By Troy Hudson

On Monday, March 5, at 12:56 p.m., all SMCC students, faculty and staff received notifications via text message, email and computer-screen alert that the College was experiencing a lockdown drill. This came about three weeks after a 19-year-old murdered 17 people at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Precautionary drills are notorious for being regarded as nuisances, generating little serious action by participants (think of the lackluster enthusiasm for early-morning fire drills). But if ever there were a time to take a lockdown drill seriously, this was it.

Anecdotally at least, that wasn’t the case in many classrooms on the South Portland campus — including the author’s own, which proceeded pretty much as usual after a brief pause to draw the blinds. Melody, a South Portland Campus student, saw even less action taken in the Learning Commons. She said those around her did “nothing, absolutely nothing.” When asked if anyone else even seemed to know what was going on, she said, “Honestly, I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone else check their phones. I got an email but I didn’t check it until later.”

Many students simply don’t know what to do in the event of a lockdown, which is what drills like the one we experienced this month are supposed to clarify. The email sent by SMCC urges everyone to, “Utilize this time to discuss lockdown procedures and the ‘Run Hide Fight’ safety protocol,” which is the bare minimum everyone on campus should know to minimize the threat posed by an active shooter. SMCC does, in fact, have policies in place to save lives during such an event, but they are only valuable if faculty and students know how to implement them.

Popularized by the Department of Homeland Security, the “Run Hide Fight” strategy is intended to guide our critical decision making in a potentially confusing scenario. Basically, participants are supposed to first look for a way to flee the area. If it is not possible to do so, then they should find the nearest safe place to hide, keeping doors and windows locked and making no sound. Finally, if these options fail, they are urged to use whatever improvised weapons they can to fight the attacker.

“Run Hide Fight” is not a perfect strategy, but by familiarizing ourselves with it we at least have some tangible actions to take in the event of an emergency. A 2014 FBI study on active-shooter events found that about 70 percent of the situations in the study terminated in five minutes or less. There is simply no time to waste wondering what to do.

SMCC student Joseph told us he thinks many students “have a general idea from lockdown drills they may have done in middle school and high school, but I think a more structured system would be better. Maybe have the teachers explain what to do in the case of an actual lockdown.” This is something we heard from several students, who questioned whether instructors themselves even knew what to do.

While safety training is an important part of faculty and staff training, SMCC regards campus safety and security as a community responsibility. Both faculty and students are encouraged to review safety information on their own from time to time to make sure they are prepared for an emergency. As Dean of Students Tiffanie Bentley wrote in an all-students email following the Parkland shooting, “We need to remain ever vigilant and attuned to our own environment.”

The purpose of the lockdown drill was to create a space for discussion about safety protocols as well as to test the efficacy of the alert system. The latter seems to have been mostly effective, as everyone we spoke to was aware of the drill, but the opportunity for faculty and students to take advantage of the time for safety training seems to have been underutilized.

One group on campus that stood out as an excellent example of what to do in a lockdown drill is the Advising Office. Work-study students Maddie and Haley told us that as everyone followed protocols, “Nobody was freaking out. We were pretty calm. Most of the administrators were handling turning off lights and closing doors.” They said there are now posters up in the office detailing what to do in an emergency, in addition to the laminated maps and emergency instructions that are posted by the door in every classroom on campus. “It was after the Parkland incident that it became something more to talk about.”

If you want more information about what to do if there is an emergency on campus, SMCC offers safety and security information and tips on the MySMCC portal. The information can be found by clicking on the “Safety and Security” link in the left-hand column of the portal homepage.