What's BRisk, baby?

UAlbany doesn't provide a lot of information about their BRisk and CUBIT groups:

"BRisk - Behavior Risk Assessment Committee: In the Spring of 2008, President George Phillip appointed a Behavior Risk Assessment Committee (called BRisk); a critical decision-making and advisory group responsible for ensuring that the necessary risk assessment policies and programs are in place for the campus community. The membership of this group extends across the Divisions of Student Success and Academic Affairs and is chaired by Associate Vice President for Student Success, John Murphy. The responsibilities of BRisk are critical to ensuring that our University community takes every step possible to prevent violence on our campus and adequately prepares to handle emergency situations effectively."

"CUBIT - College/University Behavior Intervention Team: was developed in the Spring of 2008 as an ad hoc supplement to the BRisk Team. CUBIT is an early intervention team of six who meet regularly to 'track' red flag behaviors with the intent on providing skilled threat assessment and intervention. CUBIT and its membership operate within the legal parameters of New York State law (HIPAA and FERPA) and University policy."

http://www.albany.edu/cas/docs/2012-chairs-manual%20compiled.doc

Why was "track" put in quotation marks? Some UAlbany administrators have an odd habit of using quotation marks excessively.

CUBIT is not something ex-"President" "George Phillip [sic]", Murphy or McNeill created. It was created by the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management: http://www.ncherm.org/pdfs/CUBITModel.pdf NCHERM had visited UAlbany February 27, 2007 http://www.ncherm.org/about/campus-visit-schedule/past-schedule/ The University at Albany has used NCHERM's services (which ones?) more than once (when, for what, and at what cost?): http://www.ncherm.org/about/ncherm-client-list/.

NCHERM does get a little mention on UAlbany's website in the 2011-2012 Briefing Book, a document resembling many rotten newspapers these days (or rotten student papers) with large graphics, clip art, wide margins, large fonts, etc.:

"Changes to the code of conduct based on Title IX issues were presented to and approved by the University Council. Conflict Resolution staff along with two experienced conduct board members attended a conference facilitated by two national experts with NCHERM on Title IX issues. Conflict Resolution staff attended the annual Statewide Conduct Administrator's [sic] Conference at which a workshop wasfacilitated by SUNY System Administration Assistant Counsel on Title IX issues. Conflict Resolution staff joined SUNY-Wide Title IX list-serv." http://www.albany.edu/studentsuccess/assessment/BriefingBook/UAlbany%20Briefing%20Book%2011-12.pdf

Otherwise, here again is a case of UAlbany plagiarizing others' work. NCHERM is not terribly concerned about their intellectual property, seemingly, but when a secretive group that's supposed to enforce rules, policies, laws, etc. violates some of those things... that seems a problem. When a university's judicial administrator, charged with handling plagiarism cases, is a willing participant in plagiarism for five years in a row or so... well, it doesn't exactly look good.

Some formatting changes, removal of e-mail addresses, parts of signatures, etc.:

From: Brett Sokolow

Subject: Re: citing NCHERM?

Date: August 21, 2012 1:15:12 PM EDT

To: Christopher Philippo, Cori Sokolow

Universities use our materials without citing, all the time. We're not huge sticklers on it, but I will send a note if it's obvious to me. If they are misusing it, I would want to know and would address it.

Regards,

Brett A. Sokolow

Brett A. Sokolow, Esq.

Attorney-at-Law

Chair, The NCHERM Group (www.thenchermgroup.org) Managing Partner, The National Center for Higher Education Risk Management (www.ncherm.org)

Executive Director, The National Behavioral Intervention Team Association (www.nabita.org)

Executive Director, The Association of Title IX Administrators (www.atixa.org)

[...]

"Best Practices for Campus Health and Safety"

NCHERM serves as legal counsel/advisor to 30 campuses

From: Christopher Philippo

Date: Tuesday, August 21, 2012 1:02 PM

To: Brett Sokolow, [Cori M. Sokolow]

Subject: citing NCHERM?

