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University of Wisconsin-Madison
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dailycardinal.com
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Wednesday, April 16, 2008
A year ago today, Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho entered a classroom and carried out the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. Now, on the first anniversary of the tragedy, is UW any safer because of it?
ONE YEAR LATER UW focuses on threat prevention, awareness plans By Amanda Hoffstrom THE DAILY CARDINAL
Although responding to an emergency is important, a year after the Virginia Tech tragedy UW-Madison officials say prevention is a crucial part of preparation. “Honestly, I don’t know if anybody can be prepared for that. [Virginia Tech] was horrific, awful—that’s the worst of the worst,” Dean of Students Lori Berquam said. “What I would say we should focus on is prevention.” Deb Hettrick, a retired UWMadison police captain who was asked to help develop awareness programs, said police are prepared to respond to a campus emergency but would rather
CHRISTOPHER GUESS/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO
stop any danger before it occurs. “The issue with Virginia Tech was the fact that there were lots of people that felt [Seung-Hui] Cho was a serious threat, but those people did not communicate with each other,” Hettrick said. “What we’re trying to do is make sure that something like that can’t happen.” Berquam said students should communicate concerns with fellow students, advisors and deans. “College is stressful,” she said. “At this particular institution, we’re in the Big Ten, we have really strong academic standards for our students. There’s a lot of competition and stress, so of course our students are going to feel all of these burdens and then try to sort them out on their own—it’s just not even reasonable.” Don Mash, executive senior vice president for UW System administration, said UW campuses reviewed mass-casualty readiness immediately after Virginia Tech. “Northern Illinois University of course sparked additional concern … the Virginia Tech tragedy sparked changes at NIU and their level of readiness, just like they did on our campuses,” he said. Many university crisis plan changes came from a July 2007 UW Systemwide report chaired by UW-Madison Police Chief Susan Riseling, which reviewed security and suggested improvements for the 26 UW campuses. Mash said UW System administration plans to expand recommendations in its own report in June. UW-Madison officials developed “WiscAlerts,” a crisis communication plan, which have been sent out awareness page 3
UW students weigh in on campus security UW-Madison students still question university security a year after the Virginia Tech massacre. UW-Madison sophomore Nathan Lee said it is hard to feel safer when violent acts can occur anywhere. Michael Ruskin, a UWMadison sophomore, said he thinks the university has done well in keeping students informed of dangerous situations on campus, like the gunman near UW Hospital in September 2007. Though Ruskin said he doubts an incident like the Virginia Tech shootings could be stopped if it happened here, he admitted it is not something he worries about. “Things like that happen and its tragic and you hope it would
never happen to you, but you don’t always go to class thinking ‘I hope this isn’t going to happen today,’” he said. Sarah Stankey, a freshman, also said she rarely thinks about the possibility of a campus shooting. UW-Madison sophomore Natalee Lales said she thinks campus shootings cannot necessarily be solved by adding more police officers, but communication between friends is essential in catching psychological problems that often drive shooters to attack others. “If you happen to know somebody who’s having a hard time, to ignore it is, I think, the root of the problem,” she said. “Afterwards it’s too late.” —Devin Rose
April 16, 2007
PHOTOS BY JACOB ELA, CHRISTOPHER GUESS AND MATT WISNIEWSKI/CARDINAL FILE PHOTOS PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY KYLE BURSAW/THE DAILY CARDINAL
April 16 marks the one-year anniversary since 33 students and faculty were killed on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va. It was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Officials deem campus lockdowns ineffective in crises By Lexie Clinton THE DAILY CARDINAL
“Breaking News: Campus on lockdown.” With so many campus crises this year, headlines like this one are ever-present, but safety officials at UW-Madison and other campuses say blanket terms like “lockdown” are misleading and infeasible to implement.
“To lock down a campus makes no sense to me,” UW-Madison Police Chief Susan Riseling said. “People throw these terms around without really thinking them through.” After the Virginia Tech shootings, nearly every college campus reassessed crisis security plans and explored how to contain thousands of students, faculty and staff. Along with these plans came terminology from past campus tragedies, like the mass shootings at Columbine High School in 1999. Lockdown was one of the terms that blossomed from Columbine, according to Alison Kiss, program
director at Security on Campus Inc., a non-profit organization promoting secure campus environments. “A lot of what is attributed to a lockdown is from Columbine and high schools where it’s generally locking down one building,” she said. For universities with multiple campuses and tens of thousands of students, the idea of a lockdown has never translated well, safety experts on campuses say. “People have a lot of different definitions of what we’re talking lockdown page 3
Guns resurface as potent campus, election issue By Charles Brace THE DAILY CARDINAL
From UW-Madison to presidential campaigns, guns are appearing as a leading issue in 2008, according to political observers. Eric Thompson, president of the gun supplier TGSCOM Inc., said he would donate hundreds of gun holsters to colleges around the country next week. The holsters will be used by Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, including the UW-Madison chapter, for events protesting a state ban on concealed weapons. Thompson, whose online stores sold weapons to the attackers in the shootings at Virginia Tech and
Northern Illinois University, said trained students with guns might have prevented the tragedies. He said support for concealed carry bills is increasing, though they would unlikely be signed by Gov. Jim Doyle. The governor vetoed concealed carry bills in 2003 and 2006, with Wisconsin as one of two states in the country with laws banning it. Several other prominent politicians also recently stated their opposition to loosening gun laws. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said in his inaugural address Tuesday that state lawmakers must work harder to toughen laws on the sale of illegal guns. Eileen Force, a spokesperson for
Barrett, said the mayor is not concerned with recreational gun owners or sportsmen, but views it as a violent crime issue. “In the last two weeks we’ve probably had three police officers shot at with what are probably illegal guns,” Force said. She said Barrett is opposed to concealed carry and fewer guns would make Milwaukee safer. However, recent comments by presidential candidates show guns remain a politically volatile issue, according to campaign onlookers. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has been criticized for stating rural gun control page 3
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”