Because of Monday’s Virginia Tech shooting, Cal State Long Beach President F. King Alexander made campus safety a hot topic at Wednesday’s Associated Students Inc. Senate meeting.
“What happened at Virginia Tech could happen anywhere in the United States. My uncle worked at Virginia Tech for a long time; he doesn’t lock his door,” Alexander said. “It is a very isolated and rural area. We live in a nation where there are more guns than humans. We all have a responsibility to our fellow students and colleagues to look out, not in a cautious way, but to look out for each other. Safety is a community responsibility.”
Alexander gave his condolences and reminded the Senate of the counseling services available on campus.
“Please know that we have counseling services available on campus and we will work with whoever needs help from those services. We are a university city of 42,000 students and faculty,” Alexander said. “We are a campus that takes safety very seriously and do have security protocols in place if anything were to ever happen.”
Sen. Sean Miller asked Alexander if police are prepared for copy-cat murders. Alexander said “there is a stronger police presence on campus to try to deter anyone who may want to commit a copy-cat act.”
“People have asked me, ‘Should you lock a campus up?’ and I think the answer is no. Just as in any major city, you can’t lock a city of over 40,000 people up.” Alexander said CSULB is a safe place to study and that the university will learn from this tragedy.
“We will have more shuttles in place next year to take students around the campus safely. We have decided to put $400,000 into increasing lighting on campus and we are working on the eventual lighting of Bellflower [Boulevard],” Alexander said.
Alexander said CSULB is also currently working with consultants who are doing an analysis of video locations for possible places to put video surveillance on campus.
“We’d most like to begin putting cameras in the parking lot areas, areas where there is high theft, as well as the residential areas,” Alexander said. “We have enhanced our efforts to make this campus a safer place.”
Alexander also informed the Senate about CSULB’s Emergency Web site, emergency.csulb.edu.
