Creating best practices: Nicholas Tworischuk tackled the immense task of categorizing risk management best practices for the 57 colleges and universities in New Jersey.

Even though New Jersey isn't a very large state geographically, (it's the sixth smallest, just above Hawaii), it boasts countless safety, security, emergency, standards, guidelines and planning organizations, including 275 best practices to protect the state, its citizens and the students who attend its 57 colleges and universities. Not surprisingly, following the catastrophic Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the New Jersey Council of Presidents, which operates in the shadow of New York City, created a standing committee called the Homeland Security Subcommittee (it just changed the name to Campus Safety and Security Committee) to keep an eye on campus safety as well as security in other business sectors in New Jersey, such as utility companies, chemical and pharmaceutical firms, the telecommunications and healthcare industries. The Council of Presidents, created in 1994, is a 50-member advisory board that oversees many state functions, including new program recommendations and the statewide higher education master plan.

The Homeland Security Subcommittee is the one that developed those 275 best practices, covering seven areas:

* General best practice adoption and implementation

* Emergency response

* Public safety operations and training

* Emergency communications

* Cyber security

* Building and grounds

* Science labs

As the associate treasurer, Tworischuk is the risk manager at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, so after Sept. 11 he was already representing his school in the various state committees evaluating the different economic sectors, such as the oil sector and higher education sector, to make sure the defense and safety protocols were in place. "There had to be an understanding (about the differences) between the public universities with labs and the private companies," said Tworischuk. After assessing the safety issues, the Campus Safety and Security Committee developed what Tworischuk called "a very broad and inclusive set" of 275 best practices.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

So what do you do with 275 best practices? That was when Tworischuk was brought into the process.

For New Jersey schools, this was a whole new way of looking at and assessing risk. "In New Jersey, the 57 schools are very decentralized," said Dr. Henry Ross, chief of staff to the president of NJIT and liaison to the New Jersey President's Council. "From the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to the small religious schools, there's a lot of diversity, where all kinds of materials are being handled, chemicals to simple labs," Ross said.

The then New Jersey Governor, Richard Cody, wanted to make sure that all the colleges and universities were staying current with safety measures, so he asked Tworischuk to develop a method for doing that. "I approached this challenge by seeking to organize the individual best practices by some major functional areas," he said. So he initially broke down the practices into five major general security risks that colleges and universities usually face--facilities access and security, hazardous material security, sporting and entertainment venue security, cyber security and international students/travel abroad programs. Then he essentially gave the Domestic Preparedness Task Force and the Commission on Higher Education a lesson on total risk assessment, and why that enterprise risk approach was necessary as a means for evaluating risk.

For example, he pointed out that this risk approach was to "recognize the unique operations of higher education institutions and address issues that are beyond 'security issues,' such as the operation of instructional and research laboratories." He also pointed out how levels of risk exposure differ from one university to another. So he broke down the best practices list even further into 10 specific categories, from campus risk assessment to laboratory materials and security to building design and maintenance.

From there he developed a cheek list that formed the basis for a "Peer Review Pilot Study" as a means for measuring the level of compliance among the colleges and provide a way to update a best practice on a periodic basis. "He knew the risk management discipline and he brought the processes in and a way of looking at safety," said Ross. "He made it a more well-rounded type of approach."