A behavioral threat assessment team on campus is only as good as the decisions leadership makes about it before the first referral arrives. Most universities have a team on paper. Fewer have one that gets the right people in the room, gets the right information to them, makes consistent decisions and follows through. When a team fails, the failure is rarely a lack of effort. It is almost always a structural problem that a president, provost or board could have fixed.
What the Team Is For
A threat assessment team does not predict who will become violent. It looks at behavior that has come to someone’s attention, decides whether it suggests a person is moving toward harm to themselves or others, and organizes a response that reduces that risk. The focus is on concerning behavior and context, not on a profile. That focus matters, because profiles are unreliable and tend to be unfair.
The response is not always discipline or removal. Often it is support: a conversation, a referral, a change in circumstances, a check-in schedule. A team that can only punish will stop receiving reports, because faculty and staff will not refer a student they believe will be thrown out. The team has to be seen as a way to help people as well as protect the community.
Get the Right People at the Table
Composition decides what the team can see. At a minimum, I would expect representation from campus police or security, student conduct or student affairs, counseling or behavioral health, human resources for employee cases, and legal counsel as an advisor. Add academic affairs, residence life, disability services and information technology as needed. Each brings a different piece of the picture, and no single office has all of it.
Name a chair with authority and a backup. Name members by role, not just by person, so that a vacancy does not leave a gap. Set a regular meeting schedule and a rapid process for urgent cases. Teams that meet only when a crisis is already underway are not assessing threats. They are reacting to them.
Include employees and non-affiliated individuals in scope. A campus faces concerns about students, staff, faculty, contractors, former students, and visitors, and the team’s authority and process should cover all of them. A team built only around students will miss a large share of the real risk.
The Information-Sharing Problem
The most common reason a team is blind is that information is trapped in different offices, each believing it cannot share. Privacy laws are real, and they are also misunderstood. FERPA, the federal law on student education records, includes an exception that allows disclosure in a health or safety emergency under defined conditions, and the U.S. Department of Education has published guidance on how threat assessment teams can work within it. HIPAA likewise has provisions that allow certain disclosures to prevent a serious and imminent threat. Neither is a blanket permission, and both have conditions.
State law adds another layer, and requirements differ by state and by institution type. The point for leaders is not to memorize the statutes. It is to have counsel prepare, in advance, clear guidance on what may be shared, with whom, and under what circumstances, and to train team members on it. Do this before a case arrives. A team that has to ask permission from three lawyers during an active concern has already lost time. This is not legal advice, and your counsel should confirm what applies to you.
Set Thresholds Before You Need Them
Teams drift when they have no shared standard. One case is escalated because a member is nervous. A similar case is closed because the member is tired. Write down the kinds of behavior that trigger a referral, the criteria for opening a case, and the levels of concern that determine how fast and how far the response goes. Use a structured approach with a recognized framework, and make sure the team applies it the same way each time.
Give the community a simple way to report, and tell them what to report. Faculty, residence staff, coaches, coworkers and classmates see behavior long before an official does. They need to know that a report is welcome, that someone will respond, and that the matter is handled carefully. Anonymous reporting helps. So does feedback to the person who reported, within the limits of privacy.
Follow-Through Is Where Teams Fail
Many cases end with a meeting and a plan, and nothing after. A plan needs an owner, a deadline and a date to review. Picture a student whose behavior caused concern in the fall, who agreed to a support plan, and whose case was closed. Nobody checks in during the spring when stress rises, and the plan has quietly expired. The team did its work, but the risk outlived the paperwork.
Build monitoring into every open case. Assign a case manager. Schedule re-evaluation. Track transitions, such as a change in housing, a disciplinary decision, a failed class, a break between terms, or a separation from the institution. Those moments often matter more than the original report. And when a person leaves the institution, decide who is responsible for any continuing concern.
Documentation That Stands Up
Document the reason for each decision, the information considered, who participated, and what action followed. Write it so that a reasonable reader a year later can see why the team did what it did. Keep notes factual. Keep case files secure and separate from general records, and set clear rules for who may access them. Good documentation protects the people in the case, the members of the team and the institution, and it lets leadership see whether the team is applying its standards consistently.
Some states require campus threat assessment teams or related processes, and some funding and accreditation expectations touch the subject. Because these obligations differ across states and institution types, ask your counsel which apply to you and confirm that your team’s structure meets them.
Test the Team
Security is only assumed until it is tested. Run tabletop exercises using realistic, anonymous scenarios and see how the team performs. Does the right information arrive? Do members hesitate over privacy? Does the chair make a decision? Does anyone own the follow-up? Audit a sample of closed cases for consistency and for follow-through. Ask the community whether they know how to report, and what they would expect to happen. The results will tell you whether you have a functioning team or a list of names.
Who Owns It
The team needs an executive sponsor, usually at the vice-presidential level, who protects its independence, resources it properly and receives regular reports on its work in aggregate. It should not be left to whichever department happens to host it. Leadership owns the mandate, the training, the budget and the expectation that the team’s recommendations will be taken seriously. The team owns the assessment. Keeping those roles distinct is what allows the team to make honest calls under pressure.
Go Deeper
Many campuses lack a senior security leader who can connect police, student affairs, counseling and counsel into one working process. What Is a Fractional Security Director? The Complete Guide describes how that leadership can be provided on a part-time basis. For the longer treatment, read Fractional Security Director.
Commissioner William Epps is a former elected Fire Commissioner, federal law-enforcement supervisor, and firefighter since 2006, with instructor credentials in Hazardous Materials response, Active Shooter preparedness, and Stop the Bleed®. He spent seven years in federal law enforcement in physical security, executive protection, and incident command, and now serves organizations as a Fractional Security Director. He is the author of The Spirit of Saul, The Spirit of Pharaoh, and other practical books on security, leadership, and faith, built around one idea: knowledge should be practical enough to use when it matters.
Leave a Reply