Campus Security

Campus security remains a high topic of discussion this week through all the major news outlets. Collectively, we share the deepest of sympathies for the victims and families of the tragedy that occurred earlier this week at Virginia Tech.

As a result, I would like to address the issue of educational security. It should be noted I am not addressing the specific issues that occurred at Virginia Tech, rather looking at the topic from a wide lens to highlight areas worth focusing on at every campus. I have, however, analyzed the events at Virginia Tech and have found similarities to events at quite a few campuses including my own experiences in 1996 at Johns Hopkins University, which included the shooting death of a fellow student, Rex Chao.

In order to address the needs, we need to understand what barriers stand in our way from properly securing campus environments. Campus security is not an easy task. You need to secure a wide area, enforce policy, and yet enable personnel movement between areas. You want to create an environment that exudes safety while offering the perspective of freedom for thoughts and interaction between the inhabitants and outside guests.

The threats/risks are varied. We must account for individual and group safety at all times. The threats can stem from common theft and burglary to violent crimes such as rape, aggravated assault, or even disorderly conduct that could lead to injury. The more possible threats, the greater the security “net” has to be. Enhanced Video, Analytics, Call-Boxes, Access Control are all measures that need to be evaluated and implemented.

With all that said, the biggest area of concern as a security professional is communication, both between security personnel and with security devices. Educational campuses share similarities with large corporate campuses by their need for efficient communication. Too many times today, as campuses expand, we find a “hodgepodge” of technologies in place as a result of disparate funding to separate departments each running their own mini-security operations center. This variance in technologies and systems creates problems when attempting to respond to a threat. Not only do the systems not communicate, but as a result of their make-up, they require individual policies for implementation. Therefore, we have separate systems working with numerous implementation procedures and varying triggering policies.

Campuses need to address centralizing their security procedures and security technologies. Security Management Systems that enable the integration of various technologies to create a standard protocol are essential for threat management.