Case in Point

Auburn University Office of Audit, Compliance & Privacy

Case in Point: Lessons for the Proactive Manager

Volume 17 Issue 12 | December 2025

"Safety has to be everyone's responsibility... everyone needs to know that they are empowered to speak up if there's an issue."

- Scott Kelly

We are rapidly coming to the end of 2025 and our seventeenth year of publication. I typically use this last column to remind our readers of the purpose of Case in Point. However, with recent events across the country, I wanted to focus on the topic of campus violence.

We’ve spent the last few months updating our processes for evaluating campus threats and instituting a new Behavioral Threat Assessment & Management (BTAM) Team. We implemented recommendations from an outside review of this process by Dr. Gene Deisinger and his team. The implementation here at AU was led by Scott Forehand, Director of Compliance Investigations & Security, who is retired from the FBI. I asked Scott to provide some practical suggestions for our readers on this topic.

Recent tragedies at Utah State, Brown, MIT, and countless other institutions of higher learning have served as a painful reminder of how vulnerable the campus community is to acts of targeted violence. University leaders have a responsibility to ensure that students, faculty, and employees can learn and work in an environment free from acts of targeted violence. This can only be accomplished through a comprehensive safety and security strategy. Safety and security on a college campus, however, present unique challenges due to the complexity and size of a campus community. Colleges and universities are where controversial topics may – and should – be debated, and facilities are numerous and generally open to the public.

Comprehensive safety and security programs on a college campus should combine a variety of strategies. Some strategies focus on reactive techniques (active shooter response, “Run Hide Fight,” crisis management and communications, etc.), while others focus on physical security and “hardening” of targets (metal detectors, locked doors, visible security presence, etc.). Another critical component of a comprehensive safety and security program focuses on prevention of violence and is commonly referred to as behavioral threat assessment and management (BTAM).

BTAM seeks to intervene and prevent targeted violence much earlier on the timeline than active shooter response. It is a model that has evolved over the past 25 years or so and has recently been implemented at Auburn University. A properly organized BTAM program focuses not on inherent traits or demographics of groups of people, but rather on observable behaviors that have been shown by the data to be precursor behaviors for perpetrators of targeted violence. BTAM focuses on assessment and management of potential threats, not punishment or discipline.

BTAM should be a multidisciplinary, comprehensive, holistic, and collaborative approach to identify behaviors of concern and to intervene early in a person’s pathway to violence to prevent violence from happening in the first place. But BTAM does not solely focus on potential perpetrators of violence. Another critical component of BTAM is to consider the impact on potential targets of violence and to provide resources and support to help targets feel – and actually be – safer on campus.

One of the dangers of not having a BTAM program is that reports of concerning behavior may be collected by a variety of departments and campus partners but not shared or analyzed as part of a larger picture. Missing this larger picture may lead to missing a picture of a person in need of intervention to prevent violence. BTAM serves as a collection point for “dots,” so that the dots may be connected and violence prevented if possible.

To learn more about Auburn University’s BTAM program, please contact Chris Hardman, Ph.D. at bch0047@auburn.edu.

Thank you, Scott! Of all the risks we face, ensuring the safety of our campuses is paramount. We hope you have a great holiday season and look forward to continuing our journey toward proactive risk management in 2026.

M. Kevin Robinson, CIA, CFE
Vice President
Institutional Compliance & Security
Office of Audit, Compliance & Privacy
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Information Security & Technology Events

Dec 08: Phishing: A new report from security firm Infoblox reveals that at least 18 American universities have been hit by a prolonged, coordinated phishing attack over a period of many months. According to Infoblox’s blog post, shared with Hackread.com, this campaign ran from April to November 2025 and aimed to steal student and staff account details, even when Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) was turned on. (link)

Dec 03: Data Breach: The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) and the University of Phoenix confirmed they were hit in the recent cyberattack targeting Oracle E-Business Suite customers. Penn explained that it uses Oracle’s E-Business Suite (EBS) platform for supplier payments, reimbursements, ledger entries, and other business operations. After Oracle announced that the flaw could enable unauthorized access, affecting hundreds of organizations worldwide, Penn launched an immediate investigation with cybersecurity experts and notified federal law enforcement. (link)

