National News
New background check policy in effect in Pennsylvania
February 13, 2015 posted by Steve Brownstein
In October of 2014, the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives and State Senate approved House Bill 435 to strengthen background checks on faculty and staff at all universities, both public and private, in the state of Pennsylvania.
The Governor of Pennsylvania at the time, Tom Corbett, signed these new changes into effect on Oct. 22, 2014. According to the text of the bill, the regulations include “state police-run background checks for any criminal activity, fingerprint runs through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s system, as well as searching the state’s child protective services records to verify whether or not the employee or applicant has ever been accused of child abuse.”
In addition to this, colleges must keep copies of all of background check records; if they fail to do so, the institution can face a third-degree misdemeanor charge. This bill was passed with an overwhelming majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, with the latter passing the bill unanimously.
Saint Joseph’s University, in compliance with this law, updated its own background check policy and will now follow all of the state-wide regulations outlined. Prior to the passage of the law, the university had a body in place, deemed the Safe Environment Task Force, made up of four faculty members, one staff member, and three administrators.
This task force was implemented to facilitate the process of background checks, and according to Sharon Eisenmann, vice president of Human Resources, “[The task force was] tasked with making recommendations on background check levels for new employees and whether it was necessary to obtain retroactively additional background checks for current faculty and staff.”
Additionally, all of the Safe Environment Task Force’s actions were directly related to the protection of minors.
As opposed to the minor-centric background checks spoken to in the House Bill 435, Eisenmann says that the university practice since 2005 had been that all new hires were required to clear a criminal background check through an outside firm, Kroll Background Associates. This ensured that all potential employees for the university were vetted.
Joseph Lunardi, ’82, the assistant vice president for Marketing Communications, confirmed this statement.
“Whenever [the university] would hire someone, even in an administrative job that has no student contact…they would have to get background checked,” said Lunardi.
Student opinion on the background check enactment is divided. Bridget Gilmore, ’18, believes that the background checks “are comforting for faculty and staff,” while others, such as Hannah Snyder, ’18, said, “It’s [background checks] still unnecessary…I feel as if very few people do feel unsafe here, and there is very little conflict concerning the topic.”
Lunardi summarized the difference in opinion regarding this issue.
“There's two ways to look at it,” Lunardi said. “‘You're invading my privacy,’ some will say, yes...and then you have other people that will say, ‘What do you mean you hired that part time faculty coming from his house to teach me, how do I know what he was doing all day?’”
The new background check policies for St. Joe’s took effect in December and are now in compliance with Pennsylvania state law.
