Students and staff at the University of Alberta will soon be encouraged to report others who may have mental health issues and might pose a risk to campus safety.

Later this month, the board of governors will be asked to approve a mental health policy developed after a number of school shootings, including the mass killing at Virginia Tech in April 2007, where a student gunned down 32 people before killing himself.

"I went to school at Virginia Tech. So that one was very real to me," said the dean of students at the University of Alberta, Frank Robinson. "I just can't help but think it brought the university together after that happened. What we'd like to do here is bring that together before anything ever happened."

Under the U of A program, students and staff are asked to report others on campus who display behaviour changes that suggest they could hurt themselves or others. The information would be evaluated by a team which would assess the student and contact campus security if necessary.

Psychological support will be offered to the student, hopefully within hours after the report is made.

"So it's not disciplinary. So it's not something that we say, 'we're going to refer to campus security'," he said, adding that the university can't make someone see a psychologist.

"But we can talk to them and offer those services, make them very available, if that would help that person."

The initial version of the program contained a clause that made reporting mandatory, but it was removed after concerns were raised by the Students' Union about how it would change relationships on campus.

While the program has not yet been approved by the board of governors, the university is already following the guidelines, Robinson said.