Dec 01: Cyberattack: Dartmouth College has disclosed a data breach after the Clop extortion gang leaked data allegedly stolen from the school's Oracle E-Business Suite servers on its dark web leak site. In a breach notification letter filed with the office of Maine's Attorney General, Dartmouth says the attackers exploited an Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) zero-day vulnerability to steal personal information belonging to 1,494 individuals. (link)

Dec 01: Phishing: Harvard University disclosed over the weekend that its Alumni Affairs and Development systems were compromised in a voice phishing attack, exposing the personal information of students, alumni, donors, staff, and faculty members. The private Ivy League research university has over 20,000 faculty and staff, more than 24,500 undergraduate and graduate students, and over 400,000 alumni worldwide. (link)

Fraud & Ethics Related Events

Dec 16: Student Aid Fraud: In a blistering letter addressed to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, another federal agency is accusing the state of turning a blind eye to fraud from Somali natives. The letter specifically references a U.S. Department of Education investigation into "ghost students." McMahon alleges Minnesota allowed applicants for college to worm their way into student aid meant for young Americans to help them afford college. (link)

Dec 13: Plagiarism: The president of the University of Maryland was cleared of plagiarism Friday after a yearlong review prompted by allegations that his published work had lifted significant portions of a 2002 scholarly paper. (link)

Dec 06: Wire Fraud: A now-former Lehigh University professor has admitted to running a wire fraud scheme that stole nearly $2 million from victims, according to court documents, federal prosecutors, and a statement from the University shared with DailyVoice on Thursday, Dec. 4. (link)

Compliance/Regulatory & Legal Events

Dec 17: Employee Conduct: Just over a week after the trial began, a doctor from the Bryan-College Station area with ties to Texas A&M has been convicted of sexual assault. The 47-year-old doctor was charged with two counts of sexual assault in 2022 after two patients said he assaulted them during treatment. [The doctor], who was fired from Texas A&M following a Title IX investigation in February of that year, specialized in primary care sports medicine, was on the medical staff of Texas A&M Athletics, and served as an assistant professor of Family & Community Medicine at Texas A&M College of Medicine. (link)

Dec 17: Negligence Lawsuit: Six former IU Indianapolis men’s basketball players filed a lawsuit Monday against the university over alleged misconduct by [a] former head coach. They allege that [the coach] "subjected them to relentless psychological and physical abuse or harassment." (link)

Dec 17: Employee Conduct: Ohio University has terminated [its] head football coach for cause. "The termination follows an administrative review of allegations that [the coach] violated the terms of his employment agreement by engaging in serious professional misconduct and participating in activities that reflect unfavorably on the University," the university said in a statement on Wednesday. (link)

Dec 13: Employee Conduct: [The] Eugene C. Patterson professor of the practice of journalism and public policy and interim director of Polis: Center for Politics, resigned from Duke around early December, after being placed on leave from the University. The Chronicle confirmed through sources close to [the professor] that he had engaged in sexual misconduct and a subsequent investigation prompted his resignation. (link)

Dec 12: Title IX: A former University of St. Thomas faculty member filed a Title IX discrimination lawsuit against the private Catholic institution this week, alleging that administrators fired him after he repeatedly raised concerns about a colleague accused of harassing female and non-Catholic students. (link)

Dec 11: Title VI: Two California colleges have reached settlements with Jewish organizations and individuals who filed complaints alleging antisemitism arising from pro-Palestinian campus protests, including a $60,000 payment to an Israeli sociologist and dance researcher who says she was not rehired by the University of California, Berkeley despite the popularity of her class. (link)

Dec 11: Employee Conduct: The University of Michigan’s former head football coach was being held at the county jail in Ann Arbor, Mich., early Thursday, according to jail records, hours after he was fired over what the university described as an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. (link)

Dec 10: Employee Conduct: A former vice president at a Baptist university in northeast Georgia has been indicted on charges that he lied when he denied sexually assaulting a woman who was a student and later a university employee. (link)

Dec 08: Employee Conduct: A College of Charleston public safety officer has been fired after his arrest on assault and misconduct charges, officials said. [He] was arrested Saturday by the Charleston Police Department on charges of assault with intent to commit first-degree criminal sexual conduct and misconduct in office, according to Charleston County Detention Center records. (link)

Dec 05: Employee Conduct: Federal immigration officials have arrested a visiting Harvard Law School professor from Brazil, who recently resolved allegations that he illegally fired a pellet gun outside a Brookline synagogue. (link)

