MU hires risk management service to assess sexual assault and mental health resources

The University of Missouri will hire a national risk management group to assess materials collected by the sexual assault and mental health services task force that lists the University’s resources.

University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe announced Wednesday the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management will handle the assessment.

NCHERM offers advice for high-risk campus health and safety issues such as sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, Title IX and student suicide, among other issues.

The announcement comes after an outside law firm released its findings into how the university handles the alleged sexual assault case concerning former MU swimmer Sasha Menu Courey.

The report found the university failed to have sexual assault policies in place to handle the case properly.

Wolfe said he hopes the group’s findings will strengthen the university’s Title IX reporting policy and “better be able to foster a campus culture of safety and respect.”

The hiring of the group is the latest step in the university’s plan to improve reporting and preventing sexual assault and mental health service delivery.

“We thought it’d be very important to bring in a group like them, because a group like that can really help us compare what we are doing to the best practices of the industry,” said John Fougere, spokesman for the University of Missouri System.

A task force has already completed the first step of its work by inventorying all of the sexual assault and mental health services resources on all MU campuses.

The consulting group and task force will work together to give their recommendations to the board of curators on May 5.

It cost the UM System $40,000 to hire the third party consulting group.