The College of Liberal Arts partnered with Public Safety and Counseling and Psychological Services to organize two response training sessions in the case of an active shooter from 3:30-4:30 p.m. March 1-2 in Kleymeyer Hall.

The meetings were only open to students, faculty and staff to attend. They were presented by Sam Preston, assistant director of Public Safety, and Robin Sanabria, director of CAPS.

Preston said they have been doing these presentations for several years.

“We’ve always done it upon request, obviously, with both local and national events,” Preston said. “It is kind of come to the attention to a lot of people, and we just want to accommodate our campus community.”

Sanabria said the presentation on March 1 was the first one specific to an active shooter.

“I mean, there’s a lot of other emergencies we can have here too, right?” Sanabria said. “So, we’re not going to talk about all of them, not just that one piece, right?”

The West Side Walmart in Evansville, Indinana was the scene of a shooting Jan.19 by a former employee who opened fire on workers and police upon their arrival. The university is 1.8 miles away from the Walmart where this shooting took place, and students frequently shop there due to how close it is to campus. 

“Any shooting we have in our community is a tragedy,” Preston said. “We want to make sure that we have a safe campus and we work to do that in a lot of different ways.”

Preston said he wants to teach students situational awareness by reporting warning signs.He said one of the most concerning things to him after a tragic event is to hear people say ‘you know, I saw something and that concerned me, but I didn’t think anything about it.’” 

In the aftermath of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Feb. 14, 2018, the university took measures to secure classroom doors by spending $263,300 to change the locks across various classrooms and labs in the summer of 2018.

Preston said they are hosting this event out of increased community awareness, despite offering the training for several years.

“We are doing more now because there is a little more community awareness, but what we’re doing, the training that we’re offering, is the ‘run, hide, and fight’ model which most people know from the K-12 system,” Preston said.

Even though Public Safety and the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office are on campus 24/7, Preston said he urges people to think about what they are going to do in an active shooter situation.

“The big challenge is, we can do presentations, but the focus is really on every person here,” Preston said.”What are you going to do? I challenge you to play that ‘what if?’ game all the time.” 

Preston encouraged attendees to download the Rave Guardian app. The app allows people to push a panic button that will send the direct location of the pusher to both Public Safety and the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office.  

Brady Robinson, sophomore nursing major, said he heard about the meeting as an orientation leader.

“I thought it was good,” Robinson said. “Got a lot of information about what to do not only during school, but also this summer when we’re dealing with future students as well.”

Brylee Blackwell, sophomore biology major, said she learned there is not just one answer for how to respond to an active shooter situation.

“Personally, I’ll probably just take away that there’s no one right answer to how to respond to something like this,” Blackwell said. “Depending on what kind of situation you’re in or where you’re at, it’s just gonna depend on what’s the best option for you in that moment.” 

Robinson said when he goes places, he always looks for exits in case of an emergency.

“I come from a law enforcement family, and so, I kind of have the mindset like I’m always, I go somewhere and like looking for the exits, or knowing where to go so I have that mindset,” Robinson said.

Robinson said he thinks the training was reassuring. 

“Knowing this information and what to do specifically here on campus definitely helps the security and knowing that public safety is here to help, so it was very reassuring,” Robinson said.

Preston said there are plans to host the event again.

“We want to connect with every avenue that we can, whether it be our faculty staff, whether it be our students,” Preston said. “So, anytime that we can intersect with our community, we want to do so.”

Sanabria said she wants people to live their lives but to do it with awareness.

“I really feel like people can get to a point where it becomes something that limits them, and I think that, like I said earlier, I think that’s when we’re letting the bad guys win,” Sanabria said.