With several cases of gun violence and school shootings within the past year, professors within the education and criminal justice departments have started adding it to the conversation in their classes and programming. 

According to Yvonne Weaver, chairperson for the education department, students at Waynesburg University learn about events like school shootings as a part of their class discussions. 

“A lot of what we do is integrated into the classes as discussions come up or topics come up,” saidWeaver. 

However, the education department does not limit its students to just class discussions about these topics. Students get the chance to be placed in a real classroom where they can talk to working teachers, as well as having guests speakers come in to talk about school safety. 

“Every semester we do a session called ‘Voices From the Field,’” said Weaver. “We send students out to the field for field placements to work in various classrooms in the region. But we also bring people in to talk to students about hot topics.” 

On the other side of the spectrum are first responders; the men and women who are trained to handle situations like shootings. 

For Adam Jack, chairperson for the criminal justice department, the school shootings that occured last year do not necessarily call for an updated curriculum, but rather the changing times call for different scenario training. 

“Last year we got a new state of the art use of force simulator,” said Jack. “We are now utilizing that system to train in use of force tactics, from active shooters to verbal de-escalation and everything in between.” 

Similarly to the education department, the criminal justice department discusses these events in class as they come up in the news. 

“We talk about them extensively,” said Jack. “We talk about not only the incidents themselves but the response.” 

Within the school system teachers are put through a training program called ‘ALICE’. The program trains teachers to deal with intruders in the building according to Weaver. 

“Many school districts conduct ALICE training,” said Weaver. “Some of our students as they have been in the field placements or student teaching have participated in ALICE training. If the student is in the field and the school is doing those types of training on school safety they definitely participate, so it’s another way they get hands on experience.” 

According to Weaver the steps in the program are Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. 

Jack, who has been through ‘ALICE’ training, said that there has been a rise in teachers as well as law enforcement officers in these training programs. 

“In this training it’s not just police” said Jack. “ It’s teachers, it’s clergymen, anybody that could potentially be a target to one of these terrible events.” 

When it comes to applying what the students have learned Jack believes that students from Waynesburg are up to the challenge. 

“I do believe that our students are very well prepared when they step out the door,” said Jack. “Having an understanding of what responses are like, we are doing those types of hands on things that can benefit them down the road.” 

In the case of the Education Department, Weaver said that these terrible events still happen but it’s not just in schools. 

“Yes the school shootings happen,” said Weaver. “But they happen in any walk of life anymore and we just have to remember that the sky is not falling.”