Sustaining Community and Preventing Violence

August 25, 2009

TO:     The Campus Community

FR:     Gene Lucas, Executive Vice Chancellor

RE:     Sustaining Community and Preventing Violence

I'm pleased to announce that a new campus policy, Sustaining Community and Preventing Violence, has been approved and is effective immediately.

The policy reaffirms expectations of behavior for the whole UCSB community: faculty, staff, students, and others. It upholds protected speech, academic freedom, and the fair treatment of all individuals. Moreover, it provides guidance for individuals to know what to do under certain circumstances and supplies information about available resources to resolve issues.

The policy has gone through two extensive campus reviews.  A large number of you provided very thoughtful feedback, and, as a result, the draft was amended to address your concerns. The new policy is available for your reference at http://www.tmt.ucsb.edu/policy/ and also at
http://www.policy.ucsb.edu/policies/policy-docs/sustaining-community.pdf

In accordance with the policy, I have appointed a Threat Management Team of professionals to raise awareness, train, coordinate resources, and assist individuals and departments to identify and use constructive methods for conflict resolution, responding to and preventing violence. The website describing the Threat Management Team is available at http://www.tmt.ucsb.edu.

Members of the Threat Management Team are:

Ricardo Alcaino, Office of Equal Opportunity and Sexual Harassment/Title IX Compliance
Angela Andrade, Office of Student Life
John Berberet, Human Resources
Farfalla Borah, Administrative Services
Aaron Ettenberg, Department of Psychology
Michael Foster, Campus Police
Priscilla Mori, Office of the Ombuds
Mary Nisbet, College of Letters and Science
Cindy Ponce, Academic Personnel
Burt Romotsky, Student Health Services
Sydney Roberts, Human Resources

I invite you to join me and the Threat Management Team in working to sustain a safe and open environment in which we continue to perform and support our missions of research, teaching, and university and public service.