Ten months after the massacre at Virginia Tech, colleges of all kinds continue to weigh campus-safety concerns. How can they help troubled students? How should they respond in emergencies? Preventing some campus incidents may involve luck, but responding to them effectively requires planning. Like residential colleges and universities,…

At the University of Chicago, the third Monday in November began with an hour of violence. Around 12:30 a.m., an assailant fired a shot at a staff member who was walking on the campus. At 1:15 a group of men robbed two female students on a nearby street. Just before 1:30, Amadou Cisse, a doctoral student, was shot and killed while walking to his…