Glavin and John Carpenter, chief of police at San Diego State University, will be joining police officials from dozens of other colleges and universities from across the country at the conference being hosted by the U.S. Department of Justice on Dec. 4 and 5.

Among the conference's topics will be weapons of mass destruction and homeland security issues.

"The idea of the conference is to start building areas of expertise in various regions around the country where there are people who can serve as the points of contact and coordination as we start to develop the tools we need as a nation to combat terrorism," Glavin said.

Glavin said federal officials have already begun developing strategies for dealing with terrorism in municipalities, and realized the next step was to work with universities.

"In many ways, university and college campuses are mini-municipalities, and it makes sense to include us," she said.

Glavin, a former police chief and public safety director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was named director of public safety at Northridge earlier this semester. She is the first female public safety director in the university's history.

She oversees a public safety department that includes police, parking, transportation services and the student-staffed Community Service Office program.