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Comments made by the
President, I have been seriously impressed with the work of John Byrnes at the Center for Aggression Management. And, as many of you know, I don't impress easily. There is a lot of snake oil being sold to protect our campuses right now. On behalf of the 15 campuses represented by NCHERM as legal counsel, I have undertaken the effort to separate the wheat from the chaff. Who can really help us? Who can do what they say. Gavin de Becker can, but the approach is sophisticated and may not be cost effective for some campuses. Korem's work is based on profiling, and I fear a backlash to that because threat assessment is at a level beyond profiling. We have to be able to sell this process to our communities, or there will be a Big Brother backlash. I find the Carver + Shock approach difficult to translate into higher education, but it is well-respected in the military and food service applications. Still more impressive to me is John's work, based on the idea that threat assessment assumes the presence of a threat already, and may therefore be too late. His work is based instead on the concept of aggression, identifying it and measuring it, and responding accordingly. With respect to disruptive students and those whose behavior raises mental health concerns, this measure is exactly what we need. I have recommended John to each of my clients, and have been impressed enough to work collaboratively on a model for higher education with John (http://www.ncherm.org/pdfs/2008-whitepaper.pdf). I want to get his work into wide circulation in our field. I think he can help us to save lives.
Regards, Contact us at: JohnByrnes@AggressionManagement.com
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