By Tristan Weisenbach and Riley Eisenbeil
Arts & Entertainment Editor and Staff Writer
Fully informing every single student on a college campus of what to do in an emergency situation can be a hard mission, if not impossible. The total population of students, faculty and staff at the College — with full-time undergraduate students alone making up over 7,000 people — makes this task even more challenging.
The first step in bringing awareness to campus safety is to talk about campus safety. Having discussions regarding the different types of emergency situations that may arise and what resources are available to provide guidance on how to respond to them is essential. But how much is safety talked about at the College?
“It’s not really talked about unless the issue is currently happening,” said Taylor Szumloz, a sophomore kinesthesiology health science major. “I feel like it’s not talked about enough here,” said Jasmeet Singh, a sophomore psychology major. Angelina Odato, a junior communications major, only transferred to the College at the start of this semester, but in terms of campus safety, she “[hasn’t] heard anything so far.”
However, in an interview with The Signal, Vice President of Operations Sharon Blanton disagreed with these students, saying “clearly it is talked about on campus…in many venues.”
Blanton said that each year, the College conducts a safety walk that all students are invited to participate in. According to Blanton, students and staff walk throughout the campus to point out areas where improvements could be made, such as identifying pathways where there may be a need to “trim back some shrubs” or recognizing areas where “there’s some lighting that would be helpful.” She also stated that it was because of the conversations with students during a prior safety walk that two new crosswalks were added on Metzger Drive.
“It’s patently, patently untrue that safety is never discussed on campus,” Blanton said.
Active shooter situations are one type of emergency that has become increasingly common on school campuses across America. According to the Washington Post, there were 46 school shootings in the U.S. in 2022 — more than any year since at least 1999.
Many students are taught how to respond to active shooter situations in elementary, middle and high school. Chris Nitti, the associate director of Campus Police services, said in an interview with The Signal that mandatory safety training is also conducted at the College for all residential students. According to Nitti, this training consists of a mandated residential floor meeting that covers active shooter awareness, amnesty and other topics.
However, The Signal spoke with 30 students, most of whom live on-campus in various residence halls, and all but one student stated they have never received any mandatory safety training from the College.
Caslie Jean-Francois said she only received mandatory training since she is a Community Advisor (CA) at the College. She explained that last spring, all CAs were required to attend an active shooter training session held by Campus Police. In that one-time session, they showed the group a few videos and explained the steps on how to respond if there was an active threat.
“As a CA, I need to be able to take care of my residents,” she said. “But if I were just a regular resident on campus, I don’t think I would feel prepared or have any knowledge about it.”
Many students expressed concern about their lack of preparedness in knowing what to do should there ever be an active shooter on campus. Overall, 21 out of the 30 students indicated they felt unprepared.
“In high school you do these drills, but once you get to college, I feel like it’s something that's brushed under,” said senior mathematics major AJ Tortoriello.
Another student, sophomore sociology and Spanish double major Kayley Totka, recalled last semester when there was a nearby threat to the College.
“Nobody that I was friends with had an idea of where we would go — what we would do either,”
Totka said.
Kelly Booth, a sophomore communications major, criticized how the College performs fire drills — the one type of safety training that she says she did participate in.
“You just get out of the building. There’s no sense of urgency, you just kind of leave the building when you can,” Booth said. “I think if there was an emergency, then everyone would just act how they do during a drill, and I don’t think that’s very safe.”
Members from the College’s administration declined to comment on whether they thought most students would have indicated that they feel prepared to respond to an active shooter situation or not.
Currently, the College has an emergency preparedness website which provides a few safety resources that are accessible to everyone. Some of these resources include the College’s Emergency Response Guide, the Campus Alert Policy and information on fire safety.
However, students agreed that some of these resources contain language that is unclear or contradictory. For example, the home page of the emergency preparedness website reads: “The most recent available information related to ongoing critical incidents at TCNJ will be posted to tcnj.edu as quickly as possible and will be updated whenever appropriate. Please refrain from calling TCNJ Campus Police during critical incidents, unless you are reporting an emergency or providing information that could help resolve an ongoing situation.”
When asked whether students could potentially interpret this statement as discouraging them from contacting Campus Police during a “critical incident,” Blanton stated that she did not think so.
“No. I mean, why would someone read that into it?” she said.
Angelina Solano, a sophomore marketing major, thought otherwise. She believes this statement could have been worded differently.
“I feel like whoever wrote it could’ve done a little bit better because I feel like someone might view an incident as critical but might refrain [from calling] because it doesn’t seem to be really critical,” Solano said.
Blanton explained the reasoning behind the wording in this statement, saying it is to prevent Campus Police from being inundated with phone calls during an emergency.
