I can't think of two words that present more opposite visions from each other than gun and college. But guns do have a place on campus:

I can't think of other places to have guns on campus that would serve a reasonable purpose. However, the president of Liberty University has decided that guns should be everywhere on campus including student housing. His intentions are to protect students by allowing students to have guns on campus.

Campus safety is a concern of parents as the high school seniors at home apply to colleges across the country. To learn about safety on a campus, parents can attend college days, go on college tours, ready campus websites and also interview college personnel by phone. Before doing that, parents can go online to:

http://ope.ed.gov/security/ to read about campus security related topics and check up on the crime statistics for any campus at:http://ope.ed.gov/security/GetOneInstitutionData.aspx

Parents can prepare their college bound children for a safe campus experience by educating them about safety issues and steps they should take to be safe while on campus.

Considering a Virginia college or university?  A deputy attorney general in Virginia is asserting that college administrators at colleges in Virginia do not have a duty to protect students from foreseeable harm. This assertion was made in the current wrongful death case brought against the state of Virginia by the parents of Julia Pryde and Erin Peterson, two students who lost their lives in the shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007.

 

This is disturbing to families who logically assume that college administrators have a duty to protect students from harm.

News reports about allegations of events in the locker room at Penn State have not been good for student recruiting.  For a while, at least, whenever someone mentions Penn State, people will think about the incident in the locker room instead of the academic programs and other reasons that Penn State is a fine university.  The alleged unchecked abuse of children by a staff member will harm the reputation of the university for several years to come.

 

Something that has not been mentioned however, is what this situation could mean to Penn State financially.

The recent high school graduate in your house who is about to leave town to go to  college or attend college near home needs good advice to prepare to safely and successfully navigate a college campus.  Parents are the perfect people to give such advice.  And although colleges offer orientation programs to entering freshmen, parents should not leave these lessons to others.  Hearing these messages more than once increases the chance that students will hear and understand them.