The School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences (EPPS) is offering its students an opportunity to participate in an intense personal-security training course.

Dr. James Marquart

Dr. James Marquart

Dr. Sarah Maxwell

Dr. Sarah Maxwell

Dr. James Marquart, who formerly led the criminology program, has made student and employee safety a priority since taking over as dean this summer.

“UT Dallas is a safe campus, and we’re determined to keep it that way,” he said. “We want to be proactive, not reactive.”

The training course will take place Oct. 29, and 20 female students, faculty and staff are expected to participate. The class is full, but additional training courses are likely to be scheduled in coming months if other employees or students request an opportunity to learn self-defense.

“We have had an increase in the number of potential students asking about security,” said Dr. Sarah Maxwell, the school’s new associate dean. “So we thought it was time to offer a course like this to make people feel safer.”

With the campus shootings of recent years, concerns have grown about safety on college campuses. The EPPS program will be conducted by personal security expert Tom Foreman, who runs Valhalla Security of Montrose, Colo., a firm specializing in executive safety training and protection. Maxwell had witnessed Foreman’s teaching method in the past and proposed offering the intense course to EPPS participants.

“This is a different approach than a lot of these kinds of courses,” Maxwell said. “No bubble wrap and real take-downs.”

Foreman said the program he’ll offer to EPPS students and staff focuses on the “why, when and how” of attacks, offering women ways to prevent risk and respond if threatened.