BY HANNAH BROADBENT | News Editor | The Statesman
On Thursday, Oct. 1 a mass shooting took place at Umpqua Community College, leaving nine dead and nine wounded. On Friday, Oct. 9 at Northern Arizona University one was killed and three were injured in a mass shooting.
Oct. 1st was the 274th day of the year. According to the Washington Post, the Oregon shooting was the 294th mass shooting of 2015.
These shootings have sparked discussion about safety procedures on college campuses.
“No one wants to talk about this but unfortunately it’s a part of our reality,” Communication instructor Barb Titus said.
At the University of Minnesota-Duluth the official policy for dealing with an active threat on campus is the ‘Shelter in Place’ procedure. UMDPD Lieutenant Sean Huls said that shelter in place is more of a “systematic hide and protect” process rather than a ‘lockdown.’ In a lockdown you can essentially shut down a building and prevent anyone from getting in or out.
“UMD is an expansive building. It’s interconnected. It’s not feasibly possible for us to lock down the campus,” Huls said.
Huls said there is a disconnect when students come to college right from high school. It is ingrained in them and their trainings from high school that the procedure is ‘lockdown’. Huls also understands that some faculty and staff are confused as well.
“We had a gun incident last spring and there was some confusion when we sent out the text alert,” Huls said. “We train and think about this kind of stuff everyday in the police department. We assumed it was common knowledge.”
Associate professor of Accounting Rodger Brannan said he did not know the shelter in place policy very well but raised his concerns about communicating the active threat alerts to campus.
“The text alert is good but if I’m talking I have my phone off or on vibrate,” Brannan said. “I’m paying attention to everyone I’m teaching.”
Brannan is not the only professor with concerns. Titus has voiced her uncertainty as well, especially after the recent spike in mass shootings starting with Virginia Tech and most recently in Oregon.
“I can’t help but think, what are the measures we can do to increase the campus safety here in case something were to happen, which we hope never does,” Titus said. “But what things could we do and how do we let everyone know we’ve done them?”
Brannan and Titus remember spring 2015 when an active threat alert was sent to campus. Brannan said he didn’t remember how it was communicated. Titus doesn’t remember hearing about it either.
Some alert tools have been updated. For example there is an outdoor warning alarm that will sound all throughout campus.
“One of the biggest things that came out of Virginia Tech is the amount of time it took to alert that campus,” Huls said. “So that’s a huge thing a lot of campuses took a look at and something we took very serious.”
According to Huls the UMDPD does rely mainly on the text alert sent to cell phones but there are multiple other forms of communication.
Included are a “phone tree” where all the phones on campus would ring and digital signs around campus would display a message. Another form of communication is through the fire alarms. In certain buildings audible voice messages on shelter in place and subsequent messages can be sent through the fire alarms.
An upgrade that is being considered is to have that ability included in the fire alarms in all buildings around campus.
Huls said the police department and facilities management are continuously working together to talk about aspects like door locks and safer ways to prop doors open.
“Simple things like that can enhance safety,” Huls said.
Titus proposes having locks on the inside of the classrooms and all doors swinging in so they can be barricaded.
“You have to go outside the classroom, lock the door and then come back in,” Titus said.
Brannan advocates for windows to have room numbers on them to be identified from the outside.
The advantage of the numbers on the windows of classrooms is that they are much more obvious. If a person was to call in and report where they saw a shooter everyone would be able to easily and quickly tell what room they were in as opposed to having to search for the number or guess.
Fortunately a few of these changes are subtly in the works.
The new Kirby Student Center offices each have the room numbers outside on the large glass windows. According to Lt. Huls the number placards were intentional safety precautions.
“We are looking at doing a full scale shooter exercise,” Hulls said. “It comes down that it’s hard to do something like that so it would have to be done in the summer because it’s disruptive to the whole campus.”
According to Huls a full scale exercise during the school year would have to get approval from multiple people and places around campus.
Titus said she thinks despite the possible disruption it would be a great idea.