‘Don’t panic.’

Don’t panic. When you left your homework on the school bus back in grade school, this adage seemed always to be appropriate advice. Well, that little bit of counsel may have sufficed to keep you calm during a minor third-grade crisis, but it is all but impossible to heed such advice during major disasters, such as the Virginia Tech massacre April 16. And after such indescribably tragic events, panicking is exactly what people tend to do. \nAs a result, in the community of higher education, universities are now scrambling to find ways to reassure their students – and their students’ parents – that such an attack will never happen on their campuses. \nIU is no exception; administrators are currently brainstorming ways to avoid ever experiencing such a tragedy and to lessen their accountability in the unlikely chance of such an occurrence by instituting improved preventative safety measures, especially ones that would be able to warn students of imminent danger, such as sending out text messages and e-mail warnings. In fact, IU has formed a task force to explore such ideas following the Virginia Tech killings.\nIn addition to securing the campus by communicating threats to the student body, the task force is investigating physical solutions, such as locking the doors of several campus buildings, dorms and classrooms. Maybe such an idea would be popular among administrators and parents, but at the very mention of such an inconvenience, we would be willing to bet that most of the student body would emit a collective, irritated groan. For instance, when Collins LLC started locking their dormitory entrance doors this spring, some residents were irritated by the added nuisance of toting around keys everywhere and having to try their utmost to keep from locking themselves out.\nBut should the student body have a voice in the decision concerning whether the campus will become a virtual citadel? Do they know what is in their best interest, or should they just take the word of the powers that be on faith? \nEven if IU did sponsor a forum or a referendum to survey student support for a campus lock down, knowing the somewhat apathetic tendencies of the Hoosier student body (remember last spring’s uncontested IUSA elections?), it is unlikely that a significant number of them would even choose to participate. Once the initial shock following such a major crisis passes, people tend to lose interest. Students on the IU campus are no doubt feeling more secure now than they were four months ago, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, and creating additional safety measures may no longer top their lists of priorities. Still, providing students with the ability to discuss the issue before it’s instituted will do a lot to smooth the process.\nAnd so, we will entrust campus safety to those who have training in security solutions and who are more likely to do a thorough job of protecting IU. If the student body objects strongly to any of the measures that are implemented, we are confident they will make their complaints heard.