Published: April 08, 2008 11:41 am            

IU Southeast students urged to tell officials of troubled people

Campus has new security measures planned as residence halls arrive this fall

Nearly one year ago, Seung-Hui Cho killed two people in a Virginia Tech dormitory just after 7 a.m. University officials did not send an e-mail alert to students until more than two hours later — just before Cho killed 30 others in a classroom building across campus and then committed suicide, according to Associated Press reports.

That caused many campuses across the nation to examine if they are ready to handle a similar situation, including Indiana University Southeast in New Albany.

Larry Mand, vice chancellor of information, technology and community engagement at IUS, said the college had many security measures in place — such as e-mail and phone alerts — before the tragedy in Virginia, and since has started more, but the shootings caused officials to try to get to the base of the problem. That’s when the school started the Campus Watch program.

“Due to the lessons learned after Virginia Tech, we started to think that we need to identify these abnormal behaviors before something happens and fix them to bring about some kind of resolve,” said Dennis Simon, chief of the IUS Police Department.

New York-based psychologist Dr. Susan Lipkins — an author who has appeared on many TV shows such as “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and “Larry King Live” — agrees.

She said in a news release that many schools aren’t addressing the root of the problem when they install metal detectors or hire additional officers. Instead, she said they need to identify unstable students so that they can get help.

IUS is doing just that with the Campus Watch program. Campus Watch brochures tell people how to identify a troubled person and who to contact to get that person help.

“Now, we’re taking things more seriously, such as when we see personality changes or outrages or something out of the norm,” Simon said.

So far, the school has utilized this program to help a few people among its more than 6,000 students.

“Luckily, they’ve just been people who are having a bad day or stressed and they just needed to turn on the release valve a little bit,” Simon said. “We haven’t found a case as of yet that we really had to fear or that we had to go though a lot of resources in order to make the campus safer.”

Simon said although this won’t eliminate the threat, he hopes it will make a difference in campus safety.

“To have people practicing this Campus Watch and being more vigilant to what’s going on every day and what’s out of the norm, hopefully we can detect a person who may be wanting to bring a threat to campus,” he said. “It’s one step closer toward prevention.”

With 150 students set to live on campus for the first time in the fall, the school also is beefing up security in an eight-phase, eight-year plan. When the halls are finished, 400 people will occupy campus.

The first phase, which is under way, includes installing 10 more emergency telephones, which when picked up will dial directly to the campus police dispatcher. Those also will have flashing lights on top when activated.

This year, the school added another officer to its staff — making a total of nine — and for the second phase, Simon hopes to add at least one more.

Those living in the on-campus housing will only have access to their specific building via their student ID card. Mand said another security measure that will come to campus is an outdoor-notification system, where school officials could make announcements to reach those who aren’t inside a building.

In the buildings, Mand said the school’s voice over Internet protocol phones allows officials to speak to all the phones simultaneously. So, if a person is sitting in his or her office and an emergency arises, a school official would make the announcement which would be heard over the speaker phone.

Mand said those phones — which were installed early this year — were scheduled for testing in March. However, they were already used when a power surge caused a generator to malfunction. That sent smoke throughout one of the buildings. That same power surge caused the fire alarms to not audibly sound. The alarms did send a message to campus officials, who then used the phones to alert all the rooms to evacuate.

Mand said security measures led that incident to be resolved smoothly. However, he is looking into why the alarms didn’t sound.

“It’s good to have these security systems that overlap a little bit,” he said. “That way, you have more than one way to notify people of any kind of problem or situation.”

Simon said he’s thankful that the school has not had to use security to deal with a serious situation.

“We’ve never had any major security issues.” he said.

Those students interviewed said they feel safe on campus.

“I’ve never questioned it,” sophomore Chanda Givans, 20, said. “It’s a small campus. You pretty much know what’s going on on campus all the time.”

        

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