Improving campus security solid choice

Campus safety might be on students’ minds lately. Besides recent national tragedies such as the Virginia Tech and the Northern Illinois University shootings, IU students recently experienced a test of the IU-Notify system and a reported incident with an unidentified slasher.

Campuses have been under a lot of pressure to improve safety, but recently Congress decided that measures need to be taken to ensure that every school at least makes minimum preparations. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a measure to require college institutions to have emergency-response plans for their campuses.

The federal government has had plenty of involvement with campus safety. This new bill, HR 2352, comes just more than a month after President Bush signed a bill into law requiring colleges to immediately notify their students in the event of an emergency.

The most recent bill will require colleges that receive federal student aid to conduct annual campus safety assessments in consultation with local law enforcement officials. It also tasks colleges with developing and implementing response plans for natural disasters, “active shooter situations” and terrorism.

This bill is important because it establishes minimal safety requirements for campuses and ensures that all campuses receiving federal student aid will implement the emergency-safety plans that many other schools already do.

Over-involvement by the federal government could be counter-productive because, after all, every campus is different and has unique safety concerns. As we have already seen with the IU-Notify system, every emergency plan will have its quirks. Mandating minimal emergency-response plans will be most effective if each university can iron out those quirks themselves.

Fortunately, HR 2352 seems to give colleges the freedom they need while still requiring institutions of higher learning to establish the necessary emergency response plans that all students deserve.