Following this week's shooting at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols attended Wednesday's BSG meeting to address members' questions and concerns about potential crisis scenarios at Bowdoin.
Members also commented on the recent updates and referendum held for the positions of BSG treasurer and president.
As someone who has seen difficult scenarios before, he said that he felt for the security and police officers at the university, adding that such a rare event could have happened anywhere.
Nichols announced that Bowdoin recently implemented Connect-ED, an emergency notification system.
Through collaboration with Information Technology, the College has been working to institute the program since October and sent out a campus-wide test e-mail on Wednesday (see story, page 1).
Members also discussed how Bowdoin would handle situations with media interaction, how the College would work with police forces, how students could receive brief training about prevention, and other measures of notification.
Nichols said that in the regularly scheduled emergency drill this June, the College will be incorporating some scenarios encountered during the Virginia shooting, such as a full-campus lockdown.
Nichols also added that Security is preparing for upcoming Ivies Weekend, preparing the staff and talking to Brunswick police about goals and expectations. He said that Ivies went "very, very well last year" and commended Bowdoin for the student-Security relationship.
"Ivies will fail or succeed depending on how well students work with Security. We need students to really buy into that, to watch out for each other. Security really can't do it alone, though we try really hard," he said.
In other business, BSG briefly discussed recent events with elections, including the eligibility for the BSG treasurer position.
BSG President DeRay Mckesson '07 explained that when a certain section in the BSG constitution was reformed last year, one section was omitted, which now grants all students eligibility for the BSG treasurer position (see story, page 3).
The body also discussed the failed movement initiated by Ian Yaffe '09 that would have permitted any student to run for the BSG presidency (see story, page 1).
In reference to discussions prior to the student petition, Vice President of Academic Affairs Burgess LePage '07 said, "I think we did take this issue and spend a good amount of time on it, but it's hard to express that to the student body."
Also, BSG had a discussion with the visiting president of Bates College student government and identified differences between the systems.
The president said Bates's government has two different branches, legislative and executive, with a total of 77 people between the two. As a result, while high attendance is rare, the system is very inclusive, but may need to undergo some changes to reduce membership in the future.