By Brad Dountz
brad.dountz@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Livingstone College held a press conference Monday morning prior to its security symposium to introduce the leading campus public safety experts that have come to Salisbury to address the fallout of the campus shooting last Saturday night.

Ronnell Higgins, associate vice president for public safety and community engagement at Yale University, and David Perry, retired past president of the international association of college law enforcement administrators, the leading authority in campus public safety in the world, have come to Livingstone to help collaborate on a safety plan for the school to implement in the near future.

The experts will meet with teachers, faculty, parents and the rest of the community to come up with a comprehensive proposal to present to Livingstone President Anthony Davis. Still in the early planning stages, no concrete details have been made public yet.

“We’re not waiting until our assessment is complete to provide some advice on some things that can be done now and should be done now,” Higgins said.

It’s that collaboration, where everyone works together to come up with a solution, are where true results come from according to Higgins.

“There are some standard things that we can look at that worked on other campuses, but at the same time, here in the Salisbury community, the chief of police and his team are doing an amazing job. How we can we leverage the success on some of the programs that they already have and work with them and at the same time how can Livingstone College leverage some of the leadership it has as an educational institution to support the local police department? That’s how partnerships are solved.”

After meeting with the community in and around Livingstone College, the experts will start compiling their findings to share with Davis.

“Present a plan to the president on how we will come back and spend considerably more time reviewing those things that I mentioned the lighting, the technology, the notification systems, everything that encompasses an overall emergency management plan and after we are back we will compile some recommendations in a report. We’ll share that with the president and then it will be up to him to accept those and start to cross those off his list so to speak,” Perry said.

According to Perry, the review is a two and half day process, where the report will take around 15-45 days to complete. Once that is done, the plan will be “like a blueprint for the college to follow and hopefully point them in the right direction to making the campus an even safer place.”

After hearing from students later on in the day, Davis is feeling confident about Livingstone’s path towards their goals.

“It was a progressive experience getting these experts here,” Davis said. “It was an eye-opening conversation, our students provided critical information to our experts,” Davis said. “If Livingstone can be better, then we will become better.”