Parents of Worcester Polytechnic’s “Lost Sons” Speak Out

Maureen Banavige doesn’t know why her son, Ronan, ended his life in his dorm room during his first year at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in fall 2021.

Maybe it was the isolation of the university’s strict COVID protocols. Maybe it was the stress of his fast-paced computer coding course. Maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, she didn’t see it coming.

“He struggled with anxiety and depression in high school, but we did many interventions and we thought he was in a pretty good spot going into college,” Banavige said of her son, whom she remembers as a “kind and gentle spirit” with a quirky sense of humor, intellectual curiosity and an affinity for Chinese tea.

“His psychiatrist met with him the week before he passed, writing in his notes that [Ronan] was thriving,” she recalled to Inside Higher Ed. “He wasn’t outwardly anxious or depressed. He was doing well in school. He had a good group of friends that have continued to reach out to us. He joined a few clubs—Rubik’s Cube and Legos—he was excited about.”

Nearly five years later, Banavige still wonders if Ronan would be here now “if we had done something better or different,” even as she tries to accept the loss. “We will never know what caused him such distress in those moments.”

What she does know is that Ronan is one of at least eight WPI students who died by suicide over the past several years, including two who took their own lives this past academic year. While suicide is a leading cause of death among college-age students nationwide, losing eight young men in four years nonetheless constitutes a high rate for a single institution. In the 15 years prior to those deaths, which took place between 2021 and 2025, WPI reported two suicides.

‘Now Is the Time’

The recent cluster of suicides at WPI has cast a sorrowful shadow over the Massachusetts campus and beyond.

“Every time another young person dies by suicide, it’s traumatic for me and our family. It brings us back to horrible feelings of grief. Why are we not doing better? How can we do better?” Banavige said. “This is a big problem in our nation. Is it the university’s fault? No, not solely. But they own some piece of it. How can we strategically do something meaningful? Universities spend so much money on their sports teams, new buildings or administration. Where’s the emphasis on this? Why wouldn’t a school of science like WPI—and other schools—band together and use science to make meaningful progress?”

That’s the core message of an open letter Banavige and the parents of five of the other “lost sons” sent to the university’s leadership last month.

“This letter is also a call upon all institutions of higher education to band together, put the mental health of their students first, invest in the staff and resources needed to better understand the epidemic of collegiate mental illness impacting America, and once and for all meaningfully stem the tide,” the parents wrote. “We are begging you to take immediate proactive action and are seeking to be as helpful as possible in the midst of our ongoing personal pain.”

Among its many recommendations, the letter calls on WPI to invest $100 million in a higher education mental health task force that would include representatives of a dozen other universities in the region, suggesting partnerships with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard and Princeton Universities.

“The Task Force should be chartered to determine exactly what is contributing to this suicide crisis at WPI, and more broadly, how mental health can be meaningfully improved across all of America’s institutions of higher education. WPI should lead this effort, not only because of your current crisis, but because you are one of the best science-based universities in the country,” the letter reads.

“WPI should be a national leader in scientifically working to solve the mental health crisis in America. Now is the time to get it done!”

In response to questions about the parents’ letter, WPI told Inside Higher Ed that the university is in the process of arranging a meeting with them.

“We welcome the advocacy of the families who have presented their thoughts, and we share their desperate desire to prevent suicide. The losses these families and this university community have endured are truly heartbreaking and life changing,” Colleen Wamback, WPI’s public relations director, wrote in an email. “This is a national crisis. The challenges facing young people today are significant and widespread, and we agree that colleges, families, students, and mental health professionals all have a critical role to play in seeking root causes and identifying additional solutions.”

Eight ‘Lost Sons’

The parents’ call to action comes years after WPI initiated efforts to address mental health in the aftermath of six suicides in as many months between the summer of 2021 and the winter of 2022.

Six weeks before Ronan died on Nov. 1, 2021, 20-year-old Liam Godin—a nature enthusiast who went by the nickname “Jyn”—died by suicide. In December, Laurie Leshin, then president of WPI, told The Boston Globe that the deaths had been “devastating” to the campus and called for an “all-hands-on-deck approach to build campuses where student well-being is at the center of everything we do.”

But the devastation only deepened in the new year.

In early January 2022, Nate Morin—a senior mechanical engineering major who “could find fun in almost anything” and already had a job lined up after graduation—ended his life at his family’s home in New Hampshire after the unexpected end of a relationship.

“He was funny. He never took himself too seriously and liked to make people laugh. He loved living. He wasn’t depressed,” his mother, Donna Morin, recalled to Inside Higher Ed. “He just got into some sort of tunnel. He was faced with a crisis and couldn’t figure out what to do.”

