Saunie Schuster, Partner, and Jeremy Inabinet, Affiliated Consultant, invited to provide training and consultation for grantees at the Department of Justice Violence Against Women Training

Saunie Schuster, Partner, and Jeremy Inabinet, Affiliated Consultant, invited to provide training and consultation for grantees at the annual Department of Justice Violence Against Women Technical Training Institute in New Orleans.

NCHERM Group President & CEO, Brett Sokolow, quoted in New Republic

Sexual Assault at God's Harvard

“As a private campus, it’s outside of federal influence. They can do whatever they want,” says Brett Sokolow, an attorney and president of the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management. “If you’re a female student, and you elect to enroll at a campus that does not provide any of the federal protections that attach to other colleges and universities, you need to know that going in.”

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NCHERM Group Partners, W. Scott Lewis and Saundra K. Schuster, Received Association for Student Conduct Administration Awards

We are pleased to announce that two members of The NCHERM Group received awards from ASCA this year. Please join us in congratulating NCHERM Partner Scott Lewis, who received the Distinguished Service Award, and NCHERM Partner Saunie Schuster for receiving the D. Parker Young Award for outstanding ongoing scholarly research contributions to the fields of higher education and student judicial affairs. Thank you both for your hard work and contributions to the field!

Jane Stapleton, NCHERM Group Affiliated Consultant, quoted in The New York Times

Stepping Up to Stop Sexual Assault

Jane Stapleton, a University of New Hampshire researcher who runs bystander intervention programs at colleges around the country and in Europe, tells students they’ll need to be creative about outmaneuvering aggressors. Among the diversions she discusses: suddenly turning on the lights at a party or turning off the music; accidentally spilling a drink on the guy; forming a conga line and pulling him away from the woman he’s bothering and onto the dance floor. One of her favorites came from a young woman who approached her drunken girlfriend and said, loudly, “Here’s the tampon you asked for.”


A definite mood killer, says Ms. Stapleton. The goal is to stop bad behavior before it crosses the line from drunken partying to sexual assault. “We’re definitely not looking to create Captain Bystander here,” Ms. Stapleton says. In the best of circumstances, a drunken aggressor won’t realize he’s been had.


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NCHERM Group Senior Vice President for Professional Program Development, Brian Van Brunt, and Affiliated Consultant, Mary Ellen O'Toole quoted in USA Today College

Social media helps experts understand, prevent school shooters

After the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, most colleges, including University of Maryland, have set up teams — usually made up of campus police and administrators — to handle tips related to suspicious student behavior, including anonymous Internet activity, said Brian Van Brunt, president-elect of the National Behavioral Intervention Team Association.

Teams like these have become one of the most effective ways college campuses are dealing with, and preventing, serious violent crimes, Van Brunt said.

Mary Ellen O’Toole, an author and retired FBI profiler, uses another term, “leakage,” to describe a phenomenon where many killers hint or even announce their plans far in advance of carrying them out. Social media has emerged as a new place to do it.

“When you start dealing with young people, college age, high school,” O’Toole said, “they gotta tell you what they’re doing. It’s part of their age.”

“We can learn a lot more about them through that.”

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The NCHERM Group President & CEO, Brett A. Sokolow, quoted in the Columbia Missourian

Title IX Experts Disagree on MU's Obligation in Menu Courey Case

Brett Sokolow, executive director of the Association of Title IX Administrators, interprets the issue differently. He said the Tribune story didn't contain enough information to trigger an investigation.

The university would have known, Sokolow said, if Menu Courey had informed Meghan Anderson, former MU athletics department academic adviser, of the assault, as Menu Courey wrote in her diary and ESPN reported. Anderson has said that Menu Courey didn't tell her about an assault.

Without a request from Menu Courey or statements from some other witness, the university couldn't reasonably be expected to know about the incident until the ESPN "Outside the Lines" story came out last week, Sokolow said.

"It doesn't sound like the athletic department knew," Sokolow said. "I don't sense a cover-up."

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The NCHERM Group President & CEO, Brett A. Sokolow, interviewed on CNN

Police Investigate Alleged Rape of Collegiate Swimmer Who Died in Suicide

Brett Sokolow, executive director of the Association of Title IX Administrators, said he doesn't get the sense there is any clear evidence of a coverup at this point.

However, he added: "I certainly feel that the university should have been a little more proactive at trying to bring in information and find out more."

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