Utah is the only state that prohibits its state institutions from barring guns on its campuses. The University of Utah fought that statutory requirement vigorously in court, but the interests of pro-gun groups prevailed. In 2006 the Supreme Court of Utah held that the university lacked the authority to issue firearms policies, including barring…

Killing zombies on campus just isn't as much fun as it used to be. Students at Bowling Green State University once carried Nerf guns for a week each semester, shooting the zombies before the creatures could tag them. Participants were seen by most bystanders as nerdy but harmless kids who liked role-playing. These days, bright plastic Nerf guns…

The gun smoke had barely cleared from the lecture hall at Northern Illinois University where last week a former graduate student had executed five students before killing himself when local and national scribes began speculating about a new trend in mass murder American-style. The "Chicago Tribune" Web site, quick with coverage of the…

New to the curriculum at many colleges this fall will be instruction for students in survival skills. The training material will not be like Clemson University's "College Survival Skills" Web site, which features useful advice on note taking, studying for exams, and dealing with professors. Rather, a new security DVD, Shots Fired on Campus:…

People can bring guns most places in Arizona, but the state's Board of Regents has long banned all weapons from public college campuses. Now some lawmakers are trying to change that. State Senator Karen S. Johnson, a Republican, proposed a bill in January that would trump the regents' ban, allowing anyone with a concealed-weapons permit to carry a…

This month a company in Spokane, Washington, plans to release "Shots Fired on Campus," an instructional DVD with strategies for preventing and surviving a gun rampage. About 50 colleges have ordered the video, and its creators expect to sell several hundred more this fall. Since the massacre at Virginia Tech last year, colleges everywhere have…

In this article, the authors as assistant professors of teaching and learning at Northern Illinois University react to the campus killings. They share their stories and sentiments regarding the campus killings. They state that their prayers and condolences go out to their campus, to the families of the lost and wounded, and the family of the young…

In the wake of the shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, a number of state legislatures are considering bills that would allow people to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. The author recently spoke at a conference on higher-education law, sponsored by Stetson University and the National Association of Student…

This article reports how researchers at Virginia Tech, working in a variety of disciplines, are studying the long-term effects of the campus killings 10 months ago. After the killings, administrators at Virginia Tech realized that their normal institutional-review process for research proposals was not sufficient to deal with the likely onslaught…

At even the best-prepared universities, there is no playbook for handling the crush of tough decisions that comes after a mass shooting rocks an otherwise quiet campus. While colleges and universities have always had tragedies, recent occurences like the shootings at Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech have fundamentally changed the way…

Data from over 2,400 colleges and universities concerning the number and types of crimes committed on campus are tabulated by state and institution. Statistics are presented on reported numbers of incidents involving murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft and on arrests for liquor violations, drugs, and…

Statistics from the crime reports of 483 four-year colleges and universities with enrollments of over 5,000 are charted by state and institution for 1996 and 1997. Reported incidents include murder, forcible sex offenses, nonforcible sex offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor-vehicle theft. Arrests reported are for liquor-law…

Data on reported incidents of murder, forcible and nonforcible sexual offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor-vehicle theft and on arrests for liquor-law violations, drug use, and weapons possession are presented for 487 colleges and universities with populations of over 5,000 for both 1995 and 1996. For each institution…