Aggression Management Expert Provides Tips to Prevent Campus Violence

Madison, Wis.—March 14, 2008 — Although conflict resolution and crisis management are important parts of campus safety, they’re useful only after a conflict or crisis occurs. A March 14 online seminar introduced more than 50 campuses to the idea of “aggression management,” or identifying and diffusing aggressors before they act.

“I don’t want to diminish from the fact that it’s important to invest in threat assessment and conflict resolution should threats and conflicts occur, but they don’t bring prevention to the table,” said John D. Byrnes, founder of the Center for Aggression Management and a copresenter of the seminar.

Identifying signs of aggression is not like profiling, Byrnes emphasized. Profiling is not only controversial, it is ineffective, he said. Reports from the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education note, for example, that “[t]here is no accurate or useful profile of a school shooter, nor for assessing the risk that a particular student may pose for school-based, targeted violence.”

Managing aggression, on the other hand, looks for and responds to behavioral signs that are observable but haven’t yet escalated into violence.

During the seminar, Byrnes detailed signs of aggression in two types of aggressors: primal aggressors (red-faced and ready-to-explode) and cognitive aggressors (cold, detached, and determined).

Response to aggressors depends on not only the type of aggressor but how far the aggressor is along a continuum of aggression. Byrnes introduced a model of that continuum during the seminar.

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

Magna Publications is a leading publisher of newsletters and other information products in the higher education segment. Magna also manages onsite and online conferences on topics of interest to higher education.

For more information please contact David Burns, Publisher, Magna Publications, Inc., at 608-227-8109, or dburns@magnapubs.com.