Distressed or disturbed students’ behavior at University System of Maryland schools will be monitored to ensure campus safety under a new measure passed Friday by the Board of Regents.
The measure could face a tangle of laws that limit how much medical information can be considered private, and how much can be accessed by the behavioral assessment teams. It is one of several recommendations from a panel headed by former Gov. Marvin Mandel, a Board of Regents member, that Attorney General Douglas Gansler is reviewing.
“We’re faced with a real problem here,” Mandel said. “It’s growing every day.”
The board formed the panel this past December to study campus security at the system’s schools after tragedies took place at campuses throughout the country.
At Virginia Tech University, officials could have averted the worst massacre in U.S. history with better communication, according to an August 2007 report by the state.
The student shot and killed himself and 32 others in April 2007, years after he had been found mentally ill by a Virginia court.
The report from Mandel’s panel is intended to ensure campuses are prepared for emergencies of all kinds, including fires, inclement weather and terrorist attacks.
It requires the 11 universities in the Maryland system to submit every year to the regents board emergency preparedness plans that are tailored to their campus. The first plans are due in less than four months.
And while many schools after the Virginia Tech shooting started using text messages to alert students and faculty about emergencies, one of the largest problems facing schools is that most professors do not participate in the program, said Bob Mitchell, a Board of Regents and panel member.
The report calls for universities to not only communicate better with their students, faculty and employees, but says schools should improve communication between each other, as well.
“If you don’t involve the students, you lose the game,” Mandel said. “You have to involve the students; you have to involve the faculty; you have to involve the employees.”
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