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RESOURCES
FOR HIGHER
EDUCATION
Newsletters:
The Role of Student Mental Health in Campus Safety Policy
Madison, Wis.—July 25 — Following the April 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, there were calls for campuses to identify and “weed out” potentially dangerous students—some even went so far as to suggest campuses should remove any student with a mental illness.
Although campuses can and should respond to threatening student behavior, “profiling” and automatic dismissal practices are usually ineffective—and run counter to higher education’s mission, says Gary Pavela, higher education law and policy expert, during a July 25 online seminar.
More than 100 institutions attended the seminar “Teaching Troubled Students: Institutional Policy and Threat Assessment.” During this event, Pavela used data and examples to show:
• why attempting to “profile” dangerous students often doesn’t work
• why a student with a mental illness doesn’t automatically constitute a safety threat
• how campuses can respond to students who do indeed demonstrate threatening behavior
The seminar also included a “memorandum to faculty,” which campuses can adapt to their institutions and use to help faculty understand the distinctions between mentally ill, disruptive, and dangerous students.
If you missed the July 25 discussion, click here to purchase a CD or transcript of the presentation at our online store.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.
