Background checks now required for employees
Students won’t have to worry their teachers are murderers or convicted sex criminals thanks to new background checks that have been put in place through the state Legislature.
Ronda Menlove, Vice Provost for Regional Campuses and Distance Ed and Utah House representative, has helped pass a bill that will require new employees at universities to have background checks. The university may also submit current employees to checks if there is a reasonable cause. If anything incriminating is found, the applicant or employee will
be able to tell his or her side before any action is taken.
“It is our goal to make the university safe and protect the
students and faculty,” Menlove said.
Other institutions have implemented such policies, and Menlove said she has been concerned that USU didn’t have any policy. She believes it may even help recruitment because students and parents will feel safer. She cited a time a few years ago when a professor at Penn State was found to be a convicted murder after having taught at several universities.
These background checks will help prevent anything like that from happening at USU, Menlove said.
The State Board of Regents has set policy for the bill, but some implementation issues have been left to the university to decide, said Fred Hunsaker, vice president of Finance and Campus Operations. He has talked with many of the departments and gathered considerable information for other universities’ programs. A committee is being formed to make the final implementation decisions for USU, and Hunsaker said it will probably meet within the next week or two.
Among these decisions will be whether the university or the job applicants will have to pay for the tests, which range from $15 to $75 depending on the depth.
“In the current era, (background checks) appear to be the right things to do,” Hunsaker said.
The bill was put into action July 1, 2007, after being unanimously approved by both the House and the Senate with a few members absent. Menlove said while implementation will take time due to costs and paperwork, soon everyone will have been checked.
“This is a no-brainer, we don’t want convicted criminals working in schools,” Menlove said.