An Ounce of Prevention

Last semester, a new system was implemented via Web Services, to help ensure the safety of the students who  attend SUNY Oneonta. One of the main parts of the system is the option that students now have to give their cell phone numbers, and God forbid an emergency occurs such as a shooting like the Virginia Tech massacre, they would be able to send a widespread text message to everyone who is signed up for the system. It sounds like a good plan, but many students don’t think it is necessary.

The fact that we just passed the one year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting got me thinking about this topic. The downfall at that campus was the reaction of the administration and the inability to inform the students in a timely manner. The gunman was able to move effortlessly throughout the campus to students who didn’t know that he was coming. If the school had been more prepared for an event of this magnitude, people that are no longer with us may still be alive today. The events also got many on the SUNY Oneonta campus thinking. If it can happen there, does that mean it can happen here? Well, Oneonta doesn’t have many students going for their master’s degree or degrees on a higher level, and those are the students that statistics show are more likely to go over the edge. That doesn’t mean that an undergraduate student doesn’t go bonkers from time to time, but it does mean that the likelihood of such an event happening on a campus like ours is extremely low.

But, for some reason, people still worry. I will tell you why: numbers are just numbers. Even if statistics say something is unlikely, and it happens on your campus: statistics mean absolutely nothing. So that leads me to the following question: why wouldn’t students give the administration their cell phone numbers in case, God forbid, an emergency of that magnitude takes place here? Are we that ignorant that we think it just can’t happen to us? I believe it is naive to think that way. All I know is I would much rather be alerted, so I would be able to protect myself and those around me from a dangerous threat.
 
Mike Ganci
Editor in Chief
The State Times