April 17, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
Safer Campuses Worth Universities' Efforts
Can safety drills, cell-phone warning systems and early identification of troubled students make New Mexico's public colleges and universities safe?
Not completely. Thousands of students— and non-students— walk through the University of New Mexico campus every day. It just took one disturbed student to shoot 32 innocent people at Virginia Tech a year ago.
But if absolute safety is impossible, emergency response plans can definitely make our campuses safer. UNM, Eastern New Mexico University and San Juan College have all conducted emergency drills in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre.
UNM has set up a system that issues warnings to people via cell phones, as well as a hot line for faculty members to call when they are worried about a student's behavior.
Prior to Virginia Tech, university staff members nationwide were reluctant to report troubled students for fear of violating limits set by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Fortunately, the U.S. Department of Education is proposing new rules to give schools more leeway— and UNM is positioning itself to respond to those rules. It has created a Faculty Intervention Team composed of a psychologist, the dean of students and a representative from university counsel to evaluate threats posed by a student's behavior.
The deputy police chief at New Mexico State University, Stephen Lopez, has proposed a promising new accreditation system that would evaluate safety and security systems at the state's colleges and universities. Higher Education Secretary Reed Dasenbrock is encouraging schools to consider such accreditation on a voluntary basis.
The system would require a commitment of time and money, Dasenbrock points out, but some important safety measures can be accomplished without great cost. They really just take energy— like responding quickly to hot line calls from worried faculty members.