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The Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va., forever changed after the events of April 16, 2007.
A student, Seung-Hui Cho, gunned down 27 students and five faculty members before killing himself.
Vice President of Student Affairs Lee Bird said shortly after the Virginia Tech incident, OSU expanded its Threat Assessment Team and renamed it the Behavioral Consultation Team.
The team is a specially trained group of professional staff members from several university departments with mental health, student development, law enforcement, academic, administrative and legal expertise, according to its Web site.
The team investigates and evaluates threats and other concerning behavior and implements strategies for managing individuals that might pose a threat of harm, according to the BCT Web site.
“The shift came with Virginia Tech,” Bird said. “If people had talked about some of the behaviors or saw what was going on, perhaps someone could have intervened earlier, better and more strongly to prevent the incident.”
Bird said consulting the BCT is not simply a way to rat out a roommate who has been drinking beer in a dorm room. It’s when a student, faculty or staff member drastically changes their behavior or starts “acting out.”
“But, if we believe a person poses a threat to themselves, to others or even to property of the university — a bomb or something — then that’s where we would try to intervene,” Bird said.
The team meets about twice a month to discuss any cases that arise, she said.
Bird said more cases come up since the expansion of the team but they don’t necessarily require dramatic action.
Typically, someone will call the hotline to tip the team off on a potential threat and an initial report is filed regarding the individual, Bird said. If the individual in question has violated the code of conduct or a law, the proper authorities will deal with them. Many times, it just takes an in-person discussion with the individual to see what happened or how their actions were perceived, Bird said.
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