2008 Woodie Awards
In crisis situations, knowledge is power
THE OPINION OF THE LA VOZ WEEKLY EDITORIAL BOARD
Issue date: 10/29/07 Section: Opinion
Think fast: there's an emergency situation on campus. A gunman, a bomb threat, a fire, anything - what do you do? How do you react?
If you don't know the answer to these questions, don't fret: you're not alone.
De Anza College needs to make sure that more of its students know what to do in case of an emergency. In the past month, De Anza has received two separate threats of attack - one aimed at the Campus Hinson Center, and one at the Student and Community Services Building.
Yet the administration has made little effort to inform the student body of these incidents, and if they hadn't been reported in the pages of La Voz, neither threat would have been brought to the public's attention.
While it cannot be said that the administration overtly attempted to prevent students from learning of these threats, its decision not to publicize them constitutes a de facto achievement of the same effect.
And although the rationale behind this approach has some merit (to prevent copycat offenses, for instance), the ultimate decision represents a dangerous lapse in judgment.
After a student gunman opened fire last spring on his classmates at Virginia Tech University, investigators concluded that numerous lives could have been saved had the school's administration alerted its student body to the situation earlier. In fact, this conclusion was repeatedly emphasized as the main lesson to be drawn from the ordeal.
But notifying students of campus security threats in a timely fashion will not only allow them to make better-informed decisions during an emergency, it will also better prepare them for emergencies in the future.
For despite the fact that De Anza has set up a Web page detailing how students should behave in the case of an emergency, too few students have availed themselves of this knowledge.
It is likely that this disinterest is, in part, the result of a mistaken belief that De Anza has not recently been threatened.
Thus, were more students to be notified of even hoax threats, it follows that they would likely be better prepared in the event of a real attack.
De Anza's administration should be commended for its commitment these past few years to diligently rehearsing the college's crisis protocols, but as long as 90 percent of the people on campus are completely ignorant as to their proper role in the event of such a crisis, chaos and casualties will be the inevitable results.
For more information on what to do in case of a campus emergency, go to:
http://www.deanza.edu/emergency/
If you don't know the answer to these questions, don't fret: you're not alone.
De Anza College needs to make sure that more of its students know what to do in case of an emergency. In the past month, De Anza has received two separate threats of attack - one aimed at the Campus Hinson Center, and one at the Student and Community Services Building.
Yet the administration has made little effort to inform the student body of these incidents, and if they hadn't been reported in the pages of La Voz, neither threat would have been brought to the public's attention.
While it cannot be said that the administration overtly attempted to prevent students from learning of these threats, its decision not to publicize them constitutes a de facto achievement of the same effect.
And although the rationale behind this approach has some merit (to prevent copycat offenses, for instance), the ultimate decision represents a dangerous lapse in judgment.
After a student gunman opened fire last spring on his classmates at Virginia Tech University, investigators concluded that numerous lives could have been saved had the school's administration alerted its student body to the situation earlier. In fact, this conclusion was repeatedly emphasized as the main lesson to be drawn from the ordeal.
But notifying students of campus security threats in a timely fashion will not only allow them to make better-informed decisions during an emergency, it will also better prepare them for emergencies in the future.
For despite the fact that De Anza has set up a Web page detailing how students should behave in the case of an emergency, too few students have availed themselves of this knowledge.
It is likely that this disinterest is, in part, the result of a mistaken belief that De Anza has not recently been threatened.
Thus, were more students to be notified of even hoax threats, it follows that they would likely be better prepared in the event of a real attack.
De Anza's administration should be commended for its commitment these past few years to diligently rehearsing the college's crisis protocols, but as long as 90 percent of the people on campus are completely ignorant as to their proper role in the event of such a crisis, chaos and casualties will be the inevitable results.
For more information on what to do in case of a campus emergency, go to:
http://www.deanza.edu/emergency/
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