Community Colleges around Connecticut expect to receive guidance in the coming weeks when it comes to the hiring of armed guards on their campuses.
The legislature allowed the Board of Regents that oversees all of the state’s colleges and universities except for UConn, to move forward with the process during the legislative session.
The schools will soon be allowed to hire security guards for their individual needs that would be armed.
Some campuses, like Naugatuck Valley Community College and Manchester Community College already have certified police that patrol their campuses.
Tunxis Community College in Farmington has a private security firm patrol its campus.
Cathryn Addy, the President of Tunxis Community College says before any decisions are made when it comes to beefing up security, she would want to hear from the entire campus community.
“We have not yet discussed it as a campus and I don’t want to do anything unilaterally so once we have that conversation we’ll have a better vision of how to proceed in the future” she said.
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While Addy admits that safety is one of her biggest concerns, especially because Tunxis features such an open campus where anyone can walk on at any time, she examines the hiring of an armed security officer through a budgetary lens. She says there are many aspects that go into such a hire that cost money.
“It’s the 24/7 coverage. The training of the salaries of people who are POST certified individuals which they would have to be so they can be armed on a campus.”
She added, “We would have to decide what are we not going to do in order to afford to implement this kind of a program so that might be a choice between hiring faculty or hiring armed security.”
A committee that reports to the State Board of Regents will provide recommendations for a security policy that would later be voted on by the whole board.
Armed guards may not be hired widespread this school year, but could become the norm during the next school year.
