what did we do? Where was there maybe an opportunity to do anything better?”
Patel elaborated on the student safety and risk-reduction plan, which centers around environmental risk reduction. This resulted in the netting installation in various campus locations, and the new policy limiting student access to medicine.
“The second document is a Student Safety and Risk-Reduction Plan. It’s everything from environmental risk reduction, netting [in] stairwells, but also supervision in particular places, maybe reducing access to certain buildings, security monitors,” said Patel.
Patel continued, “It’s also medication and substances. That’s medication, but also drugs and alcohol. What training do we need to do for our adults? How do we support students accessing universal screens? And then substance prevention education.”
Among those involved in planning are Head of School Raynard Kington, Deputy Head of School Merrilee Mardon, Patel, and Susan Esty, Dean of Students and Residential Life.
Kington and Mardon declined to interview individually, but agreed to a group interview with The Phillipian, alongside Chief Communications Officer Tracy Sweet. Esty declined to interview.
Mardon stated that training for faculty has been part of the risk-reduction planning. This Friday, Andover invited Ellen Utley, psychiatrist and JED Foundation Boarding School Consultant, to the faculty meeting.
“[The] Columbia [Lighthouse Project] came in the fall. That was more about normalizing the idea that you could ask somebody how they’re doing and that you could also ask, ‘Do you feel like hurting yourself?’” said Mardon. “This training, we’re working closely with Dr. Ellen Utley… She’s going to do the training [about] how adults ask questions in ways that reach students, because sometimes students can shy away from adults, so we need to build that habit.”
Patel detailed how the senior administration has been able to track patterns in student behavior and wellness with the school’s new medication policy.
“That was one of the things we thought we could update and align to what has now become more of the standard in schools, which is more close monitoring, an opportunity for connection to do a dose-by-dose check-in with students. It doesn’t take a long time, being able to proactively identify when something isn’t going well or if there’s a side effect or if somebody ran out of meds or if they lost them. That is generally the goal… to be able to have bi-directional communication with students who are taking medication,” said Patel.
Patel continued, “We can see what percentage of students have picked up their medications on time and which ones have not. We could, on an individual basis, figure out what patterns there are. If a student is noticing that they’re having a harder time with a particular health issue, we can very easily look back and figure out, what’s your compliance rate been in terms of taking the medication?”
According to Mardon, the risk-reduction plan aims to create forums where students, department chairs, and administrators can discuss academics and student well-being at Andover.
“This is my third year [here]. I’ve heard frequently from students that they wish they had more meaningful contact with adults, and they’d like to have more contact with department chairs, for example, and to just be in conversation about their learning and program… I know the department chairs know about it,” said Mardon.
Chloe Song ’26 noted how campus culture fixates on academic and extracurricular excellence. She noted how increased contact between students and department chairs could help students navigate Andover’s high-stress environment.
“Andover is definitely a pressure cooker. It’s really hard for a lot of students in terms of mental health. That’s just a part of the culture, and having everything on your plate leaves you susceptible to mental health struggles,” said Song.
Song continued, “Students would get really involved in [forums]. And maybe that could help facilitate a more positive culture around academic pressure and academic performance. I could see that becoming a part of Andover’s student culture. But it needs to be ingrained for it to make a difference… Because ultimately, at the end of the day, what causes so much mental struggle for a lot of students is the pressure to do everything.”
Song acknowledged that limited explicit communication about risk-reduction measures, such as the netting, has generated criticism among the student body.
“All of a sudden, there’s netting in the Gelb [Science Center] and you’re like, ‘what?’ Then you draw the quick connection, and you’re like, ‘maybe they should have said something about it.’ You feel surprised [that] that was their response after a tough Spring Term last year. The problem was the lack of communication. Maybe with communication… there wouldn’t have been as much criticism,” said Song.
Sweet raised concerns that formally communicating about the netting would isolate the netting installation from the rest of the school’s risk-reduction measures.
“I do see this as a broader strategic approach. Our next communication to the community would be most valuable with everything stitched together so people can really understand how it relates. We’re not isolating something like netting… It’s that and so much more. I wouldn’t want the community to misunderstand that as a central focus,” said Sweet.
Kington expressed uncertainty about future plans to formally communicate about the netting.
“We were already in the process of consulting with outside experts, JED, to see if it made sense to do it now, after the fact,” said Kington.
“We communicated through [The Phillipian’s October 10] article, [‘Netting Installed in Several Campus Buildings’]. The changes have already occurred. I don’t know if there’s added value now in clarifying why we did it,” said Kington. “It’s a complicated question, how much you say [and] when.”
Acknowledging the sensitive nature of the situation, Willow Wright ’26 suggested that certain risk-reduction measures may appear less purposeful without explanation.
“The level of communication [is interesting] because they obviously are choosing to communicate some things over others. With the netting, it’s assumed that we understand why it’s there. That glosses over some of the purpose of why it’s there. It can be taken as unimportant, without knowing some of the reasoning and completely understanding why those protocols are in place. I know that [the administration doesn’t] want to draw attention to events, which is difficult,” said Wright. “When they do have a solid plan, it’ll be useful to inform people.”
Patel emphasized the administration’s commitment to carrying out its various risk-reduction measures.
“It’s important to know that [risk-reduction] is a multifaceted plan. This is not new and it’s not going away. The emphasis is on making sure that everybody on this campus is involved in the well-being of our students and our community,” said Patel.