Just a few weeks after Nate’s death, 20-year-old Tyler Larson—described in his obituary as “a kind, quiet soul that shared his smarts and wit with all who knew him”—died by suicide, too.

In the wake of those six deaths, WPI launched a 35-member Mental Health and Well-Being Task Force composed of students, faculty and staff. The task force’s resulting report—based on student surveys, listening sessions and town halls—identified untenable academic pressures, “pandemic burnout,” a lack of resilience, uncertainty about where to find mental health resources and inadequate communication about the availability of such services as drivers of the mental health crisis on campus.

To address those issues, the task force recommended a wide range of changes, including teaching academic success skills and self-care to newly enrolled students, better identifying students who are struggling with coursework, modifying policies and practices in an effort to relieve academic stress, and increasing the role faculty members play in dealing with student mental health issues.

In addition to enacting those recommendations, WPI hired three more full-time mental health counselors at the counseling center, began offering after-hours counseling services and telehealth options, and engaged an outside firm to evaluate campus mental health practices.

The suicides at WPI stopped for a while after January 2022. But then, last year, two more young men ended their lives.

In August 2025, it was 19-year-old Alex Hughes, whose family remembers him as having “a heart as big as his smile.” Four months later, 20-year-old Jack Forsyth, an aerospace engineering major, member of ROTC and “loving and loyal son, grandson, nephew and friend,” took his life.

‘Something Is Wrong’

Hearing about those deaths once again alarmed Donna Morin—the mother of Nate—and pushed her to join other parents in calling on WPI to lead the charge of suicide prevention across higher education.

“Knowing that there were at least two in one year—with no pandemic—makes me think that something is wrong with our college kids. Something is wrong with our boys. They’re hurting in this society,” she told Inside Higher Ed. “WPI should be at the forefront of finding out what we can do as a nation to help these kids.”

While suicide rates among young people have declined since spiking during the pandemic, suicide remains the second-leading cause of death among people between the ages of 15 and 34, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). And across all age ranges, suicide-related deaths in 2024 were four times higher among men (38,977) than women (9,8477).

Although the factors that drive a person to end their own life are complex and often mysterious, the parents of six of the eight WPI students who died by suicide believe that more evidence-based research could help identify more effective prevention strategies.

“I want WPI to be proactive and intentional about where we go from here,” Morin said. “I don’t blame them, but at least this is something they could do in our sons’ memories. We want to honor them by figuring out why this is happening.”

Erin Miles, program manager for AFSP’s Maine and New Hampshire chapters, said that while investing “money in suicide prevention research is always a great thing,” what’s most critical is strengthening student support and understanding that prevention requires a community response.

“In college, students are navigating their independence for the first time and managing their mental health without those support systems they grew up with—or maybe they didn’t have those to begin with,” Miles said, noting that effective prevention support includes training faculty to recognize and respond to warning signs, building peer support networks and making counseling and psychiatric services accessible. “We want to make it easy for students to find help before the crisis becomes an emergency.”

Although it’s cold comfort to the thousands of parents who have lost a college student to suicide, data also shows that just being a part of a college campus community protects many young people from following through with suicide. According to numerous studies, college students are less likely to die by suicide than their peers who aren’t attending college.

Responsibility Without Authority

But preventing all suicides on college campuses may not be possible no matter how much money or time institutions invest in such efforts, said Paul D. Polychronis, a psychologist and director emeritus of the counseling center at the University of Central Missouri.

That’s in part because usually “the suicidal person doesn’t view suicide as the problem, they view it as the solution. A lot of times they’ll try to evade systems or persons who will deprive them of that solution,” Polychronis said. “I’ve had suicidal students deny that they’re suicidal. It’s a power struggle.”

That reality puts colleges and universities in a “challenging” position, he added.

“Higher ed and all of its employees are given the responsibility to prevent suicide on campus without the authority to accomplish that,” Polychronis said. “To bring the suicide rate to zero would require a degree of social control over everyone in the campus community that would be nightmarish to most people.”

Maureen Banavige, whose son Ronan would be 23 by now if he had lived, doesn’t expect to eliminate all suicides on college campuses. She just wants to prevent as many as possible.

“Can you eradicate all car accidents? No. But can you reduce the number? Absolutely,” she said. “Ask any family who has lost someone to suicide if one prevented death makes a difference and they’d say absolutely.”

If you or someone you know are in crisis or considering suicide and need help, call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 9-8-8, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.