Safety task force finalizes suggestions

Criminal background checks and stronger verification procedures are just some of the recommendations released Dec. 14 by a UNC-system safety task force.

The task force was created by system President Molly Broad after two students were murdered at UNC-Wilmington last year.

Committee Chairman Robert Kanoy, UNC-system senior associate vice president for academic and student affairs, said task force members spent the majority of their time reviewing application procedures. “Most of the attention has been focused on the pre-admissions process,” he said.

Steve Farmer, chairman of the panel’s admissions subcommittee and director of admissions at UNC-Chapel Hill, said system schools are looking to standardize the questions they ask about their applicants’ criminal and punitive histories.

“They are on their honor to explain to us anything related to their disciplinary history,” he said.

But schools would not be required to rely on applicants’ honesty.

Stronger verification procedures, such as a database of all students who have faced disciplinary action at any of the 16 system schools, also would safeguard against the admittance of students prone to violence.

Farmer said admissions offices will check criminal backgrounds if applications have significant omissions or raise suspicions.

“That might signal to us that we need to check a student’s background more emphatically.”

The task force’s recommendations also extended to accepted students. Its environment subcommittee, headed by Garrie Moore, vice chancellor for student affairs at UNC-W, focused more on the status of campus safety.

“They were concerned with what is actually going on in the campus community and what campuses can do once students are on campus,” Farmer said.

Campus safety committees, much like those already in place at many system schools, would be created or reinforced. Also, faculty would be trained to spot troubling behavior.

Finally, students facing judicial action would not be allowed to withdraw from school to avoid disciplinary action.

To prevent these safety recommendations from fading into the background of everyday campus life, Kanoy said, the committee periodically will meet to re-examine safety issues.

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.