University Business - April 2008 - (Page 54)

What Families Think: CAMPUS SAFETY Take a more comprehensive perspective in informing families about your college’s environment, programs, and policies. By Howard and Matthew Greene THE PHONE RINGS. THERE ARE REPORTS OF GUN shots on campus. Apparently someone is holed up in a tall building in the middle of the university campus, ﬁring shots from a riﬂe at random passersby, police, and campus security oﬃcers. Eventually he is subdued. Afterward the investigation turns up these various facts: he was depressed and suicidal, and had visited with campus medical and health professionals well in advance of the shootings; he had served in the military but was discharged; he had begun acting erratically and was having marital diﬃculties; his parents had divorced; he purchased his weapons legally; he killed his wife and mother prior to the shootings; he left a detailed suicide note, making it clear that he didn’t intend to survive his violent rampage. Illinois or Virginia in the 21st century? Could be, but this incident occurred over 40 years ago, in 1966 at The University of Texas—a deﬁning moment for a college generation. Since then, a number of more or less similarly horriﬁc violent incidents have occurred not only on college but also on secondary and even elementary school campuses across the country. Their names are familiar: Jonesboro, Springﬁeld, Columbine. Unfortunately, major acts of violence, facilitated by access to ﬁrearms and to models of such behavior, are nothing new at educational institutions. Yet they are also exceedingly rare, and are actually anomalous forms of campus violence. Educational environments tend to be among the safest places for students during the day. Children, adolescents, and young adults face greater dangers from motor vehicles, recreational accidents, substance use, violence in their neighborhoods, and even from their own families and their own hands. Mental health counselors will often point to the greater prevalence of suicide among young people than homicide. Of course, much of the dramatic violence seen recently on college and school campuses is both suicidal and homicidal. 54 | April 2008 A great many studies of these and other recent and past school shootings have gone to great lengths to understand ways to prevent, react to, and recover from major acts of violence. Lessons have been adapted from approaches to handling natural disasters and terrorist threats. Technology has oﬀered administrators new tools to communicate with staﬀ, students, parents, police, and the press, as well as the means to keep our largely open college campuses more secure and better monitored. From door locks swiped with student IDs to hidden surveillance cameras to armed guards on campus, students today certainly face a diﬀerent campus environment than those of a generation ago. Weighing on Their Minds Our own research and experience counseling students and parents over many years has shown signiﬁcant concerns among students on college campuses about personal safety and the secondary eﬀects of drug and alcohol usage. For example, student interviews at elite college campuses for our book Inside the Top Colleges (HarperCollins, 1999) revealed worries about date rape, physical abuse, theft, and general concerns over personal safety. These were reﬂected as well in a Harvard University School of Public Health study released in 1995. The federal Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990 (now known as the Jeanne Clery Act, after the Lehigh University [Pa.] freshman murdered in her dorm room in 1986) required all higher ed institutions receiving federal funds to report annual crime statistics. The law has been amended several times to add provisions for victims, expand reporting requirements, and link reported data with Megan’s Law sex oﬀender information availability. Though campus crime and safety data are still diﬃcult to gather, sometimes uneven, and sometimes not clearly delineated or accumulated between on-campus and oﬀ-campus crime and violence, the system universitybusiness.com http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - April 2008

University Business - April 2008
Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
Stats Watch
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Future Shock
On The Hill
Facilities Focus
Independent Outlook
Ready, Set, Respond
Small Steps to Safety
Admissions
Lecture Capture: A Fresh Look
Internet Technology
What's New
Calendar of Events
End Note

University Business - April 2008