Balancing Safety and Support on Campus: A GUIDE FOR CAMPUS TEAMS

Introduction

For the full downloadable report visit: http://hemha.org/campus_teams_guide.pdf

Across the country, millions of college students navigate a path through their college years,
experiencing the ups and downs associated with the transitions of late adolescence and early adulthood. For
the majority of these students, college life is bound to include temporary distress over academic failures,
financial pressures, roommate disputes, worries about a post-collegiate future, or an acutely painful break-up.
These challenging episodes may be intense and difficult when they occur, but generally cause no lasting harm
and little disruption in a college trajectory.
For others, though, the college years will coincide with far more serious problems that can be destructive
for those who experience them, as well as those around them. These may be problems students bring with
them to college that are exacerbated during these years, or problems that are newly manifested or diagnosed
on campus. Significant alcohol and drug abuse, mental health issues such as depression or anxiety, personality
disorders, various forms of self-injury (such as cutting), eating disorders, stalking behaviors, and suicide or
violence against others fall into this category.
Whether a campus is rural or urban, large or small, private or public, community/technical or four-year
traditional, administrators within institutions of higher education face difficult decisions about how to
respond to these problems as they arise among members of the campus community. Even though campus
officials may have grappled with similar questions for decades, they have done so with increasing urgency and
scrutiny in the wake of lethal campus shootings over the last decade. The most violent episodes — such as
shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Northern Illinois University in 2008 — have drawn the most anguish
and media attention, sparking more formal campus efforts to anticipate and respond to threats. In fact, in
these two states, state laws now mandate that public campuses convene formal teams to assess and respond
to potentially violent threats, with more states expected to follow their lead.
While dramatic and tragic, the loss of life and extreme violence associated with events like those in Virginia
and Illinois are quite rare. Violence on campus draws attention and headlines, but overall, the incidence of
violent crime is generally lower on campus than off campus (The Academy for Critical Incident Analysis,
2010a). While the prevention of campus violence may have been the catalyst for improving coordination and
communication across campus departments with the creation of “campus teams,” breaking down silos has
other benefits. The creation of campus teams that identify and monitor students whose behaviors may be
troubling is an opportunity to engage them sooner rather than later, so that they can receive needed referrals
or other appropriate assistance and treatment.
Despite post-Virginia Tech improvements in coordination and communication on many campuses, the
position of campus teams is a somewhat tricky balancing act, with few formulas or rules to follow that apply to
every case. Fundamentally, assessing each individual situation to devise an appropriate, case-by-case response
has become the essential role for campus teams.
As campus teams have become more widespread, the Higher Education Mental Health Alliance (HEMHA)
recognized the need for a resource that would help both existing and new teams make informed decisions about
their structure, scope, functions, and day-to-day operations. This guide summarizes the existing literature