Marquette University President Recommends Standing Behind The Fat Guy

After enough time has passed that the Virginia Tech shooting is fading from collective memory, Marquette University President Robert J. Wild, S.J., pens a column for Marquette magazine just in time to frighten the incoming freshmen (except the psycho ones packing heat, of course). In it, he details Marquette’s ineffective plan to handle a similar situation, broken down (literally) into phases.

When pandemonium erupts, Marquette will respond thusly:

Phase 1: Meetings:

At the highest level of response, a crisis team with representatives from offices throughout campus would immediately assemble and work with local law enforcement and emergency management agencies. At every level our crisis plan calls for utilizing all available means of communication, including e-mail, the university Web site, university voice mail, Access TV message boards, postings in buildings and other tools as needed.

Well, I guess he only enumerates the highest level of response, which is meetings and communication. But don’t worry. Marquette offers other nuggets of safety. I’ll tick off a few for you here:

• Friendly Public Safety staff:
  

  >We also have an outstanding Department of Public Safety. Not only do these men and women patrol around the clock our campus and surrounding neighborhood, they also through their daily interactions work to develop a relationship of trust with our students, faculty and staff.

• Electronic surveillance equipment:
  

  In addition, Public Safety commanders have at their disposal in a crisis situation first-rate technology that includes an electronic system to lockdown instantaneously most academic buildings. Furthermore, this summer we will unveil a new command center equipped with cameras that allow us to monitor the campus area for suspicious activities.

• Good old fashioned Kumbaya:
  

  However, the Jesuit tradition of cura personalis or “care for the individual” provides us with greater freedom to build a campus environment that nurtures students in a holistic manner, intellectually, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Nothing about arming up or allowing legal weapons on campus.

So I guess the hide behind the fat guy is just implied, because once you start inserting the phrase “a suicidal man with a gun” into many of the sentences in his letter to the Marquette community, you realize how silly and, ultimately, ineffective the measures will prove if a Virginia Tech sort of incident erupts in Cudahy Hall.

But the survivors will have access to a crack team of grief counselors, no doubt. Try to live through any rampage if only for that.