Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Campus Security
It's All About Risk
5/11/2007
"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided."
--Napoleon Bonaparte
The recent shootings at Virginia Tech have focused public attention on the safety of students on our campuses. Just how safe are they anyway? What do we need to do?
The Real Risk
Ironically, FBI statistics show that the murder and non-negligent manslaughter rate in the United States has been steadily falling since 1993, from 9.5 per 100,000 people in 1993 to 5.6 in 2005. College and universities are even safer. In 2005 there were five murders and non-negligent manslaughters on campuses out of a population 6.3 million students. The resulting 0.08 per 100,000 students is less than 2 percent of the national average. Even after this month's horrific events, our campuses are five times safer than the national average. Stated differently, even if an event like the one at Virginia Tech were to happen every year, a student is far more likely to be murdered while home on summer vacation than on campus during the academic year.
Business Continuity Management
The shootings at Virginia Tech are a textbook example of the need for Business Continuity Management (BCM). And, yes, terrorist attacks, whether by a group or a deranged individual, are part of textbook discussions of BCM. BCM is more than disaster recovery. Disaster recovery is the act of recovering from a disaster, whereas BCM is a broader term that includes anticipating and planning for bad things as well as disaster recover itself. (See my article in the April 2005 Issue of Campus Technology magazine, "Before the Disaster.")
BCM typically consists of four steps:
- Project Initiation and Organization;
- Risk and Vulnerability Identification;
- Business Impact Analysis and Risk Reduction Strategies; and
- Business Recovery Planning and Testing.
The Real World
The problem, of course, is that people don't respond rationally to risks. They respond to perceived risk. The fact that our campuses remain relatively safe havens hasn't prevented a wave of second-guessing, such as, "Why didn't campus officials lock down the campus sooner," or, "If (insert your organizational target here) had only done (insert your personal quick fix here), lives might have been saved." That there may be rational responses to these questions doesn't change the fact that those outside education just "want the problem fixed."
Recommended Reading
- Sun, Stanford Working To Archive History
In May in San Francisco, experts from leading universities, libraries, and research institutions around the world met as part of an ongoing effort to address a pressing issue: archiving the world's history, right up to today.
- The Quilt Coalition Rolls Out XO Communications for High-Capacity Network Services
The Quilt, a coalition of 28 regional network organizations, has added XO Communications Services to its authorized vendor list. The Quilt represents 200 universities and thousands of other educational institutions across the United States. With this new relationship, Quilt members can purchase XO's high-speed IP transit and network transport services at competitive rates.
- Wimba Classroom 5.2 Expands Classroom Capture Support, Adds MP3 Downloads
At the NECC 2008 conference in Texas this week, Wimba launched a new version of Wimba Classroom, the virtual classroom component of the company's Collaboration Suite. The new 5.2 release expands options for classroom capture and adds a variety of other functional and ease of use features.
- Automation Chimera: Education Is Not Management
The lure of automating workflow online so human intervention is minimized is continually reinforced in the minds of higher education administrators by examples of automated campus systems such as financials, student information systems, and other enterprise systems. But what's good for management is not always good for learning.
- Cognos Releases BI Software for Linux-based IBM System z Mainframe
Cognos, which IBM acquired in January, has released an update to its business intelligence software that will run on the Linux operating system on IBM System z mainframes. IBM Cognos 8 BI was being developed by the two companies prior to the acquisition, but assimilation of Cognos into IBM accelerated development.
- Facebook and Collegiality: A Serendipitous Social Niche
Facebook is a way to greet a colleague as if she or he is on your own campus: a wave at a distance, a hello at the corner burrito place, a honk as you both leave the campus parking lot. Informal collegiality has been extended over the miles.
