The UW Board of Regents heard an update on the progress of the 2007 President's Commission on University Security at their meeting Friday.
Our security message to families and students as they return to our campuses for this new academic year is this: 'When you step onto a UW System campus you can be assured that you're in one of the safest places in Wisconsin,'"" said Kevin Reilly, UW System president.
""But that doesn't mean that we'll ever stop trying to make them even safer.""
Reilly appointed the security commission in April following the tragedy at Virginia Tech University. The commission was chaired by UW Police Department Police Chief Sue Riesling to review the safety and security of campuses across the state.
Riesling reported the findings of the commission at the Regents meeting in July. At that meeting, Reilly asked Don Mash, UW System executive senior vice president, to compile further recommendations for the Regents, which were reported Friday.
As part of Mash's report, Reilly said Gov. Jim Doyle's Campus Security Task Force and its recently issued interim report will be reviewed closely by the Regents.
""That report was focused on best practices both in Wisconsin and around the country,"" he said. ""We eagerly await now the final review of the Governor's Task Force, which we will review before completing our own.""
Mash said the reports recently released by the Virginia Tech campus and by an independent panel appointed by Virginia's governor are also under review.
Reilly said the key finding in the Virginia governor's report was that ""in order to advance public safety and meet public needs, Virginia's colleges and universities need to work together as a coordinated system of state supported institutions.""
""We're already doing that in Wisconsin,"" he said. ""This is one of the virtues of having the kind of structure that we do here where we can work together.""
There are 17 individual recommendations the Regents are looking into, according to Mash. Accepted recommendations include dealing with awareness campaigns, advanced training for intervention, the distribution of campus safety information and a number of post-incident responses.
Riesling said the training of review teams was the most important recommendation in the report, adding the UW-Madison review team said it wanted more training.
""We've got to know what's out there, so that we can react and we can plan,"" Riesling said. ""If we do nothing else, we've got to do this one.""
She said UW-Madison's review teams, one to review student behavior and one for staff behavior, have been merged for a ""collective radar screen.""
Riesling said UW-Madison already has incidents the review team is actively pursuing.
""The school year for us is four days old. We have six cases in front of our review team right now,"" she said. ""We're talking about people who want to do violence to either themselves or to other people and actively are seeking to do that.""
Riesling did not comment further, but said the cases are being actively investigated.
""Campus security is of paramount concern to me and to the rest of the UW System, and we'll continue to do everything we can to prevent incidents like the one that happened at Virginia Tech last April,"" Reilly said.
