JONESBORO — An Arkansas State University committee proposing changes to security because of an April 16 fatal shooting on the Jonesboro campus has come up with more than 90 preliminary safety recommendations.
Ideas range from adding lighting in darkened areas, increasing parking-lot security, and locking doors at residence halls and on campus apartment complexes.
The 10-member Task Force on Campus Security will present the recommendations at a public forum 3 p.m. Wednesday in the ASU Student Union Auditorium, where the committee hopes to collect other suggestions.
The committee will present its final report before the beginning of the fall semester, which starts in August.
“We’ve gotten a lot of things,” said Rick Stripling, vice chancellor of academic affairs at ASU-Jonesboro. “We want to get them in a manageable form.
“We want to be able to say, ‘Here are the things we need to do to make the campus safer.’”
The group has compiled the recommendations about safety after interviewing students, faculty, university police and administrators after the shooting.
Michael Gilmore, 24, of Helena-West Helena was shot in the head in his Collegiate Park apartment the morning of April 16. He died at the Regional Medical Center in Memphis a day later.
Police have yet to make any arrests, but have a “person of interest,” said ASU Police Chief Jim Chapman.
Police said someone entered Gilmore’s apartment at 12:52 a.m. and shot Gilmore once with a semiautomatic handgun. The bullet hit Gilmore just below the right eye.
University authorities sent two text messages to students after the shooting. The first warned students of the shooting and told them to stay inside their residences. The second message advised students that the danger was over and they could resume their normal routines.
ASU added its messaging service on April 17, 2007, a day after a campus shooting at Virginia Tech University that killed 32.
Chapman, who is retiring as the chief on Wednesday, said the meeting is the final step the task force will take before issuing its findings.
“I think this will just be a question and answer session,” Chapman said. “They want to do whatever it takes to make the campus safer.”
ASU-Jonesboro Chancellor Robert L. Potts said Monday that the task force wanted to “whittle down” its recommendations before presenting them to Potts.
“They wanted to give everyone another chance to make suggestions,” Potts said of Wednesday’s meeting.
Beverly Boals Gilbert, a task force member and faculty senate president, said committee members walked on campus one night during the spring semester to see what security measures could be improved.
They spoke to “people across campus ... for any ideas that came to peoples’ minds.”
Other universities have reviewed safety policies after on-campus shootings.
The University of Central Arkansas upgraded its notification system after two students were shot to death in October 2008. A UCA committee recommended developing a warning system that included text messages, e-mails, telephone calls, updated websites and sirens with audio information.
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock reviewed its policies after some students complained that they did not receive warning messages after a February 2008 campus shooting.
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville also added text message alerts in 2008.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 06/29/2010