June 5
U President Michael Young organized a campus security task force in response to April’s shootings at Virginia Tech University and the Utah Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the university’s previous no-gun policy.
The task force is still looking into three core aspects of emergency response: how to deal with troubling behavioral issues in students and faculty, what to do in the presence of weapons and feasible ways to notify the entire campus of a crisis.
Although Young said the U is “not in a bad place to begin with,” referring to extensive campus security measures implemented during the 2002 Olympics, the task force has looked into ways to keep up these measures and make the campus safer.
Task force chair Wayne McCormack said the U is trying to centralize response efforts. The task force will also hire a special assistant for emergency management to serve in the policy group, which McCormack expects to start meeting within the next few weeks.
The task force released a report on emergency response in mid-November.
“Our ultimate goal is to save lives,” McCormack said. “We know there will be emergencies and tragedies, but we want to make sure we’ve done everything we can.”