Trends Shaping Higher Education: Safety & Security

Trend Toward Product Implementation

• By Rodney Chatman
• 01/01/17

What are on everybody’s minds in 2017 are events like what occurred at Virginia Tech in 2007 and, more recently, at Ohio State. Our campus communities are very concerned about the ability to prevent those types of events, train them on what to do should they occur and what technology is available to assist us.

What I’m seeing as a trend is installation of products and policies related to integrated notification systems so that, when an event occurs, we are able to respond to it from all angles and notify our communities as to what we need them to do, such as evacuate or take shelter in place. I’m also seeing a trend toward installation of electronic access control systems, which offer benefits that physical keys cannot, such as reporting when and by whom a door was accessed and offering immediate ability to disable lost cards or change a user’s access level.

The result of implementing these products is that students can be about the business of learning and not be worried about the police department’s strength and ability to respond to an event.

Implementing these products allows administrators to proactively market to prospective students and their parents with the message, “We are as prepared as we can be, and we are engaged in a living and breathing method of keeping our campus safe in terms of adding technology and methods as it makes sense to our community.”