House Editorial: Just how safe is too safe?

Posted on August 27, 2007

Cho’s killing spree at Virginia Tech last spring left many questioning the safety of college campuses and the efficiency of university emergency protocol. Since then, schools have been planning and implementing emergency-response programs to ensure it never happens again.

Rightfully so.

And JMU is no exception. This summer, twelve administrators, public safety officials and faculty representatives met biweekly as part of JMU’s Emergency Response and Recovery Team to update current security measures and create a Crisis Communication Plan.

Additions to the current system include a cell-phone alert system that students can sign up for on e-campus as well as boosting the current severe weather sirens located on the top of academic buildings to be capable of sounding off pre-recorded messages that can be heard anywhere on campus. The team also devised a method of sending out blast e-mails to all JMU e-mail accounts and drastically improved the efficiency of sending out the messages by ensuring the message will reach the entire student body in a matter of minutes.

JMU spokesperson Don Egle and Police Chief Lee Shifflet have been actively promoting all of the new features throughout campus so that students and faculty are aware of the changes and editions to protocol.

But when will it be enough? And will all of the planning at some point become unnecessary and just too much?

Faculty members have been polled as to whether or not they would prefer to have dead bolts on their classroom doors. In the wake of of the Va. Tech shooting, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. But perhaps all of the planning for the worst is making the situation out to be worse than it actually is.

In talking with students on campus, most that we’ve talked to think that having an emergency system in place can’t hurt, and generally makes them feel assured that if something goes wrong, they will be taken care of.

But it’s imperative to remind ourselves not get caught up in worrying about freak, isolated incidents. Relatively speaking, JMU is a safe campus, and while we need to be smart about personal safety, we do not feel that there is any pressing danger to our safety on any given day.

It’s comforting to know that there is a response system in place, but remaining grounded and recognizing the rarity of an event such as the one at Va. Tech is more important than six deadbolts on a classroom door.