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The University of Miami plans on adding license-plate recognition software to its surveillance system, and smart cameras at Johns Hopkins use algorithms to detect potentially troubling behaviors, including loitering, cars stopping suddenly and people who fall. ...

An app called the Guardian lets Brown students estimate how long it will take them to walk a particular distance, triggering an alarm unless the timer is deactivated on arrival.

From “Staying Safe On Campus” by Aimee Lee Ball, in The New York Times. A growing body of work is integrating planning for security across departmental boundaries. Some call it “unified security.” This article is worth a scan if you are engaged in related planning, because it shares a number of the innovative security features your campus may have not yet considered.

Question: Politics aside - please - what are the practical campus planning considerations for a university when anyone who comes on campus could be carrying a weapon? Looking across the campus in an integrated fashion, who and what is affected and should be considered in planning for such a change? Please share your thoughts in SCUP's LinkedIn group. Don't feel limited to security and liability issues. What are the student services and residence hall implications? Athletics?

The most notorious shooting at an Arizona university took place in 2002 when a disgruntled nursing student shot three professors to death.

Anthony Daykin, the police chief at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where the shootings occurred, said his officers would be at a loss if they arrived at a shooting scene in a lecture hall holding hundreds of students and found scores of people pointing, and possibly shooting, weapons at one another. ...

Keeping guns out, not allowing more in, is the answer, critics of the bills say. Others contend that allowing guns on campus will help ensure that universities stay relatively tranquil.

Mark Lacey, Lawmakers Debate Effect of Weapons on Campus, The New York Times

 

We helped Peter Schmidt with the development of this story, and you'll find a number of SCUPers quoted within it. Are all new faculty offices being designed with internal windows? Why?

Architects, who encourage the installation of such windows as a means of allowing "borrowed" light to pass in and out of offices, argue that the windows provide academic buildings with a feeling of openness that fosters collaboration and a sense of community. Such "open" work environments have become all the rage in corporate America in recent years, and many colleges have embraced the idea that offices should be structured in ways that promote interaction and teamwork.

That said, the goal of allowing borrowed light to flow in and out of faculty offices can be accomplished by placing interior windows above doorways, too high up to be peered through, or installing frosted- or etched-glass windows that allow light to pass through without affording a view.

If the window is clear and at eye level, however, there is a good chance that considerations of safety, security, and legal liability were raised by the administrators who worked with architects to determine the room's specifications.