The Virginia Tech shootings have undermined the sense that many campus communities - including students, faculty, administrators, and parents - have long enjoyed. It's the idea that "it can't happen here," or that the worst of campus crimes are generally confined to high-crime, urban settings.

But Virginia Tech, on 2,600 acres surrounded by rolling hills and farmlands, put the lie to that sense of security. "We were attacked by a madman intent on violence," says Larry Hincker, Virginia Tech's associate vice president of university relations. "It could have happened on any university campus in America."

Balancing Safety with Freedom
In order to address students' fears, school administrators have been dealing with many questions: How can we make campuses safer for students and faculty? What are the limitations of providing security to large, sprawling universities? How can we ratchet up security without compromising one of the most important and traditional aspects of college life - an open, academic atmosphere?

For Shannon, a 26-year-old master's student, the free flow between the University of San Francisco campus and the surrounding city is one of the things she likes best about her college experience. "I like the openness here," she says. "I wouldn't like it to feel any different. There has to be a freeness to a campus."

Other professors and students share her feelings: "A locked-down environment would mean walking around campus confronted with fear as the ruling passion," says Sharon Krause, associate professor of political science at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. "That can't be good for any community - especially an intellectual community."

Dr. Melody Seymour, a professor of English at Napa Valley College in California, knows firsthand about the threat of campus violence. As a young teacher in East Texas, Seymour was once confronted by a student who threatened to go home, get his gun, and shoot her and the rest of her students.

Fortunately, she was able to talk him down, but the experience almost 40 years ago left a dark impression: "Since then, it has never surprised me when I hear about violence in the classroom. People bring their burdens with them onto campus and sometimes, if they act out, it can be dangerous."

Yet, while security is a top priority for Seymour, so is the free flow of people and the free exchange of ideas. "I'm not sure you could teach in a campus that wasn't open access," she muses. "Would you really wish to have an academic institution with closed doors?"

Weighing the Options
Many campus security experts agree that a locked-down environment in a college or university setting, the kind you might find at a federal building, for example - with fencing, metal detectors in every doorway, or security personnel in every hallway - just wouldn't work.

"You have to understand that college campuses are like cities, with tens of thousands of people attending and people arriving any time of the day or night," says Renee Jadushlever, vice president for operations at Mills College in Oakland, California, which is situated on 135 acres. "Trying to batten down a sprawling university campus would be like trying to lock down a small city."

Improving Campus Security
Hoping to meet the dual demands of keeping students, professors, and campus personnel secure, yet reasonably unrestricted, many administrators like Jadushlever have opted for a range of effective, but less drastic, security measures. While better locks and brighter lights will play a role on many campuses this fall, administrators are also focusing their efforts on adopting more sophisticated, campus-wide communications systems.

Virginia Tech and Mills, for example, are installing Web-based emergency notification systems that will allow college administrators to send out simultaneous alerts to all campus community members who sign up for the service.

The system can send out an alert 24-7 via half a dozen methods, including text messaging, instant messaging, cell phones, home phones, or work phones. The Mills system can even document whether the recipient of the alert actually listened to the entire message, allowing administrators to pinpoint individuals who may not have received an important warning.

Mills is also installing panic buttons around more isolated parts of their campuses as well as access controls in residence halls that require a student ID card to enter. "Our campus community is like a family," says Jadush-lever, "and the people who are charged with providing safety take the responsibility as seriously as if each community member were a family member."

Other campuses are also educating their faculty about how to respond to an emergency. At USF, for example, Lawson is overseeing efforts to teach faculty how to prepare for and react to any emergency, including earthquakes, fires, bombs, acts of terrorism, or shootings.

"The more we get faculty involved, the better, because faculty members have direct contact with students," says Lawson, a retired captain of the San Francisco Police Department with 38 years in law enforcement. "If they feel personally prepared, they’ll be more of a resource than even security personnel or police. In an emergency, faculty will be at ground zero to lock up doors, close windows, or evacuate a classroom."

Meanwhile, some legislators are considering allowing guns on campus. In South Carolina, for example, proponents of gun rights submitted a bill that would have allowed permit holders to have a gun on any public school college campus. They argued that students or faculty might have shot Cho and stopped his rampage if not for Virginia Tech's gun-free "safe zone" policy.

But gun control advocates countered that allowing guns could invite rather than prevent violence. More controls are needed, they argued, given Cho's easy access to handguns despite his history of mental illness. Eventually, the bill was changed to require that weapons be left in cars.

The Prevalence of Peaceful Learning
In the midst of these questions and debates, it's important to remember that statistically, campuses remain safe environments.

"We need to keep everything in perspective," Lawson says. "The Virginia Tech massacre was a tragic event and I don't mean to diminish it in any way, but the fact is that violence on campuses across the country is still relatively rare. A student has a better chance of being struck by lightening than being killed on a campus like this."

In fact, the 32 homicides at Virginia Tech, the deadliest shooting spree in modern U.S. history, was a statistical anomaly. It far surpassed the average annual of 17 murders and manslaughters on 6,000 American campuses between 2001 and 2003, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

A Personal Balance
Perhaps the best response students, faculty, and campus personnel can make to the threat of on-campus violence is to find their own personal balance between the need to be safe and the desire to go on with their lives as usual.

For Krause, it's important to remember that most days on university campuses consist of "peaceful learning." "We can't let fear stand in the way of all that an open campus environment has to offer in terms of intellectual growth and contributing to the advancement of knowledge. That legacy is one way the human spirit can sustain in spite of these terrible instances of human destructiveness."

For Virginia Tech student Elliott Tibor, finding that balance has been a bigger challenge than for many others. Last spring, Tibor learned that his former teacher and mentor was shot and killed by Cho (see "Taking Back the Campus"). Recently, he reflected on how it will feel for him and for his friends to be back at Virginia Tech this fall. While he may be more cautious than he used to be, Tibor said, he doesn't plan to allow fear to rule his life.

"I think we'll all be a little more aware of our surroundings now, and maybe when I get back to campus I'll subconsciously be looking around for antisocial people, but I don't think it will be a prominent thing for me. I don't feel scared or intimidated. Mainly, I just want to get back and be part of the recovery."

Article by Susan Marquez Owen, a freelance journalist in northern California and courtesy of www.careersandcolleges.com