Two armed Campus Security and Safety officers are on patrol during every shift this semester.
Brad Wyatt, director of security, and Phil Ellenburg, Lipscomb’s general counsel, said the university has been working on the arming process for a few years.
“For the last five years, we’ve been really intentional about upgrading all of our security and safety, emergency planning, everything across the board for the institution,” Ellenburg said. “We’re trying to improve and increase our professionalism. Over the last five years a lot of improvements have been made, but over the last two years, we’ve had a very intentional process where we’ve done several things, and the arming component was a part of that whole process.”
Ellenburg said there weren’t specific events that prompted the decision to begin the armed patrols over the summer, rather it was “a normal step in enhanced service.”
Wyatt said Lipscomb’s security and safety department, in recent years, intentionally has been hiring officers who would fit the qualifications for an armed officer. The department created a “Security Officer II” position, which requires an advanced security background for example as a police officer, military police officer, armed hospital or prison security officer.
Wyatt and Ellenburg said all of the university’s security officers are licensed with the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, which handles both unarmed and armed security licensing.
“Our internal policies as far as training and standards for officers are a lot higher than the baseline for the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance,” Ellenburg said.
In addition to licensing, Lipscomb hired a security expert from the Boston area to analyze the campus security department and the officers individually. The consultant then recommended that Lipscomb should arm a segment of the officers, Ellenburg said.
“The whole arming component was just a part of that bigger piece to say, if you look at Lipscomb now and you look at what Dr. Lowry is doing, in every area, we want to be excellent,” Ellenburg said. “And certainly in this area we want to be excellent, and we want to do the best we can.”
Wyatt said Lipscomb also performed psychological evaluations on all of the officers who would be armed.
“That’s not a requirement but an extra standard that we thought would be wise,” Wyatt said.
Ellenburg said Lipscomb is also considering becoming accredited with the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators.
“That’s just another area that we’re looking at that would make us even better,” he said. “It’s continual. The improvement and preparation never stops.”
In recent years, campus security has changed its uniforms, better equipped their vehicles and made them more visible, created a strategically placed dispatch center, as well as trained with batons, pepper spray and handcuffs. This fall the dispatch center will be “computer-aided,” which will enable security to track calls and officer response times, Ellenburg said.
Students had mixed reactions to news of the change in security measures.
Katie Limberg, a junior from Memphis, Tenn., studying government and public administration, said “I don’t see how it’s necessary” to have armed officers.
“If we had had lots of crime, I could understand it, but as it is now, the worst crime we have is occasionally a dorm room gets broken into,” she said. “No one is ever really in danger, so I don’t see the point.”
Caitlyn Brick, a summer student worker who graduated in May with a degree in dietetics, said she feels better knowing the officers will be armed, adding that she hopes they won’t have to use the weapons.
“I think as long as they are properly trained, which I think they will be, I would say that I feel safer,” she said.
Andrew Hunt, a junior in corporate management from Centerville, Tenn., said he believes having armed officers might make him feel less safe.
“I think it’s not really needed because of the area we’re in,” Hunt said.
Katie Borgmann, a senior in nursing from Nashville, said she supports the decision to add firearms.
“If there was a dangerous situation, they could use deadly force,” she said, adding that it might make people hesitant about trying anything illegal on campus. “It is a bigger deterrent for threats and violence because they know that our security officers are armed.”
Nicholas Mortensen, a Chicago native who will begin the graduate Exercise and Nutrition Science program in the fall, said he thinks it could be easy to abuse that type of power but overall is supportive of the change.
“I think it’s a good thing,” he said. “I’m glad they have to have previous experience and training.”
Ellenburg said the university is one of the safest campuses in the state, and arming officers is simply a way to be prepared.
“When you look at the reasons, specifically for arming, you kind of go, ‘well is our campus that dangerous?’ And the answer is no,” Ellenburg said. “We’re consistently one of the safest campuses in the state of Tennessee. We have our location to thank for that. We also have security officers to thank for that and just a campus community that is vigilant and aware. But we are in a major city, and crime happens all around us.”
Wyatt echoed Ellenburg’s sentiments by quoting a friend of his who works in security at Belmont.
“When we’re armed, it gives us the image and the reality of preparedness,” he said.
Wyatt said his department has been doing extra training for months.
“Even before we carried the weapons, we had a day of training in late May where we took our guys over to Ezell and tried to simulate what it would be like in an armed shooter scenario where you’re going room to room, clearing a room and working as a team of four,” he said. “That’s not happening on a lot of college campuses.”
Ellenburg said the officers have not only been training but also testing the safety of their equipment.
“We’ve gone to an immense level of detail to ensure that the officers are qualified, even down the holsters that they have,” he said. “You cannot accidentally pull one of these weapons out of a holster. Someone cannot walk up to you and take your weapon.”
Ellenburg said arming officers is “an accepted standard now,” noting that the following universities also have armed officers: Harding, Pepperdine, Abilene Christian, Oklahoma Christian and Freed-Hardeman.
Officials from Tennessee State University, Belmont University, Vanderbilt University and Middle Tennessee State University all said at least a portion of their campus security officers are armed.
Wyatt said he consistently reminds the security officers of their role on campus and said arming them won’t change their goal. Wyatt said he emphasizes the need to be “friendly and accessible and establishing healthy relationships with the students where they know they can count on us.”
“Our motto for our department since I’ve been here is ‘Working to serve you better,’ and nothing about the arming process takes away from that,” he said.
Ellenburg said the university hopes the officers won’t need to use their guns, but they want to be properly equipped to protect themselves and others on campus.
“We hope and pray we never even have to draw the weapons, but you’ve got to be prepared,” he said. “I hearken back to, we had never had a flood before on this campus, and the very year we, for the first time ever, purchased flood insurance, we had a flood. Now we hope that just because we’re going armed doesn’t mean we’re going to need them, but it just goes to say that we want to be as best prepared as we possibly can.”