As a member of ETSU’s threat assessment team, mental-health critical incident response team, and as chair of CARE team, Dean of Students Michelle Byrd highly prioritizes campus and student safety.
“I feel very responsible for students to feel like ETSU is a safe environment for them to study and work and live in,” Byrd said. “If I see a concern arise, I want to be very thoughtful, sensitive and quick to respond.”
For safety concerns that are not considered pressing emergencies, which public safety will take the lead on, Byrd said that evaluating the issue using the different safety-response teams is standard procedure. Depending on the level of severity, a different team will take the lead.
The CARE team is a behavioral intervention team of 15 members from different areas of campus like public safety, the University Health Center, counseling center and housing. Of the three, it focuses on issues with the least overall risk to student safety.
The CARE team meets once every two weeks to confidentially discuss concerning student behavior or situations. Then, the team will take a multi-disciplinary approach to construct a plan that would best help the student in question or rectify the situation at hand.
A step above the CARE team is the threat assessment team. Byrd shares that this team convenes very rarely, as the team handles dangerous situations that could lead to the harm of others. These situations are not limited to ETSU’s students or campus, the team also works with situations with visitors or others in the near vicinity of the university community.
The threat assessment team is made up of seven members. When the team convenes, they discuss what they know about a certain situation, gather more information from campus sources as well as research, and then will determine their next steps.
Byrd said that next steps depend on the circumstances; sometimes the team will decide to keep an eye on the situation, take intervention action or decide to pull in their campus partners or outside partners.
A step further from the threat assessment team is the mental-health critical incident response team, which Byrd said meets even less than the threat assessment team.
“If we were to have a significant incident that impacted, let’s say, hundreds of students, if not our entire campus, then that’s when I would need the help of that [mental-health critical incident response team],” Byrd said.
The MH-CIRT team coordinates mental health resources for a large-scale, tragic event.
“What it’s really for is to say we need all hands on deck,” Byrd said.
Byrd shares that the procedures of these teams are always influenced by situations arising on ETSU’s campus, as well as on campuses nation-wide.
“Many of the things we’re dealing with here other universities are dealing with,” Byrd said. “We learn from each other, and that’s a good thing, because we learn what works and learn what doesn’t work.”
For scale, Byrd shares that the top violation she receives reports of is a violation of general rules, which makes up about 60-70% of all those reported.
“A violation of general rules can be something as simple as not taking your trash out,” Byrd said.
Byrd notes the success of their current safety procedures and response teams, but hopes that there are always opportunities to improve for the betterment of the ETSU community.
“Student safety is a priority here, because if students don’t feel safe we can’t operate and they can’t operate and be successful,” Byrd said. “I know that if students have concerns we need to listen to those, and I want students to know that my door is always open.”
Students may also submit CARE reports anonymously online by visiting www.etsu.edu/students/dean-students/care.php, or a confidential silent witness report by visiting https://www.etsu.edu/dps/bucsreportit.php.
