MU enforces campus safety

Administration, police respond in wake of Virgina Tech shooting

By Juana Summers

Published April 20, 2007

After Monday's shooting at Virginia Tech, students throughout the country held vigils and displayed the school's colors — maroon and orange — to express their sympathy. But along with the expressions of support for the Blackburg, Va., community, the tragedy raised questions about other universities' ability to respond to an emergency situation.

At Tuesday's General Faculty Council meeting, Chancellor Brady Deaton spoke about the campus' recent emergency preparedness drill. Although the drill had been planned for months, the scenario was eerily familiar: a sniper shooting at students on university property.

"It left us all a little bit of additional nervousness and a real acute sense of the reality of this exercise," Deaton said. "I think that this was more than just your average tabletop exercise."

The details of the tabletop exercise are not being released, and the MU Police Department does not facilitate it, Capt. Brian Weimer said.

"We have another group that does this for us," Weimer said. "We are 100 percent actively involved in participating in it."

Weimer said that for a given incident, the number of law enforcement authorities responding would depend on the number of people affected and the magnitude of the event.

During this scenario, Gov. Matt Blunt called Deaton to discuss the creation of a statewide task force on safety in higher education.

According to a news release from Blunt's office, the new Campus Security Task Force would help to ensure a partnership between public safety officials and higher education institutions, as well as examining safety and security of higher education institutions.

"Missourians can feel confident that the actions we have taken to protect our college campuses have made them safer, but the tragedy at Virginia Tech gives all of us pause for the need to do even more," Blunt stated in the release.

Public Safety Director Mark James and Higher Education Commissioner Robert Stein will both head the committee. Deaton said several MU faculty members have been recommended to become part of this task force.

Motoko Akiba, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy analysis, said universities should focus on informing the student body and reporting on students rather than emphasizing physical safety.

"One issue is, when this kind of tragedy happens, information needs to reach the students, staff and faculty as soon as possible through multiple ways including e-mail and text messages," Akiba said.

At the university level, informing students about dangerous situations should be immediate because most people have access to computers and cell phones, she said.

After this week's shooting in southeast Columbia, the MU student body and faculty received information by mass e-mail about an hour after the incident.

"In (Wednesday's) case, it wasn't on campus, and so the police had the best judgment in terms of how much threat exists to the faculty members and students," Akiba said. "I think that was appropriate, what the police did by notifying through e-mail."

Residential Life Director Frankie Minor said though there has been no staff training specifically geared toward an incident like what happened at Virginia Tech, staff was trained to manage crises.

"We train them on what to do routinely in these types of situations, which is rely on law enforcement, other safety personnel and administrators for direction and check in with students residents to make sure they are doing well," Minor said.

Although management for specific incidences varies, Minor said locking down the residence halls was possible and has been done in the past.

"We've locked down the residence halls before on home football weekends when we knew it was going to be particularly crowded," Minor said. "We would make that decision (to lock down halls) based on the information we have available at that time."

Residence halls were also locked down when the National Socialist Movement marched near the MU campus. The lockdown then required residents to swipe into their respective halls with their student identification cards.

Weimer said the decision to lock down campus would ultimately come from the chancellor or one of his designees.

The campus response to emergency situations would include counseling for involved students and staff. Although the Virginia Tech shooting occurred far from MU, resources have been made available for affected students.

"One thing we are doing is we are trying to identify all the students in the residence halls from Virginia and also identifying students from Colorado," Minor said in a previous Maneater article. "We have had MU students from Colorado who attended Columbine High School, and sometimes these tragedies can trigger bad memories for people who have suffered a tragedy like this before."

The Counseling Center offers crisis concern counseling for students, as well as consultation for faculty or staff members who believe a student was significantly distressed by the Virginia Tech shootings.

Were a similar incident to occur on the MU campus, the Counseling Center would offer its services to students.

"The Counseling Center will provide assessment and intervention for students who are in crisis," Counseling Center spokeswoman Ann Meyer said. "If a student poses a threat on campus and you are concerned for your safety and others, your first action should be to contact the police department."

— Staff writer James Patrick Schmidt contributed to this report