Hillary Weiss
Despite the new safety measures, including cameras in the residential halls, at Siena Heights University (SHU), professors here at SHU doesn’t seem well-equipped with official defense information or any type of safety training. Although, according to interviews with SHU faculty and staff, the issue is widespread in higher education and not just a problem at SHU.
Dr. Julie Barst, an assistant professor of English at SHU, admits the only campus wide training that she had when being hired seven months ago was with the technology staff. “I was given the faculty handbook and I was told where to go to get [the safety] information,” she confirmed. But she did not have formal instruction on what to do, for example, if there was a shooter in the school.
On the other hand, Nick Kaplan, assistant professor of Spanish, has taught at SHU seven consecutive years. His experience with SHU Campus Safety has been positive: “One of the professors a while ago had a medical emergency, and they [Campus Safety] were very fast.” But in his time of being here, staff members have not had a safety meeting.
However, safety training is not just a difficult meeting to fit in for this university. Other universities, such as South Dakota State University, Dr. Barst’s former institution, and Bowling Green State University, where Dr. Christy Mesaros-Winckles, assistant professor of English/communication, used to teach, did not regularly train their faculty and staff for safety precautions, either.
“At both BGSU and SHU I haven’t received any emergency procedure training,” Mesaros-Winckles expressed. “SHU has been proactive in making sure I have the campus safety handbook, and I appreciate that. However, as one of the younger faculty members, I was a high school freshman when Columbine happened. Perhaps it’s just me, but watching so many school and university shootings occur over the last fifteen years makes me deeply concerned about protecting my students. At every university I’ve taught at, there have been no drills, no hands on training for how to deal with emergency situations.”
Similarly, Wiona Porath, the director of Academic Advising at SHU, was not trained when she worked at the University of Toledo. “But there were more security system [like SHU Alerts] tests there. They tested them at the first of every month. Also, UT had safety lights so if someone was being chased, they could be followed by security.”
Barst, Kaplan, Mesaros-Winckles, and Porath all agree that safety meeting would be useful. “There should also be safety surveys handed out to get feedback on what they can do to improve safety,” Barst commented.
Porath had many ideas for improving SHU’s safety. “We need to train staff, especially new people, and there should be a resource guide for staff and, most importantly, for parents. This could be a marketing tool for SHU to let parents know that it is safe and prepared. Plus, advertising what campus safety can do, like campus walks, would be helpful to students. They may even want to start a self-defense program once a year, or even have it as a class option. Incidents can happen anywhere, even at a smaller school like SHU.”
Cindy Birdwell, the Director Public Safety and Campus Event Management at SHU, thinks so as well.
“I would love to [have safety meetings],” she said cheerfully. “Safety of the community is our top priority, and this could help. We will make ourselves available any time, but there is already a workshop week [that could work].”
Birdwell’s willingness to host safety meetings offers a chance for different departments at SHU to contact campus safety for safety meetings specific to their division. The humanities division at SHU invited Birdwell to speak on safety concerns at their March division meeting.
“I’m glad Cindy came, because safety is an important issue. You can never know too much about the resources we have here at SHU,” commented Ian Bell, chair of the humanities division.