Soon after the deadly Brown University shooting and media reports that Massachusetts colleges were increasing campus security in response, a friend emailed me about an experience his daughter had at a Boston-area college.

As this undergraduate entered the main academic building, where a college security guard is stationed to admit only those with a college ID badge, she found the young guard with his head bowed and eyes fixed on an iPhone. She also told her dad that when entering the college library, another guard stationed there to also check college IDs was wearing earbuds with her eyes closed. So much for campus security. Both guards were employees of a private security company contracted by the college to serve and protect.

At a time when colleges and universities have spent considerable money on new athletic stadiums, student fitness centers, multi-level food courts, and million-dollar salaries for football and basketball coaches, earmarking money for high quality campus security continues to be problematic. The Brown University shooting should be a wakeup call to college trustees and administrators, especially now that the US Department of Education will send a team of investigators to determine whether Brown failed to provide proper security before and after the shooting.

In the shooting’s aftermath, colleges and universities must take proactive steps to evaluate and strengthen security. An independent campus security risk assessment conducted by outside experts provides an objective review of vulnerabilities that internal reviews may miss. Most importantly, these assessments help institutions identify gaps in prevention, crisis communications and emergency response before a crisis occurs.

A comprehensive risk assessment should include identification of potential threats and high risk areas, evaluation of physical security such as building access, lighting, cameras, emergency phones and panic alarms, reviews of emergency notification systems, an analysis of safety polices and response procedures to insure best practice protocols are being followed and a review of behavioral threat reporting. An assessment in the hiring, training, skills and supervision of campus security officers is imperative.

Colleges should select a campus security risk assessment consultancy with demonstrated experience in higher education environments, not just general security consulting. The consultant should be independent and free of financial ties to vendors or campus security providers to ensure unbiased findings. It is also wise to look for teams with expertise in emergency response, management and threat assessment.

Protecting the life’s of students and employees is not an option, it is a sacred responsibility, cost be dammed.

Billerica’s Rick Pozniak has decades of experience in crisis and risk communications, including being part of a response team to a campus murder, a fatal knife attack at a hospital and a mass shooting that killed seven at a technology company in Wakefield in 2000.