Author: Alana Saltz
We were all shocked when word of the Virginia Tech shooting spread across the nation last April. 32 people were killed and many more wounded, making it the deadliest school shooting in US history. Northern Illinois University had its own tragedy on Feb. 14 when a gunman entered a classroom and shot 18 students before killing himself.
High-school shootings have been a tragically familiar occurrence and it seems that the epidemic has spread to college campuses. I was still in middle school when the Columbine shootings shook the world. I remember watching the nonstop news coverage and trying to imagine myself in the place of the high-school students faced with such unimaginable horror. News of the Virginia Tech tragedy last year struck me hard. I was left with a piercing anxiety and couldn’t get the question out of my mind: what if this happened to me? This most recent tragedy has revived my fear of school shootings, a fear that had become more latent as time passed after Virginia Tech.
So what about Oxy? Is our campus safe? An e-mail from President Skotheim was sent to the student body on Feb. 15 expressing sympathy for the victims of NIU, and outlining our “Overall Campus Safety Preparedness and Proactive Prevention Strategies.” It is worth noting that none of the Campus Safety officers are armed, although the e-mail also reassures students about our strong connection to the LAPD. If a gunman were to show up on campus, no one on the scene could do anything about it.
There are surveillance cameras around campus and a “multi-layered emergency notification system” to be used in the event of an emergency. However, that system is still in the process of being developed and implemented.
Most interesting, however, is the Dean of Students’ Campus Safety committee, which meets weekly and is said to “anticipate any potential threats and identify students in difficulty before they reach a personal crisis.” It’s not clear exactly what that means, or how this committee gets their information about particular students having “difficulties.”
We must be aware of what is being done to keep us safe on campus and what we can do to help the process. The school should inform students about how the committee functions and, even more importantly, what they can do if they personally suspect a fellow student of needing help. Students going through a personal crisis need to know how to get themselves help as well.
The shooter at Virginia Tech had a history of mental illness and harassment toward fellow students, and the University was immediately blamed for not taking action toward helping him or reporting him. The motives of the killer at NIU are still unclear. He is said to have been a former student of the University, and on various medications for psychological disorders, which he had stopped taking a few weeks prior to the incident. Was there anything that the school could have done? If they had a better system or more concerned students and faculty, would that have made a difference? I believe that the answer is yes.
Oxy appears to be taking steps toward making our campus better prepared for an emergency situation. There’s no quick fix or easy solution, no matter where you put the blame. It’s important that these shootings don’t fade from our minds as soon as the news coverage dies down and that we continue to work on addressing the problem in case it happens again. It’s up to everyone at Oxy to ensure that everything possible is being done to prevent this from taking place on our campus, both in terms of security and support for students who may be a threat. It’s not only the college’s responsibility, but ours as well.
Alana Saltz is a junior ECLS major. She can be reached at asaltz@oxy.edu.
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