Going the distance for others Professors do their part to help students with health concerns

KARAN KAPOOR Reporter @KaranRoundup

The Parkland, Florida school shooting had a rippling effect in the Pierce community with students, faculty and staff advocating for campus safety and mental health awareness.

One safety precaution is the Pierce College Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT) referral form is a tool offered to faculty on campus to provide a pathway for students with mental health concerns to get the help, support and services they need, said Director of the Student Health Center Beth Benne.

“Let’s not just be the disciplinarian; rather, let us ask if the other person is okay,” Benne said.

The BIT form instructs faculty to notice when students show signs of mental health problems and if they may need professional help.

The administrators, faculty and mental health professionals that manage BIT at Pierce helped treat at least 5 students at risk of suicide in fall 2017.

“It was a big concern last semester. We hospitalized 10 times for suicidality last semester.”

Benne said. “It’s never happened in my 25 years here.”

School shootings have left an emotional mark on faculty, staff and students in many parts of the U.S. One goal that school districts have is to ensure the safety of the campus community.

Vice President of Student Services

Earic Dixon-Peters said one of the incidents that urged the formation of the BIT form at Pierce was the Virginia Tech shooting on April 16, 2007, that left 33 people dead and 23 people injured.

Dixon-Peters said there is a

[from academic senate on front]

“I’m really sad they got bought out, but I personally don't feel much empathy for them because the way they are charging community colleges nearly double than the CSU’s and universities,” Bass said. “It just isn’t fair.”

The committee now has to determine how they will continue to provide anti-plagiarism software across campus.

Margarita Pillado, second Vice President of Curriculum, spoke workshop available at the beginning of each semester that goes in depth and explains ways for teachers and faculty to detect potential warning signs.

Benne said two to three BIT referral forms are turned in on a regular basis each week by faculty.

“Aside from the provided documentation and training for behavioral warning signs, I think we should rely on additional common sense,” Dixon-Peters said.

“If something is strange, or if there is something odd in some person’s writing, we ask that teachers report it, even if they think it is nothing.”

The range of severity in BIT form cases can range from someone stressing about an exam to about this development. “It was so unannounced. We are now just trying to find the money or an alternative service,” Pillado said. “Teachers should urge there department chairs to support these programs.”

Plagarism.org conducted a survey of more than 63,700 U.S. undergraduate and 9,250 graduate students and found that 36 percent of undergraduates admit to “paraphrasing/copying few sentences from Internet sources without footnoting it.” 24 percent of graduate students someone wishing to inflict pain upon one or more individuals. Sheriffs may become involved based on the severity of the case.

Sheriff's Deputy Lazaro Sanchez has been a deputy at Pierce College for about a year and a half, and he said deputies take action during times of urgency.

“We step in when somebody expresses concerns about suicidal thoughts, or when somebody tries to harm oneself or others due to a mental illness,” Sanchez said. “I just encourage anyone on campus to contact us at the Sheriff’s Office if they see anything they think is suspicious behavior.”

The safety of everyone on campus is one of the biggest goals the BIT team hopes to ful- self report doing the same.

Jennifer Moses, the College Outcomes Coordinator, spoke about the trust between instructor and student.

“The last thing you want is a professor to just use their judgment. You need an objective third party who can technologically verify if the paper has been taken from another source,” Moses said. According to Business Insider, educators and students say young people are finding new and increasingly devious ways to cheat.

Moses said that she and her col-