Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., and Ranking Member Susan Collins, R-Me., held a hearing today entitled “Security on America’s College Campuses” to address issues related to security preparations on college campuses across the nation.
Senator Collins said, “Colleges and universities defy easy answers for law-enforcement officials and first responders. Our college campuses are in many ways attractive targets for those who intend to harm America. And although campus security is primarily a state, local, and institutional responsibility, the federal government plays a role in strengthening security through the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Education, and FBI, the Secret Service, and other agencies.”
Senator Collins explained that campus security should be considered in the broader context of homeland security. “As potential targets for mass murders, educational institutions have vulnerabilities similar to those of shopping malls, theaters, and transportation hubs—that is, large numbers of people and relatively open public access.
“But we can do more to identify best practices, to disseminate them, to help with their implementation, and to assess their effectiveness. We can work with our first responders to ensure effective responses to attacks. And campus communication systems can also be improved to allow more effective alerts and permit better coordination of responses,” said Senator Collins.
The Senator said that University of Maine Public Safety Chief Noel March has pointed out that the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators is cooperating with the Department of Justice to develop a National Center for Campus Public Safety that would help work toward these objectives.
Witnesses described the challenges associated with strengthening security at our nation’s college campuses, and provided ideas about how the federal government can support such efforts.
W. Roger Webb, President of the University of Central Oklahoma and former Commissioner of Public Safety for the state of Oklahoma said that 9/11 should have been a wake up call to the potential of mass violence on university campuses, but very little had happened to change the level of security at most campuses. He said that more needs to be done to provide professional counselors to assist with troubled and disturbed students. He also said that school officials should have training in threat assessments and in analyzing a threat in order to provide proper response and intervention. In addition, Webb said that universities should be able to respond to emergencies with up-to-date technologies.
Another witness, David Ward, President of the American Council on Education and former Chancellor at the University of Wisconsin agreed that technology is increasingly playing an important role in protecting college campus communities. He said that he supports an effort by the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) to develop best practices, training materials, and guidance for campus communities in matters of security. Ward said he also supports the creation of a National Center for Campus Public Safety. The center would promote collaboration among national and local law enforcement agencies and would strengthen the administrative and operational components of campus security systems. He said that it is essential that every campus have an emergency plan that identifies a core response team, a communications plan, and a way to implement the movements of emergency and other staff in a variety of scenarios.
Other witnesses included; Steven Healy, President of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA), and head of campus security at Princeton University; Russell Federman, Ph.D., Director of Counseling and Psychological Services University of Virginia; and Irwin Redlener, M.D., Director, National Center for Disaster Preparedness Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.
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