“If there is a live incident and campus police is actively working that incident, they're going to be sending out communications to the campus regarding instructions what to do,” Blanton said. “So they're probably not necessarily going to be available to be answering phone calls during the height of an incident.”
Within the College’s Emergency Response Guide, there are 12 specific emergency situations that are outlined, including step-by-step instructions on how to respond to them if they were to occur. Some of the situations that are mentioned in the document include Bomb Threats/Found Devices, Power Outages/Infrastructure Failures and Active Shooter.
Students agreed that the wording in the Active Shooter section of this document, under the section titled, “When Law Enforcement Officials arrive,” is also contradictory. It lists seven steps to follow, with step seven stating: “Do not stop to ask officers for help or for directions when evacuating.”
“Then who am I supposed to ask?” Solano said. “It kind of seems like they’re telling you to fend for yourself,” said Elizabeth Gross, a freshman nursing student. “Don’t stop and ask them for directions or what to do? That seems kind of like a first instinct — they’re police officers, they know what to do,” said junior biology major Ellen Norris.
The Emergency Response Guide also utilizes a campus map from 2013. This map contains many former names of buildings that have since been changed, such as Loser Hall, which is now called Trenton Hall, and Holman, which is now called STEM Building.
“I don’t know why that map hasn’t been updated,” Blanton said.
Daniel Posluszny, emergency preparedness and fire safety manager, said he plans on updating the map soon.
“I got a couple other things pending that are more, I don't want to say more important — they’re more critical right now, but I'm going to try and update this and review this,” Posluszny said.
He also stated the College is currently finalizing a mandatory online training program for students, faculty and staff. He said the training program would allow the College to upload its own videos and content to the platform and would allow administration to track who has completed it. The program is slated to be implemented by the end of this semester or in the early spring.
In addition to the training that is currently being developed, Nitti explained that Campus Police has a 45-minute YouTube video linked on their website, titled, “TCNJ Response to an Active Shooter Presentation,” that touches on the “run, hide, fight” principle. The video was uploaded on March 10 of this year and currently has 72 views.
Blanton also recognized that Campus Police provides, by request, specific in-person trainings for departments and divisions, which can be set up by calling Campus Police directly. She recommended that students utilize this training, as it is specific to individual geographic locations across campus.
Many students suggested ways the College could improve its active shooter training. Katie Berger, a junior public health major, suggested that it would be helpful to make it “a required portion of those freshman year classes you have to take.” Tortoriello suggested implementing safety training into the major-specific 099 orientation courses.
“Just having a presentation where they have the game plan and areas where to go to congregate or areas to disperse to,” said Evan Cresci, a sophomore psychology major. “I just think them giving us more of a structured plan and a tangible [idea] of what to do would help.”
Blanton said that some of the student suggestions were potentially viable options and could be further explored.
Some students also suggested that communication with text alerts could be further improved.
“We get texts, but not everyone gets texts because not everyone checks their phone,” Booth said. “I think that aspect is lacking.”
However, some students told The Signal that they felt more prepared in responding to extreme weather events than active shooter situations, in part because of the increased number of alerts that the College sends out regarding weather hazards.
“They’re always sending out alerts when there’s a hurricane or flooding,” said Kayla Brockmeyer, a junior nursing major. Overall, only 11 out of 30 students stated that they felt unprepared in regards to responding to extreme weather (compared to 21 for active shooters).
Last month, Tropical Storm Ophelia swept through the region and brought heavy rains for multiple consecutive days. In total, 2.31 inches of rain fell in Ewing throughout the duration of the storm, according to NJ.com.
Posluszny said that during the storm, two trees fell on campus, including one that blocked lot 13 and one that fell close to the mailroom. Both were quickly removed, he said.
The College also installed new drainage systems in a handful of locations after heavy rains a few weeks prior to Ophelia, according to Blanton, which she says helped to prevent flooding during the storm.
Although there were no major weather-related complications on campus, Anneliese Yauck, a sophomore public health major, told The Signal that she thinks the College still should have sent something out about Ophelia.
Blanton stated that she feels the College does its best to inform students about extreme weather and to provide them with the resources they need to respond appropriately, but that it is difficult for administration to know how effective it is.
“We do our best to get the information out,” she said. “We don't know how the information is received or what the students do with that information and what kind of action they take, so it's hard for us to know.”
Overall, most students The Signal spoke with acknowledge that additional mandatory training, more up-to-date and clear safety resources, and increased communication would all help to better prepare them in a wide range of emergency situations.
“You have to remember that every single incident is unique,” Blanton said. “It's not possible for us to write an individualized policy for every imaginable scenario because you can't imagine all of them.”
