One reason for that feeling of confidence is an active-shooter drill conducted in March at Illinois State University that involved nearly a dozen agencies, including local police and fire departments.
“That kind of exercise builds 'muscle memory,'” said Eric Hodges, ISU's associate director of environmental health and safety and university emergency manager.
It helps people remember what they did and what they are supposed to do, he said.
Jim Hubbard, executive director of facilities for Heartland Community College, said, “We drill within our operation plan. … You have to be able to react.”
The college is developing online training for students and staff on what to do in the event of an active shooter.
Hubbard said it comes down to this: “Evacuate if possible, hunker down if you need to, fight if you have to.”
Hodges put it even more succinctly: “run, hide, fight.”
Hubbard, who heads Heartland Campus Violence Prevention Commitee, said that after an incident such as the one at Umqua Community College, security officials talk with each other and read after-action reports “to glean any information we can to see if there's anything that can help us.”
ISU and Heartland each have emergency alert systems.
At ISU, alerts can be sent simultaneously by text, email, 4,000 on-campus phones, digital displays, lecture hall screens, Facebook and Twitter, Hodges said.
Both schools also have behavior intervention teams that look for signs of concerning behavior among students or employees and try to head off a tragedy.
“Unfortunately, there are no guarantees to prevent this here,” Hubbard said, noting an incident in 2012 at Normal Community High School in which a student brought a gun to school. Several shots were fired before he was subdued, but no one was hit.
Heartland was part of a pilot project launched two years ago by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency to certify schools as a “Ready to Respond Campus.”
Only four schools have achieved that designation, with a fifth to be named next week, according to IEMA spokeswoman Patti Thompson.
All schools have preparedness plans, she said, but the Ready to Respond Campus initiative emphasizes coordination with responders off campus.
The idea is to ensure colleges and universities “are always looking for the best ways to prevent these incident or respond to them if they occur,” she said. “We hope no one has to use them."
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