Centralized Database Helps Track Student Behavior Concerns

Madison, Wis.—February 29, 2008 — A College or University Behavioral Response Team (CUBIT) can coordinate a campus’ response to a distressed or potentially violent student. But how can it best centralize the information it needs to make good decisions if the signs of a student’s distress are scattered across campus?

During a recent online seminar, Stephanie Hughes, founder of RiskAware, walked participants through her company’s internet-based reporting platform, which helps staff, faculty, and students report concerning incidents. The goal of RiskAware’s platform or similar resources is to help administrators “better connect the dots of information that they get in bits and pieces,” Hughes said.

But wouldn’t this be the start of Big Brotherism on campus, with community members “telling” on one another?

No, said co-presenter Brett Sokolow, president of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management. An internet collection system would be “merely a new vehicle for collecting information that we have been assimilating and amassing for years,” he said. Campuses already gather and share such information with student conduct officers and law enforcement, for example, and resident assistants and faculty members are already encouraged to report signs of student distress, he said.

The difference is that the information would be centralized so a response team would be aware of a student’s distress more quickly and be better able to offer the appropriate help or response. “What we’d be doing is centralizing that collection of information, but not asking in any way, shape, or form, for something new,” he said.

If you missed the live event, you can order the program in CD or transcript format, both of which include the presenters' handouts.

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