Making students safe a priority

The "it can't happen here" line often gets linked, after the fact, with "I told you so" when it comes to incidents of social crisis and crime. The "it," in this case, is violence on college campuses.

Fortunately, Bismarck State College has taken a proactive stance by establishing a police department on campus with one armed officer. It's another layer of protection for students. The campus also has 70 security cameras, courtesy of the state Legislature, and an ongoing relationship with Bismarck-Mandan Security.

As a package, these security measures add a degree of comfort to students and faculty - and for parents.

College campuses ought to be safe zones.

As things go, BSC's campus has little crime. Although it has nearly 4,000 traditional and online students, only 270 students live on campus. It seems that liquor law violations predominate, the plague of most college campuses in the state.

The BSC enrollment ranks it third in school population behind the North Dakota State University and the University of North Dakota. Just the number of students involved in campus activities offers the opportunity for mischief, or worse. Minot State University and the North Dakota School of Science, smaller student bodies, already have armed officers. The University of Mary and United Tribes Technical College have unarmed security personnel and are not separate policing jurisdictions.

For those who worry about the officer having a weapon, please consider the "it can't happen here" line. The officer hired by BSC is fully qualified and experienced. True, the likelihood of the need for using that weapon might be very small, but reality has proven that bad things can happen here, and having an armed officer might make a life-and-death difference.

No one suggests there's a particular fear at BSC, rather, the opposite is true. It's clear from a recent Tribune story that BSC students, largely, feel safe. Fine, let's keep them that way.

It would be good to remember that students still need to apply common sense in their behavior related to personal safety. There's a whole list of "to do" and "do not do" tips for reducing personal risk. Every student on campus ought to know the tenets of safe behavior and apply them. Assuming that a police presence on campus means nothing bad will happen suggests faulty logic. Students still need to take care of themselves.

The college, however, has gone a long way in doing its part in making the campus safe by adding this additional level of law enforcement.

-via The Bismarck Tribune