The S.C. Commission on Higher Education and Francis Marion University hosted a two-day conference on bomb threats, sexual assault response and other campus safety topics.
Based on a release from S.C. Commission on Higher Education.
FLORENCE, S.C. — The South Carolina Commission on Higher Education partnered with Francis Marion University this week to host the 2026 Dalton and Linda Floyd Campus Safety Conference, according to the Commission on Higher Education.
The two-day event, held at the Carter Center for Health Sciences, brought together higher education leaders, campus safety professionals, law enforcement officials, legal experts and student affairs staff from across the state, according to the commission.
Session topics included responding to bomb threats and swatting hoaxes, managing campus incidents, sexual assault prevention and response, autism awareness, workplace violence and behavior intervention, according to the commission.
Francis Marion University President Luther F. Carter opened the conference by welcoming attendees and recognizing Linda Floyd, who was in attendance, and her late husband, Dalton Floyd, whose contributions helped establish the conference, according to the commission.
Commission President and Executive Director Jeff Perez told attendees that “people want to know you care before they care what you know,” emphasizing the importance of building trust during crisis situations, according to the commission.
Brian LeBlanc, a supervisory special agent with the FBI Boston Threat Response Squad, provided training on bomb threats and swatting hoaxes affecting educational institutions. “In the last four years, this has cost taxpayers more than two billion dollars across the country. It has cost schools, police, and families hundreds of thousands of dollars and caused significant anxiety to students,” LeBlanc said, according to the commission.
Macey Webb, counsel to the South Carolina House of Representatives Education and Public Works Committee, outlined recent legislative developments, including new student safety training requirements set to take effect at South Carolina colleges and universities in July, according to the commission.
Perez told attendees that prevention is the foundation of campus safety. “The best threat to a campus is the one that doesn’t happen. Either you anticipate it, interdict it, or you have the support on campus to make sure that a student or faculty member who may be thinking dark thoughts is engaged before it happens,” Perez said, according to the commission.
Source: S.C. Commission on Higher Education original release.
