News Archive | Oct, 2009

For colleges and universities, it is always a challenge: balancing the desire to welcome the public to campus events with the need to protect the safety of the school community.  The stabbing death early Sunday of University of Connecticut football cornerback Jasper Howard has put the spotlight on this longtime source of tension.

STORRS, Conn. - The crimes have been stacking up all year: A Wesleyan University student gunned down at a bookstore cafe, a student at Spelman College felled by a stray bullet, a suspected drug dealer shot to death in a Harvard residence hall. In just the short time since the fall semester began, a Yale graduate student was strangled and a UCLA student was repeatedly stabbed in a chemistry lab.

Steven Healy, MH&A Managing Partner, will be an instructor at the 2009 Clery Act training presented by Security On Campus, Inc. in partnership with University of Southern California, Department of Public Safety, Los Angeles, CA on October 26 -27, 2009.

Dr. Margolis and Mr. Healy will be featured presenters at the 2009 UVM Legal Issues in Higher Education Conference from October 18 - 20, 2009. Dr. Margolis will be participating in sessions on the 4th Amendment Search & Seizure Issues on Campus and Weapons on Campus.  Dr. Margolis, Mr. Healy and Attorney Jeffrey Nolan will be leading the post conference discussion on Emerging Issues in Campus Safety.

Managing Partner Steven J. Healy joins a panel of other FERPA experts on Thursday October 22, 2009 for a daylong discussion to discuss the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) Final Rules that went into effect January 8, 2009.

October 15, 2009 - College campus security professionals in the Washington region are taking a closer look at plans for threat assessment. The goal: to avoid tragedies like 2007’s Virginia Tech shooting.

Approximately 200 security personnel, clinical physiologists, and school administrators attended this training seminar at Gallaudet University. It’s an effort designed to create greater awareness for the signs of potential campus violence before it happens.

Lt. Virginia Fiedel is an investigator with the security detail at Gallaudet University. She says the workshop’s focus on behavioral threat assessment is key.

“Well we’ve had a team so this will allow us to revisit the systems that we have in place and to asses and make adjustments where needed. But I think it’s far more useful for universities that don’t have a behavioral assessment team in place yet,” said Fiedel.

Additional seminars are planned for other areas around the U.S., all funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Elliott Francis reports…

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