University Of North Carolina Receives $25 Million Gift To Establish Suicide Prevention Institute

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) has received a $25 million commitment to establish the UNC Suicide and Prevention Institute. The gift comes from UNC alumnus William Starling and his wife, Dana, who made the donation in memory of their sons, Tyler and Gregory, both of whom died by suicide.

The new institute, which will be housed at the UNC School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry, will feature three main components:

1. Research on causation and neurobiology, implementation of clinical prevention, and outreach, community engagement, and dissemination.
2. Improvement of clinical outcomes at UNC Health and more broadly across North Carolina.
3. Connections between the institute and individuals, community stakeholders, and other sites nationally and internationally to help “experts identify at-risk groups in the ever-changing landscape of suicidality.”

The university named Dr. Patrick Sullivan, the Yeargen Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Genetics at UNC and an expert on psychiatric genetics, to serve as the first director of the institute. “This is a critical situation,” Sullivan said. “Many measures of mental health are worse over the past five years. The bottom line is that at every level many people are struggling – rates of anxiety and depression have gone through the roof, and the impact on teens and their development has been especially massive. And one of the main red flags is attempted suicide and people who die by suicide.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States, with 45,979 deaths in 2020, or about one death every 11 minutes. In 2020, an estimated 12.2 million American adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.2 million planned a suicide attempt, and 1.2 million attempted suicide.

In 2020, suicide was among the top nine leading causes of death for people ages 10-64, and it was the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-14 and 25-34. It has become a focus of concern for campuses across the nation. UNC has recently struggled with its own suicide crises. In October of last year, it cancelled classes for a day due to multiple reports of student suicides and attempted suicides during the fall semester.

William Starling graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1975. His career has been in the medical device industry, where he has founded and led a number of companies. He co-founded Synergy Life Science Partner, and is Chief Executive Officer of Synecor, LLC, a business generator and financial incubator of new medical device companies.

Sarling has served as Chairman of the Board of Visitors at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, which honored him in 2016 with a Business School Leadership Award.

“Our two children are gone, and it’s important to recognize their wonderful, short lives,” William Starling said. “I’m not sure how else to better do that than to help other families who may be struggling with their own children down the road. We want to recognize our children, and this is a special way to do that. We hope that starting this Institute will be a very important initiative, one that will not only help people at UNC but across the nation.”

“Bill and Dana have my deepest gratitude for making this truly special commitment to help families who have experienced the deepest tragedy of losing a loved one,” said Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz in the university’s announcement of the gift. “There is no more urgent need than this, and we are thankful to the Starlings for turning their grief into a selfless gift to the UNC Suicide Prevention Institute that will benefit many others.”