Elevator literature and random musings

[spica]

It's funny living in the world we live in today. I'm sure for many of you, school is/was a safe place of learning and not gunman's shooting range. Excluding problems with bullies and peer pressure, I don't think I ever thought of school as being unsafe that is until the events of Columbine. I remember there were some copycat elements in my latter years of high school where pranksters called in bomb threats, but otherwise things were tame. Now things like visiting my old high school aren't the same. A few years back, I went back to visit some teachers and students, and couldn't enter the building as freely as I used to. I had to look into some camera/monitor and state into an intercom the reason for my visit and then had to go to the main office to a visitor pass. In the hallways, I remember seeing kids with id cards. When high school, I never had to carry an id card and could walk in and out of the building freely especially as a senior. No more. Now seniors are sort of locked in the building without the usual perk of leaving the building to go out for lunch or something.

To further the fear we now have in schools, the events of Virginia Tech I believe are still very much in our minds in today's colleges and universities. I mention this because at the place where I intern, I've been reading the emergency instructions in the elevator that leads me to the archival "dungeons," and they have a scenario for shooters. This new policy must be a relatively new thing, and I'm wondering how many other academic institutions have emergency plans for such things.