Dec 02: DEI: The University of Alabama on Monday suspended two student magazines -- one appealing to women, another to Black students -- saying they ran afoul of guidance from the Justice Department on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. (link)

Dec 02: Religious Discrimination: A University of Oklahoma student says she is the victim of religious discrimination because a psychology instructor gave her a zero for an essay that cited the Bible and said that "the lie that there are multiple genders" is "demonic." (link)

Dec 02: Employee Conduct: U.S. immigration agents said they arrested a Ferris State University professor originally from Sri Lanka who has a criminal history that includes death threats and conviction in a case involving a juvenile. (link)

Dec 01: Federal Compliance: Northwestern University has agreed to a $75 million payout to the Trump administration to settle a discrimination investigation into the school and to restore federal funding that had been frozen throughout the inquest, the Justice Department announced on Friday. (link)

Dec 01: Clery Act Compliance: The U.S. Department of Education is reviewing safety at the University of California, Berkeley, in response to a protest at a November 10 Turning Point USA event, the department said on Tuesday, as the Trump administration challenges higher education and the California state university system in particular. The department's Office of Federal Student Aid will investigate whether UC Berkeley violated the Clery Act, which requires higher education institutions that receive federal funding to collect, report, and disseminate crime data to the public, support victims of violence, and publicly outline their policies and systems for improving campus safety. (link)

Campus Life & Safety Events

Dec 17: Speech: Harvard officials have opened a secret disciplinary investigation into at least two students for their roles in drawing scrutiny to the relationship between the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the school’s former president, Larry Summers, according to three people briefed on the matter. The students posted videos online showing Mr. Summers addressing students in a Harvard lecture hall about his connections to Mr. Epstein last month, and took credit for pressuring him to step away from teaching after the disclosures. (link)

Dec 17: Speech: A political science professor at the University of Arkansas stands accused of praising Iran’s Supreme Leader using the school’s letterhead and attacking Israel, The Post has learned. [The professor], head of the school’s Middle East Studies program, also allegedly supported a convicted Iranian regime war criminal, evidence shows. (link)

Dec 13: Shooting: A gunman burst into a classroom at Brown University in Rhode Island on Saturday, killing two people and wounding nine others before fleeing the campus. The search for the attacker dragged into Monday after the authorities said they would release a person of interest who had been detained earlier. (link)

Dec 11: Safety Threat: Texas State University Police responded early Thursday morning to a report of a dispute near Blanco Hall, a Texas State dorm. One person at the scene had a minor injury. The university said its officers believe a firearm was used during the disturbance, but do not believe that anyone was shot. (link)

Dec 09: Shooting: One student is dead and another was in critical condition after a shooting at Kentucky State University, officials said Tuesday. On Tuesday, Frankfort Police Department Assistant Chief Scott Tracy described it as an "isolated incident." (link)

Dec 08: Protest: The University of Oklahoma has removed a second instructor in connection with a controversy that erupted after a student was given a zero grade for a paper on gender that cited the Bible as its primary source. This time, the university said it removed a teacher for encouraging students to support a campus protest over the earlier suspension. (link)

Dec 08: Speech: UC Berkeley administration has suspended [a] lecturer for the spring 2026 semester without pay for pro-Palestinian political remarks made in the classroom. The six-month suspension was enacted following a recommendation letter issued by Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Benjamin Hermalin, in which he claimed [the lecturer] misused the classroom "for the purpose of political advocacy" during the spring 2024 and fall 2025 semesters. (link)

Dec 07: Sexual Assault: On Sunday, Dec. 7 at 5:08 p.m., Villanova University’s Department of Public Safety issued a campus-wide email disclosing a safety alert of a rape reported on campus. The alert stated that a female guest reported being raped by a male resident student on Dec. 6, 2025 in a university residence hall. (link)

Dec 05: Hazing: The University of Colorado Boulder said that one of its fraternities was suspended Thursday after receiving "credible reports" of hazing. The university said that it received a credible hazing report involving the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity on Dec. 1, and the incident was reported to campus on Dec. 2. (link)

Dec 04: Assault: Police are investigating after a report of a sexual assault Wednesday inside a parking garage on the University of Cincinnati's campus. It happened around 9:10 a.m. Wednesday in the Woodside Garage. (link)

Last updated: 12/19/2025