"access to our intellectual property is free of charge. All we ask is that you cite NCHERM as the source for any materials you use or adapt from us." http://ncherm.org/resources/free-model-policies-and-protocols/

I wonder how much of a stickler you might be about being credited; if a university were using your intellectual property without citing NCHERM as its source, would you want to know? If a university appeared to be misusing your intellectual property would you want to know?

I did follow up, but Mr. Sokolow evidently didn't care about his materials being plagiarized or misused, nor is he evidently much concerned about universities threatening students, etc.

From my follow-up:

Anyway, to get back to what you had written: universities would penalize students who use materials without citing. Oftentimes, people who would be involved in penalizing students for plagiarism are people who might be involved with risk management or behavior intervention teams. It would be unseemly for anyone at a university, but particularly anyone involved in governing academic integrity, to use your materials without citing you once, much less failing to do so all the time. I get the appeal of "creative commons" and the like; I'd once had somebody translate "information wants to be free" into Latin for me as a sort of motto. However, there's another part to that saying that can't be ignored.

If a university misuses your materials, and cites you, or doesn't cite you but there are people outside of the university who realize they're using your materials, then people might gain a false impression of how your materials are actually meant to be used, I would think. Overall, it seems to me there's many reasons to be more particular about whether people are using your materials without citing, or whether people may be misusing your materials.

If members of a risk management and/or behavioral intervention team have questionable or contradictory resumes, CVs, credentials, or other background materials, that would seem to indicate a risk to me. Are background checks typically performed on the members of such teams?

Do such teams typically create annual (or more frequent) reports, or are their activities and their membership more often a complete secret, even outside the reach of FOIA or other records access laws?

I ask, naturally enough, because there's at least one university which uses your materials without citing you, which has members of at least one of its teams who have questionable or contradictory backgrounds, which does not create reports and which (apart from one team in a report that I had to look for some time before I found it) does not even identify the members of the team, how they're appointed, etc.

Sometimes some members of the team take actions without the knowledge of the other members, which has included, for example, prohibiting a student to file records access requests entirely (FOIA, FOIL, Personal Privacy Protection Law, FERPA, etc.), to report anything to the campus police, to speak to a librarian, or to seek counseling at the counseling center, etc. (while still permitting the student to go to on campus), and which had also threatened the student's mother in writing, even.

I don't think you're responsible for it, and I'd like to think your interest in risk management and behavioral intervention is genuinely motivated out of concern for preventing Virginia Tech-type events big and small. If you're the sort of threatening-of-whistleblowers risk management for which the university I'm discussing uses your materials, I might as well give up now.

So: what might you recommend for a whistleblower who's being threatened by (some) members of a team that uses your materials but then perverts them? The threats have included telling the student and the student's mother, in writing, that they will not do anything about a professor the student reported for academic dishonesty, sexual harassment, and plagiarism, but they did send that professor the home address of the student and the student's mother. They also send a "warning" in writing that there is a "need to forget about" the professor. They also let the professor file a false police report in which it appears he was trying to have the whistleblower shot - the day after he learned he'd been reported, for what, and by whom and the police closed it without investigating as "no crime," and largely buried it. The report also mentions the professor contacted his union representative and that the e-mail was forwarded to the police, but by whom and to what purpose is not indicated.

The professor's wife is a prominent union official who's been involved with threatening local school districts if they don't hire back, for example, someone who endangered children and then threatened to have the whistleblower murdered. She's also mentioned in some articles about the Steven Raucci case: a union official who'd engaged in a decades-long campaign of terrorizing a school, including sexual abuse and firebombings.

The FBI have written (but maybe they write this to everyone), in part: "After a review of your submitted tip, it appears you may be able to pursue your complaint through a civil process/court action. […] Please seek advice from a lawyer/ legal representative." Lawyers, however, are for the rich only. $15,000 retainer, six figure litigation, for example, had been quoted. It's not clear the FBI will investigate, although it would be within their purview. The Department of Education is investigating, but the university hasn't responded to them yet.

Shall I continue?

"Ask John Murphy for BRISK [sic] magnets"! http://www.albany.edu/uup/pdfs/LM_minutes_12-12-11.pdf