Incoming faculty to be subject to new background checks

photo courtesy of Dakota Cunningham

In the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky investigation, George Mason University has instated a new policy that requires background investigations for all Mason faculty and staff. The new policy was instituted in June 2012 by senior faculty leadership.

Before the policy, only faculty and staff working in departments that require security clearances have been subjected to a background check.

 “Faculty weren’t investigated across the board before, but now we’ll be working to investigate any new hires,” said Christine Harchick, who works in the background checks and special projects division of Mason Human Resources, “Mason is one of several colleges across the country changing its policy in the wake of what happened at Penn State.”

Jessica Cain, an employee relation’s specialist for Human Resources, says that faculty leadership has been considering background checks before but it is now more relevant in the wake of the Sandusky controversy.

“Some departments have had background checks since 2006.We’re just extending that to all faculty and staff,”said Cain. When asked about whether that will affect non-professors, she answered, “we’re still working out how far that will go.”

At this time, Mason has no intention of performing background checks on faculty or staff already in Mason employment. However, Jerry Sandusky had worked at Penn State for thirty years before his retirement, meaning that this particular background check program would not have caught the impetus for the policy.

Cain explained that Mason faculty can still be investigated if something occurs while they are employed but repeated that there are no plans in place to investigate those already hired by Mason.

Mason Legal was contacted by Connect2Mason but was unavailable for comment.