By Sarah Horsley
When students attend high school, they are prepared for tornados, bombs, fires and other devastating disasters. The school provides exit routes, safety tips, and ways to stay calm. However, when students get to college, for some unknown reason, all of that suddenly changes.
College students are expected to have grown and become more mature. As a result, escape routes and safety procedures are no longer practiced. Perhaps colleges and universities feel that since measures were learned by students in high school, they no longer find them necessary for college life.
After the indescribable horror at Virginia Tech in recent days one starts to wonder, though unpredictable individuals are responsible for crimes of this degree, could the death count been lowered by continuing safety procedures?
While no one can ever really say what they would actually do in a situation such as this, there are proactive measures to be taken in case of such events.
While Virginia Tech is not responsible for the actions of this young man, the university could have taken precautions for their students for cases just like this. The same rings true for all universities across the United States and the world.
Simple things such as a list of things to do in such a situation, escape routes, and perhaps silent alarms in class rooms to be triggered.
It is known that the VT administration sent out a “mass e-mail about an unfortunate incident and to stay where you were,” and they put the building of the second shooting on lock down trapping students, according to news broadcasts. However, students were never told that there was a shooter on campus, which may have prevented students from proactively preserving their safety.
According to security analyst Bob Newman, “This is not a situation to be politically correct about; they need to be blunt about the happenings to keep their students safe.” Newman also suggested extra security measures such as a button to be pressed to shut down buildings where such events are taking place.
It is unacceptable that universities have no measures for such disasters. It would be understandable if VT had taken measures after the first shooting to cancel classes and close down the campus, but it took the lives of 30 more and injuries to many more to impose such actions.
There is no excuse for continuing daily activities with a shooter at large. The worst that could come from taking extreme measures on a campus where someone is shot is a lost day of classes. It is very unfortunate that the university officials didn’t take these measures to provide safety to their students, but prior to this tragedy, how could they have ever foreseen the events that would soon unfold?
While the United States has plans in place for every type of emergency that could take place to keep the citizens safe, would it be that large of a task for universities to do the same to keep their students out of harms way?
According to reports from several security analysts some tactics such as escape routes and what to do in case of an emergency would take a matter of hours to put into place. Other measures would cost money to acquire but with a final quote from Newman, “It may cost money, but students lives are worth more than any amount you could measure.”
Because the shooter’s actions were unprecedented, it’s difficult to hold the VT administration responsible. But now, the possibility of a college shooting is real, and universities across the country must take action to mitigate future tragedies.
Sarah Horsley is a junior communication major. E-mail her at opinion@louisvillecardinal.com.
