By Mikaela Livengood–Morningside College is a quiet college with a beautiful campus, friendly faculty and staff, and about 1,300 undergraduate students. As a small college, some people find it hard to believe that emergencies really could happen at Morningside, but they could.
A shooting or any other serious emergency can happen anywhere at any time, no matter the size of the college or the location. Morningside nursing student Alex Mankle stated, “I feel like the odds aren’t great but I think it is definitely possible for a shooting to happen at Morningside.”
Kyle Kommes, a sophomore, agreed with Alex, stating, “I believe something like that can happen anywhere.”
Yet, none of the students interviewed had taken any type of self-defense or emergency training while at Morningside.
It is no secret that the large numbers of shootings in America, whether they are at a mall, a theater, a school, or a street, are alarming. As displayed by gunviolencearchive.org, mass shootings take place almost every day in all kinds of situations. Some are hugely publicized while others are never brought up.
That is why every student at Morningside needs to know how to protect himself or herself in an emergency situation. Everytownresearch.org reports that just between the years of 2013-2015, 160 school shootings took place in 38 states, and 47 percent of those shootings took place at a college or university.
Student Training
The only students at Morningside who are currently required to have emergency situation training are the Resident Assistants who live in the residence halls on campus.
Brook Boyd, a junior and first year RA, says that RA’s receive training every year on how to respond to fires, active shoots, natural disasters, and other emergency situations. She stated that she feels prepared by her training and that she could respond and help protect herself and others in any of those situations.
Sheri Hineman, Director of Residence Life, helps provide the RA’s with their training. She stated, “they are given training on how to make the most common sense decision for the area they are in in relation to the emergency.”
Lineman admitted that training for all students in addition to RA’s and faculty could be a good thing. Despite that, she does not think it would be practical to require it and does not believe that all students would even feel comfortable taking advantage of the training.
According to Brett Lyon, Director of Campus Safety and Security, Morningside does currently offer optional classes focused on self-defense against armed assailants called Armed Assailant training.
However, in interviews with Morningside students, very few of them knew the program was offered. Many of them even stated that if they had known about the classes, they would have taken advantage of them. Rubby Simite, a commuter student, said she would make a trip to campus to participate in the program if she knew about it.
Required or Optional?
Despite their agreement that emergencies could happen at Morningside, students seem to have mixed opinions on whether or not classes on self-defense, active shooter training, and other emergency training should be required.
Nicole Dillin, an American History and Government education major, believes that all students should be required to take emergency training. She suggests that the training be given one time as part of a First Year Seminar class.
Mankle believes Morningside should continue to make training available for all students, but do not believe that it is practical to require every student to participate in mandatory training. “It probably shouldn’t be required. It would be hard to make everyone do it,” she said.
Currently, Morningside College does not require its students to take emergency training classes, but Lyon urges all students at Morningside to take advantage of the Armed Assailant training and self defense classes in order to protect themselves.
“We want to make sure that we are doing everything possible to keep everyone safe, but it takes you as a student to show up,” he stated. “We can’t force you to come, but I encourage everybody to come because this type of training is going to be beneficial for you now, and it is going to be beneficial for you down the road in any type of career.”
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