How much would you sacrifice for security? It’s a problem that faces any university: balancing the desire for freedom with the security needed to maintain it.
Three weeks after the shootings at Northern Illinois University, it’s tempting to ask what could have been done to prevent it, and what can be done to prevent such things in the future. The same question was asked after Virginia Tech — to which NIU’s president wrote a response last April highlighting how the university was preparing for emergencies.
In reality, it’s unclear that much can be done at all. The blessing – or danger – of a place like Northwestern is that it is so open, bleeding into the surrounding town and remaining accessible to all. How can you keep unwanted intruders out when it’s so easy to get in? And if it were a question of sacrificing more freedom to do so, many Northwestern students said they would hesitate.
Bill Banis, vice president of student relations, said the answer lies in deterring would-be criminals.
“Much of our investment has been to help protect students from themselves,” Banis said. “Part of the philosophy isn’t so much to interfere with the freedom of our students, it’s to create deterrence for those who would do harm, those who don’t belong on campus.”
The most affected so far have been residence halls, where video cameras and security guards have helped increase dorm security. And despite students’ complaints about measures such as locking the side doors of dorms, Banis insisted that most intruders enter through those doors or by trailing after students who open the doors ahead of them.
The focus, then, is on daily security. Neither Banis nor students said that they think that one can account for tragedies like the ones at NIU or Virginia Tech.
“I think that no matter how many security measures are in place, those would help once the bad event had already started happening,” Medill junior Vinika Porwal said. “It wouldn’t prevent the event from happening. Things like lighting are much more important than scoping out potential shooters.”
As for prevention, more power may lie with CAPS than with NUPD. Much of the media focus following Virginia Tech and NIU was on the killers’ psychological histories and the roles that therapy and medication played in the events leading up to the shootings.
“Our counseling center does a lot of gatekeeper training… to identify individuals in distress,” Banis said. “We have a good safety net in place. [But] despite everything that we do and all the investments that we make, the world is a risky place, and an increasing percentage of college students come into higher education with emotional and psychological issues.”
A New York Times article in 2003 described the trend. The percentage of college students treated for depression doubled between 1989 and 2001, according to the article, and the number of suicidal students and students seeking counseling have increased significantly. Although the numbers may reflect more students seeking help, rather than more students needing it, 80 percent of surveyed counseling center directors said they thought that the previous five years had seen an increase in students with severe psychological issues.
But as Banis points out, better psychological services do not guarantee protection. What if the school did more, requiring a WildCARD to enter classroom buildings that were protected by security guards? Would students feel more at ease? Not necessarily, they said.
“I want to go to a university that doesn’t feel like a prison,” said Binoy Shah, a mechanical engineering graduate student. “If all of a sudden the security is heightened to a point that it’s so visible it comes to my mind every day, then I think I’ll just feel more insecure, feel like there’s something going on that I should be worried about or keep an eye out on.”
Even those who would be willing to give up some freedoms doubted how effective any measures could be.
“I would sacrifice anything. Part of me wants to say that if you’re worried about security cameras and policemen, you may be at fault here, you may be doing something wrong,” said Chris Riggs, a graduate student in music performance. “But at the same time, I don’t think more security cameras or more policemen would prevent something like the NIU thing. It could happen in a split-second before anyone could react — it just happens.”
And while recent college shootings have played a role in many universities creating emergency notification systems and promoting safety measures, NU’s administration has tried recognize the difficulties of securing this campus without oppressing it.
“After Virginia Tech… First we were doing too much, taking away freedom, then after, we weren’t doing enough,” Banis said. “We don’t look at this emotionally. We did a thorough audit and we made our decisions based on a very balanced approach in terms of maximum freedom for students and maximum safety for buildings. There’s a trade-off.”