By Jane Stancill
The News & Observer
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — UNC campuses should develop emergency response plans to cover all possible hazards, conduct disaster drills twice a year, beef up campus police standards and adopt goals for notifying students, faculty and staff of emergencies.
These are some of the recommendations likely to come from the UNC system’s Campus Safety Task Force formed after the Virginia Tech shootings in April.
Also Wednesday, an internal panel at Virginia Tech recommended its own response, calling for more monitoring of troubled students, classroom locks and other security measures.
The panel made no assessment of the school’s actions April 16, when more than two hours elapsed between the time student gunman Seung-Hui Cho killed two students in a dormitory and the time he killed 30 other people and himself in a classroom building.
Another review team, appointed by Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, is investigating Virginia Tech’s handling of the shootings as well as Cho’s background. Its report is due next week.
In Chapel Hill, the UNC panel discussed 23 ideas for responding to extreme events on campus.
In the weeks ahead, the group will recommend changes on other issues, such as how to deal with threatening behavior, mental health counseling, privacy laws, dorm safety, student conduct codes, alcohol abuse, drugs and weapons.
One idea that probably won’t gain traction is requiring the universities to be notified if students buy guns. Panel members said there would be no way for authorities to verify whether gun buyers are students.
“It seems impossible,” said Leslie Winner, UNC system vice president and general counsel, who is chairman of the task force. “It also seems questionable that it would help.”
But the task force agreed that campuses should have better plans in place to deal with major emergencies, including floods, fires, hurricanes, chemical spills, a flu epidemic and active shooters. Disaster drills must be complex and frequent, panel members said.
“If you don’t do that, you’re destined to fail in an emergency,” said David Rainer, associate vice chancellor of environmental health and public safety at N.C. State University. “It shows you where your weak links are. It shows you where things can go wrong.”
Some campuses are turning to technology to improve communication during dangerous situations. NCSU and UNC-Chapel Hill will install siren systems, and UNC-CH has a new text-message emergency notification service.
But technology isn’t necessarily the answer, task force members said. Private companies offer services to blast thousands of text messages, but cell phone towers might not be able to handle that kind of volume. Although dorms have card key readers to control access, students often prop doors open or allow strangers inside.
“I can be at any residence hall on my campus and be in that residence hall within 30 seconds,” Rainer said.
Securing buildings is one aspect of safety. Preventing violence is more complex.
A task force subcommittee is considering the idea of requiring campuses to form trained threat-assessment teams that would meet regularly to discuss troubled individuals. Such teams could include psychologists, law enforcement officers, professors and student affairs administrators.
Protocols would be established to deal with people who show signs of mental distress. It is possible that campuses could set up an anonymous Web site or hot line to receive reports about suspicious behavior.
It’s a delicate issue, and university leaders admit that such requests for “snitching” could lead to campuses overwhelmed with vague tips.
“You can’t have this group get 500 referrals a week,” Winner said of the proposed threat assessment teams.
A final report is expected this fall. A statewide panel appointed by Attorney General Roy Cooper is working on campus safety issues in response to the Virginia Tech killings.
Copyright 2007 The News and Observer