CEDAR FALLS, Iowa – After a recommendation made by the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) director of public safety to arm campus police, the UNI faculty senate voted against the proposal in a special meeting.
The senate deliberated Aug. 31 right before the holiday weekend. The faculty concluded that the university will be safer without arming the campus police. The results of the vote were 11 in favor of a motion to oppose giving campus police guns with three voting against and one abstaining.
UNI is one of only a few institutions that have certified officers who are not armed.
Many professors on campus are against arming officers. The reasons ranged from a low rate of violent crime on campus to the ability of the Cedar Falls Police Department to quickly respond to campus incidents. There were also concerns cited that the recommendation to arm campus police was an overreaction to what occurred at Virginia Tech.
Some staff, like one professor at the UNI business school, are emphatically in favor of arming campus police. Those in favor of the recommendation mentioned that they thought there could be a higher possibility of lives being lost if police were unarmed and that since campus police do work similar to municipal officers, they should have the same tools.
The state’s three universities were asked to review their public safety practices after the Virginia Tech shooting spree last April.
The senate will send the recommendation to UNI president Benjamin Allen. He will submit his recommendation to the Iowa Board of Regents at its meeting later this month.
