- The Utah Board of Higher Education voted to create a campus safety task force.
- The decision follows the Sept. 10 shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at UVU.
- The task force aims to review safety protocols and collaborate with legislative efforts.
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Board of Higher Education on Thursday voted unanimously to establish a task force to examine campus safety across Utah's public higher education institutions.
Geoffrey Landward, commissioner of higher education for the Utah System of Higher Education, said it would be "nonsense" to say the vote isn't "a direct response" to last month's shooting of conservative activist and Turning Point co-founder Charlie Kirk.
Kirk was shot and killed at a tour event on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem on Sept. 10. A 22-year-old Washington County man has been charged with Kirk's murder.
"This is an opportunity to say something senseless and horrific happened on one of our campuses. And we want to understand why it happened, how it happened and if there's any lessons to be learned, we want to be ahead of the game in identifying what those are and taking those steps," Landward said.
Landward added that his hope for the task force is to get stakeholders like students, faculty and staff, law enforcement, risk management and safety experts in the same room to conduct a "wholesale review" of protocols, policies and resources.
"Is there anything we can learn from this and is there anything we can do better?" Landward asked. "If there is, then let's have a plan for how we make that happen, because the priority is ensuring that our campuses are as safe as possible."
Landward himself has participated in many meetings of the Utah Legislature's School Security Task Force and said he "absolutely" believes that establishing a task force with the same goals by the board will aid in collaboration between the two entities.
"As we work with the School Security Task Force for the legislature, they're going to be asking questions that they want to know. You know — policies and inventory of what we're doing, our safety assessments, all these things — if we can be ahead of that by gathering that kind of information, putting together best practices specific to higher education, it makes the work of the legislative task force easier and more effective," Landward said.
