Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols is working to create a program to train students in emergency procedures in the event of an armed shooter on campus.
Although this training does not yet have a set date or structure, Nichols said that it could be a voluntary hour-long presentation beginning as early as this semester.
This presentation has already been administered to over 300 faculty and staff as well as all residential advisors (RAs) and proctors.
The Office of Safety and Security has two primary systems of mass notification in the event of an emergency.
Blackboard Connect sends messages by phone, email and text to students, faculty and staff.
“We also have a parent list to keep parents informed of what’s going on here at the campus in an emergency,” Nichols said.
Cistera Networks projects messages through the campus phones in students’ rooms.
In the event of an emergency, Security has the ability to lock down all buildings that require cards.
Security, staff or faculty members must manually lock any other buildings.
“Bowdoin is ideally situated for a very quick emergency response in the event of an active shooter situation,” Nichols said.
In his training, Nichols gives three simple steps in the event of a shooting: “Run, hide, fight.” The first instinct should be to run as far away from the violence as possible. If running is too dangerous, hide in a secure area and stay quiet.
As a final resort, he recommends fighting the shooter using any weapons available.
There are pre-incident indicators, or PINs, that can reveal a shooting before it occurs. The shooter may act strangely, hold grievances against others, say something odd or even share their plans.
“You can never annoy Security. If your intuition tells you that’s there’s something wrong with a situation, report it to Security,” Nichols said. “We’ll check it out because nine times out of 10, if your intuition says something’s wrong, you’re probably absolutely right.”
Nichols hopes to dispel the myth that a shooting “can’t happen here.” Violence can occur anywhere, but he stresses that it is extremely rare.
Of the 150,000 gun homicides in the United States since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, 188—0.12 percent—occurred in school settings.
Last week, an armed University of Southern Maine student locked himself in a fraternity house near the Gorham campus and threatened to shoot other fraternity members, according to an article in the Portland Press Herald. He surrendered peacefully after a few hours.