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2:04 AM / Friday July 11, 2025

13 Sep 2019

Head of counseling at Penn dies in suicide

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September 13, 2019 Category: Local Posted by:

By Elin Johnson

www.insidehighered.com

Gregory Eells, executive director of counseling and psychological services at the University of Pennsylvania, died by suicide early Monday morning.

​Eells, 52, had been in the position for six months. Previously he was at Cornell University for nearly a decade, and before that at the University of Southern Mississippi.

The incident occurred around 6:40 a.m. and was ruled a suicide by the medical examiner’s office. Eells jumped from the 17th floor of a building.

Police reported no note was left. Eells’s mother Jeanette Eells-Rich told The Philadelphia Inquirer that her son had complained about the demands and stress of his new job at Penn, and how it kept him from his wife and three children.

Eells joined the Penn staff in March after his appointment in January, following the university’s nine-month search.

In an email to the campus community, the vice provost and associate vice provost expressed condolences to Eells’s family and provided information to counseling resources available.

Since 2013, 14 students have died by suicide at the University of Pennsylvania. A study last year found that one in five college students had suicidal thoughts over the past year.

Over the past 10 years, the CAPS programs at Penn have expanded tremendously. Students, parents, faculty and staff at Penn had become more involved in the discussions around counseling and mental health following the deaths. Advocacy groups have formed and new systems have been put in place.

Eells was described by his former colleagues as “transformational” and praised by Penn students who worked closely with him.

In 2012 while Eells was at Cornell, the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors awarded Eells the lifetime achievement award for his work with university health care systems.

The American College Health Association President Katrin Wesner-Harts of the University of North Carolina Wilmington provided the following statement on behalf of the organization with which Eells was affiliated:

“Dr. Greg Eells was a beloved member of the ACHA community. He was a champion for mental health and was a resource to many, including as a past chair of the ACHA Mental Health Section.

His death reminds us of the importance of improving the mental health and well-being of our nation’s students and the caregivers that serve them. We 

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