Ark-La-Tex Colleges Stepping Up Security

The Virginia Tech massacre has left students and parents across the country questioning whether any college campus is safe. Those questions could lead to action right here in the Ark-La-Tex. Centenary College and LSU Shreveport administrators are carefully analyzing what happened in Virginia and making changes, in the hope that what happened there won’t happen here. “

A lot of college campuses are being hit with these violent acts and are we safe,” Heather Bickham, a Centenary College student,” said. That’s the question being asked across the country; forcing college administrators right here in the Ark-La-Tex to take a closer look at how their schools would react during a crisis like the Virginia Tech massacre.

Both LSUS and Centenary College have emergency procedures in place like mass emailing to notify students and staff and access to the Office of Emergency Preparedness one call system. But, LSUS Chancellor Dr. Vincent Marsala questions whether that’s enough. That’s why he’s looking into more drastic measures like a siren or horn to warn students. Centenary administrators are looking into changes of their own; one that takes advantage of a new trend in communication: text messaging.

However, those ideas are still just ideas and nothing’s been set in stone. Centenary and LSUS administrators say they have strong emergency procedures already in place. Because of events like those in Virginia, they’re making those procedures even stronger.