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Campus Security
It's All About Risk
5/11/2007
Campuses need to think carefully through their answers to concerned parents and the general public. We need to be prepared to outline our campus policies and procedures to protect students and notify our campus community in the event of disaster. And, yes, we need to be able to articulate and educate society in general of the tradeoffs involved in risk management. For example, we could make our campuses "gated communities" with airport-like security, but the resulting cost increase would mean that many students could no longer afford a college education. Our explanations must be in terms that the average citizen can understand. In short we need a carefully thought-out Business Continuity Management plan that is communicated throughout our campus community. The alternative is to have our campus policies and procedures and even our technology whipsawed back and forth by public fears and those using scare tactics to peddle a quick fix.
Broader Issues
The Virginia Tech massacre raises issues that go beyond the safety of students on campus--issues that are much more fundamental than BCM.
A few weeks after the shootings at Virginia Tech an Illinois high school student was arrested for writing an essay containing violent content. The assignment was to write an essay about whatever came to mind and not to judge or censor what they wrote. The essay contained passages such as "Blood, sex and booze. Drugs, drugs, drugs are fun. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, s…t…a…b…puke. So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P90s and started shooting everyone, then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did." The writer, a straight-A student who had never been disciplined in school, argued that his exaggerated creative writing was being taken out of context. School officials described the essay as disturbing and inappropriate.
What is the responsibility of an institution to intervene if there is evidence or even a suggestion that a crime might be committed? The movie Minority Report, in which projections of crimes that might be committed in the future form the basis for imprisoning individuals in the present, comes to mind. What are the rights of an individual to free speech? Can a student write an essay that contains graphic violence? If a student cannot, is it acceptable for such content to be found in a neighborhood library or bookstore? What is the tradeoff between censorship and individual freedom? Those aren't technical questions. But the higher education community needs to begin thinking about the answers.
"Prudence keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy."
--Samuel Johnson
Doug Gale is president of Information Technology Associates LLC (http://www.itassociates.org), an IT consultancy specializing in higher education. He has more than 30 years of experience in higher education as a faculty member, CIO, and research administrator. He can be reached at dgale@itassociates.org.
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