A panel of university safety experts has reached an agreement on how new portions of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) relating to campus fire safety, missing persons, hate-crime reporting, and emergency response and evacuation should be implemented, Campus Safety magazine has learned.
These documents provide a glimpse into what the draft HEOA regulations might look like, but should not be taken for the final version, according to a member of the subcommittee.
The current draft is not official, says Brendan McClusky, also the executive director of the office of emergency management with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
“The Department of Ed (Education) will publish the official draft regulations at some point in the near future in the Federal Register,” says McClusky. “Since consensus was not reached on all of the issues under consideration by the full committee, the (Department of Education) is under no obligation to use the language agreed to for the four campus safety issues.”
The HEOA was signed into law by former President Bush Aug. 14 and includes several changes to the Clery Act. Campus safety is just one small portion of the law, which also covers topics such as Pell grants, consumer information, work study and peer-to-peer file sharing.
Two other issues that were not safety related remain unresolved by the committee, McCluskey added. Although 29 of 31 issues were agreed upon, the fact that two were not allows the Department of Education to disregard all of the full committee and subcommittee’s negotiations.
But will the department actual do this?
“My gut feeling is that the 29 issues, including the four campus safety ones, were all negotiated in good faith with all different sides and all the issues put on the table,” McCluskey says. “I think it would be a mistake on the ED’s part if they didn’t use what we already negotiated as their draft regulations.”
Members from organizations on the campus safety subcommittee (including IAEM, CSHEMA, IACLEA and NACUBO) are considering drafting a letter encouraging the department to publish the negotiated document as the draft.
The draft regulations are expected to be published in early July and will then be subject to public comment. Click here to view the unofficial draft of the Disclosure of Fire Safety Standards and Measures by HEOA.
