Bias and Behavioral Intervention Procedure

The College maintains a Behavioral Intervention Team.  Based upon referrals and reports from students, faculty and staff, the Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT) advises the Vice President for Student Services on strategies to assist students before a crises arises or on behaviors involving bias.

The BIT is a multidisciplinary team that:

1. Gathers information to assess situations involving students who display concerning or disruptive behaviors;
2. Provides consultation and support to faculty and staff;
3.  Assess the source, nature, and severity of the threat and implement intervention strategies;
4. Connects students with appropriate campus and community resources; and
5. Monitors ongoing behavior of students who have displayed disruptive or concerning behavior.

Faculty and staff provide reports of behaviors of concern by a reporting system on the College’s web site. 

Students and employees have the right to learn and work on a campus free of bias-motivated harassment. A bias-motivated incident is an action in which a person is targeted merely by virtue of characteristics of their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, veteran's status, or disability. These include, but are not limited to, harassment and verbal slurs.

Some bias incidents rise to the level of hate crimes, which is a crime motivated in whole or in part by the offender’s bias toward the victim’s status. Hate crimes range from violent acts to threats to property destruction or vandalism. Bias incidents will follow the BIT process above with support and oversight from the Executive Diversity Officer.

Anyone may submit a Bias report or a BIT report on our website.

Reporting bias incidents, even verbal slurs or graffiti that target people’s identities, can give us information about the types of bias incidents that are occurring on campus. With this information, the Behavioral Intervention Team can make plans for intervention, raise awareness about specific issues, and disseminate information about referrals and victim support. By intervening in bias early, we can hopefully prevent hate crimes from occurring.