After the recent laptop theft, President Stephen Jordan announced that the College would be reviewing its policies, procedures and IT systems to insure that if another theft were to ever occur, there would be no threat to the personal information of students, alumni and employees.

Since then, Business Controls, Inc., has been reviewing the systems currently in place, data security and the network—the whole IT structure, according to Brad Mathers, the investigative consultant handling the assessment for Business Controls.

“We’ve been speaking with a lot of College personnel, not just IT,” Mathers said. “We’re doing a thorough assessment and analysis. First and foremost we want to insure that even if another theft occurs down the road, people aren’t at risk.”

Interim Vice President for Information Technology George Middlemist explains that the first things being looked at are where all the personal data is stored and who has access and why.

“We want to limit our exposure,” Middlemist said. “By virtue of the nature of higher education, there are a lot of people here who have to have access to information in order to do their jobs¯faculty need class rosters, Financial Aid needs information, etc. We want to ratchet security down but still insure that people can do their jobs.”

Mathers expects that it will take another month to complete the assessment, after which Business Controls will submit a report to President Jordan and Lee Combs, the general counsel.