Fourth Annual DNA Grantees' Workshop

Monday, June 23, 2003

AFTERNOON SESSION

TWGED Guidelines, FEPAC, and What It All Means for Forensic Biology
Max M. Houck
Biography

DR. SELAVKA: Our next presenter is Max Houck. He's the director of the Forensic Science Initiative at West Virginia University. I urge and encourage you to read his extensive biographical sketch in the back of the book. It's very well written and quite complete.

What I noticed was, here's a guy who, whenever something really bad has happened, they call him, and, unlike when he was younger, it's not his fault this time. In the Branch Davidian case and 9-11 at the Pentagon, Max was asked to help put things back together.

I think that Max, if you read his biography or if you know him at all, has developed quite a distinguished, notable, and diverse practice and expertise in anthropology and the forensic comparison of trace materials. I think you'll find his perspective invigorating. Please join me in welcoming him to the stage. Houck: Slide 1

MR. HOUCK: Thank you. Most of you know me as Mr. Lucy Davis. It's tough being a trace examiner, even a forensic anthropologist at a DNA meeting. Fish out of water doesn't quite cover it. I'm thinking more like low-copy male fraction on a vaginal swab, something like that.

See, I do understand. Lucy and I have all these conversations. I complain DNA gets all the money, she tells me trace evidence isn't science. I tell her, try looking at animal hairs; it requires a bit more science. She says we can do that with DNA. You should come over some time. It's fun.

I'm going to talk today briefly about the Technical Working Group on Education and Training in Forensic Science (TWGED) and the Forensic Educational Program Accreditation Commission (FEPAC). First of all, I want to make real clear, in case you have any specific questions on what exactly is going on with either TWGED or FEPAC, the draft version of the TWGED guidelines are available at this Web site (http://www.wvu.edu/~forsci). It's a draft version. I want to emphasize that it's a draft version. It is soon to be published by NIJ. Complete information on FEPAC can be found at the American Academy Web site (http://www.aafs.org). So if you have any specific questions about those, I'll be glad to entertain whatever questions you have, but for the real deal, you need to go to those places. Houck: Slide 2

TWGED was a standard NIJ technical working group (TWG), except that we completed our work in an incredibly short period of time for most TWGs. It was something around a year from a blank piece of paper to finished draft, which was by all accounts incredibly quick. You wouldn't expect that from 52 forensic scientists, academicians, and other forensic experts, but it did happen.

TWGED was based on a 1999 NIJ needs-assessment review that stated, among other things, things that were required for the forensic community: accreditation of forensic academic programs, national consensus standards for education, continuing work with TWGs, funding by NIJ of forensic academic research—not necessarily just ad hoc research but something more along the lines of pure academic research—and then also a professional orientation to the field that brings people from academia with their degrees into the forensic profession as professionals. How do you make that transition? I think historically there has been a gap there for us. Houck: Slide 3

The TWGED document was split up into four sections: qualifications for a career in forensic science, undergraduate programs, graduate programs, and continuing professional training. Those were the areas that the TWGED addressed. Houck: Slide 4

For the undergraduate programs, TWGED listed minimum general core requirements for undergraduate forensic science programs: 34 to 38 total credit hours. Biology 1 and 2 pertains specifically to science majors. The others were specified for everybody to take, so there's a core component in undergraduate programs. Houck: Slide 5

Specialized courses account for a minimum of 12 credit hours. The courses directly applicable to you folks are listed in bold. So again, this incorporates more than basic biology. Including specialized biology in undergraduate programs provides a firm foundation for forensic scientists. Houck: Slide 6

These are nothing more than mere guidelines. This is the list for forensic biology. If you're going to have a forensic biology track in your academic program, then these are the courses that were listed as a model curriculum. It's not the only one, but it's a model to go by. Houck: Slide 7

Overall, it gives you an idea what TWGED was looking for in terms of a comprehensiveness undergraduate education—one that provides a good basic science degree, not necessarily a professional or vocational degree, but a basic science degree with specialized courses to provide more information than, say, a standard general science undergraduate degree.

Graduate programs were tough for TWGED because they vary so greatly. They vary by institution, sometimes by colleges within an institution. They're quite idiosyncratic. So we had a hard time grappling with what we should recommend for a graduate program. Houck: Slide 8

We made some recommendations. They look largely like the undergraduate ones in that you should have a broad basis for your education—a broad basis for your science but then also specific courses in forensic science—and have a big of exposure to a lot of things but specific to those things that are important to your area.

Also, a research component should be part of that graduate education to emphasize methods and statistics, as well as a public presentation of those results, whether it be a poster, an oral presentation, or a publication. That would cover everything from a medium-size research paper all the way up through a complete, organized formal thesis.

FEPAC came about during TWGED, and we realized we sort of had a ground swell of enthusiasm for what was being accomplished in TWGED. So movement was commenced to formalize the TWGED guidelines into accreditation standards. This is a big move. This is a very large move for forensic science as a discipline, especially when you've got the guidelines only half written or two-thirds of the way done. Houck: Slide 9

Everybody recognized the importance of having it done and its timing. It was largely a factor of timing that everything was working as well as it did. FEPAC is now a standing committee of the American Academy. It's receiving, has received, and receives funding from the American Academy and NIJ.

There's a pilot program this year of six institutions that have applied, and they're going to be inspected by the end of the year. Then the program will be open to any institution in 2004. So if you're part of an academic institution, that may be something that will be coming your way.

FEPAC was realized and started out of TWGED. In TWGED, it makes the statement that the institution granting the degree must be accredited by a body that is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, and when TWGED was written, there was no accreditation mechanism for undergraduate or graduate forensic science programs. Houck: Slide 10

When that mechanism comes into place, TWGED wanted to make sure that the academic programs would pursue that. FEPAC, but also TWGED, listed the benefits of accreditation, including external validation, helping students select institutions, and serving as a means for forensic scientists and employers to be able to judge the credentials of graduates. It also can help improve program quality, and it provides a certain demonstrable level of competency to the graduates. Houck: Slide 11

So what does this all mean in terms of what you're going to be facing and what you're going to be hearing about from TWGED and FEPAC? TWGED guidelines are voluntary and consensus derived. That is, nobody's dictating to the forensic discipline what constitutes their own educational program. Houck: Slide 12

FEPAC accreditation is voluntary but is established and standardized. That means it's been systematized, which is good. So it's not simply voluntary, but it's an external means. Quality really does begin with education. If you have had a poor education and/or a bad science background, you're not going to do as well in the laboratory against somebody who has had a good one. But quality also continues with the training that you get when you get to the laboratory, and then it's enhanced by continuing education, continuing professional education, and more training.

So I would submit that FEPAC is the starting point for quality assurance broadly across the entire forensic discipline. If you have any questions regarding the accreditation program, the chairman of FEPAC is Dr. Jose Almarall at Florida International University, and he would be glad to answer any questions that you may have. But I'll be glad to take any that you may have now.

Thank you.

DR. SELAVKA: Any questions?

QUESTION: Which six schools are part of the pilot project or pilot study?

MR. HOUCK: I can't remember them all, so I'm not going to list them because I don't want to forget anybody. The list of the institutions is on the FEPAC Web site, which is linked to the Academy Web site. So if you go there, you'll see a list of the institutions.

Thanks.

DR. SELAVKA: Thank you very much.