Objective: In response to concerns about campus violence, universities are implementing threat assessment teams. In 2008, a large university's new threat assessment team began to identify and respond to potentially harmful situations.
Methods: Events that involved the threat assessment team from August 2008 through December 2010 were examined to describe subjects, referral sources, and team actions.
Results: The team responded to 284 events-approximately 10 per month. Employees were the subject in 21.5% of events, students in 60.2%, and visitors in 18.3%. External threats, including assaults, threats, harassment, and stalking, comprised 49.5% of cases, and internal threats, including suicide attempt/ideation and mental health or behavior concerns, comprised 50.5%.
Conclusion: The university team responded to a wide variety of events referred from multiple units across campus and that involved a combination of employees, students, and visitors.