While different universities’ methods of notifying students of campus emergencies is getting a lot of press and administrative attention, less exposure is given to possible methods and policies for preventing campus violence, such as shootings, before it happens.
Earlier this month, the University of Oregon sent out a notice listing and described the methods of communication that may be used to notify the campus community in the event of an emergency. The stated purpose of this notice was to demonstrate to students, employees and visitors that their security and safety is the University’s highest priority.
In all, the University lists ten possible methods of notification, including e-mail, the local media and voicemail to campus phones. The notice stresses the importance of redundancy in the system and even offers other methods that the University is exploring.
One possible method would enable automated “reverse 9-1-1” calls to all cell phones in a geographic area. We support this sort of innovative approach, as people nearly always carry their cell phones with them and it would not require any maintenance of a large database.
However, another possible solution is much more obtrusive and may be outdated: a public address system. The installation (and what we trust would be periodic testing) of a loudspeaker system would be both an overreaction and an intrusion into campus that would be reminiscent of police states or military camps.
But the addition of one or two more methods to ten existing methods is an over-redundancy that demonstrates a single-minded approach to the problem. This problem that we all hope to never revisit is a student violently assaulting and murdering fellow students, faculty and staff.
While the issue of immediately notifying the campus community that such an awful event has occurred, or is in the process of occurring, is extremely important, we must not forget that the problem is not notification, but that the event occurred at all.
As the University revises and updates its emergency response plans and methods, the issue of violence prevention and intervention needs to be a visible part of the overall policy. Up to this point it has not been.
While we understand that the University’s emergency response plan must take into account all emergencies whether they are natural, accidental or premeditated, we need to point out the current absence of coordinated, campus-wide violence prevention program.
A campus shooting will not be prevented by immediate notification that it has already happened. A campus shooting will be prevented when the University assembles a taskforce to address the issue, coordinates the efforts of the Office of Student Life, the Student Affairs Office, the Counseling Center and the Department of Public Safety and publicizes the steps that all campus community members can take in preventing such horrible events.
Models for such a program are the University’s approach to sexual assault prevention, suicide prevention, and discrimination. Campus violence prevention needs to be given similar attention so that when a member of the campus community encounters the signs of violent behavior, she or he knows not only immediately where to turn, but also knows that the University has a professional and effective plan and system in place to address the issue.
This is how the University will truly demonstrate to its community that their security and safety is its highest priority.