Team prevents violence at UW

by Anthony Morgano

Tuesday, February 26, 2008 01:07

In the wake of campus shootings at Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech, a University of Wisconsin advisory committee says it has stopped potential threats from advancing in Madison.

The Threat Assessment Response Team is “charged with trying to assess specific threats that an individual might pose to others in the campus community and develop a response plan,” said Kevin Helmkamp, assistant dean and co-chair of TART.

The committee says it has recorded several successful interventions upon identifying threatening behavior. Success in this area is difficult to measure, but perhaps success can be defined by what has not happened, Helmkamp said.

“We’re living in a world of damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” Helmkamp said.

The shootings at NIU as well as Virginia Tech have helped the committee to learn a lot, and Helmkamp said he is confident the committee will continue to learn more.

“Northern Illinois triggered a chance to go back and review people,” Helmkamp said. “We try to pay attention to anything that might be a trigger to any activity.”

The committee is comprised of representatives from academic and classified personnel, UW police, University Housing, the Offices of the Dean of Students and the University Health Services counseling center, among others.

According to Helmkamp, all of these are considered “natural points of contact if somebody demonstrates a threat.”

“I think one of the big challenges … is that the flags weren’t raised,” UW Director of Counseling Services Dr. Robert McGrath said in reference to the recent shootings at Northern Illinois University.

He added that while early intervention is key, the perpetrator at NIU was thought by many to be an ideal student and unlikely to be considered a threat by any counseling center.

“One of the goals of the committee … is to try and connect the dots when something is reported to us,” Helmkamp said. “The makeup of the committee allows for a variety of entry points from which to identify individuals that may pose a threat.”

McGrath said UW receives an appropriate level of funding to deal with analyzing potential threats.

“I’d say we’re OK, we’re comfortable,” McGrath said. “It’d be nice if we could expand, but we balance our needs versus not wanting to impose more cost on students.”

He added funding for counseling services at UW comes from a general university fund as well as the student health services fee.

The ability of the counseling center at the university was discussed last this past weekend at the 2008 Big Ten Counseling Centers Conference hosted by UW.

“We’re right up there with the standard,” said McGrath, comparing Wisconsin to the other Big Ten universities, citing TART as an idea shared by the other schools in the conference.

However, TARTt is still a relatively young group.

“It’s a difficult committee … because of the topics and situations we respond to,” Helmkamp said. “We’re still learning about all the things we need to know, but we’re more attentive than a year ago, and I’m confident that in a year from now we’ll be even better at it.”