Colleges and universities used to be seen as a place apart from the rest of the world where the biggest danger was that you’d party too much and couldn’t make your eight o’clock class. No more.
Inside Higher Ed just published an article about the increasing interest in background checks among colleges and universities. The article was part of a report on the annual conference of human resource professionals who work in higher education. Here’s a substantive excerpt.
It probably shouldn’t be surprising in the year of the Virginia Tech murders and the scandal over the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admissions dean who didn’t have the degrees she claimed. More colleges are starting or considering policies to require background checks on potential employees. At the annual meeting last week of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, sessions on background checks were attracting strong interest — with one so packed that people were sitting on the floor and in the hallway. Several companies that specialize in background checks for the business world were at the meeting as exhibitors for the first time, saying that they were seeing significant increases in inquiries and contracts from colleges.
You can argue that those colleges “coulda, woulda, shoulda” gotten background check religion before the murders at Virginia Tech, but that’s not how human beings work. We buy the alarm system after the house has been burglarized.
Don’t wait for a human or financial disaster. If background checks are not part of your hiring or renting process now, follow the order from the commander of the Starship Enterprise and “make it so.”