By Noelle Worley, Co-Editor-in-Chief, and Kara Grace Hess, Senior Associate Editor
Since Wheaton College’s Town Hall Chapel earlier this month, a Google document has been circulating among students asking the college administration to “carefully consider arming the Public Safety Department.” As of today, that petition has more than 100 student signatures — nearly 5% of the student body.
Town Hall Chapel is a long-standing tradition. Each February of his tenure, President Philip Ryken has stood before students in Edman Chapel to field their live, microphone-amplified questions. This service is not livestreamed or posted to YouTube, and topics range from dating advice to crisis-of-faith conundrums and everything in between.
Like many of his classmates, junior international relations major Jake Vogel waited in line at the start of chapel to ask a question. However, this was not like the predictable yearly requests for Chrouser Sports Complex’s hot tub repairs or a call for a statement on the political issue of the day. When Vogel stepped to the microphone, he asked, in light of a national school shooting crisis and increases in politically-charged deaths on college campuses, why Wheaton College’s public safety officers do not carry firearms.
Ryken shared that the college has examined this issue multiple times and felt that arming public safety officers would “change the nature of their relationship with our student body.” He said that Wheaton has a close relationship with the local police department, which regularly patrols close to campus and is available to provide security for larger campus events where “feelings may run high.”
“I can’t make a promise that we won’t have an incident any more than anyone else can about anything in the community,” Ryken said. “I feel, overall, that we are being responsible for the safety and well-being of our student body with the measures that we have.”
After chapel, Vogel said several students thanked him for making them aware of the fact that public safety officers do not carry firearms and asked about next steps. By that afternoon, the petition had been written, proofed and emailed to an initial group of students for them to pass on as they saw fit.
Among the first to sign their name was Sadie Danehy, a junior studying Christian formation and ministry. She was concerned by the school shooter risks that Vogel voiced, as well as the possibility that Wheaton’s position on firearms for public safety could be politically motivated.
“When it comes to the well-being of people, we should seek what is best in keeping the community safe,” Danehy said, “Not what we deem to be in alignment with a certain political stance.”
Other signees addressed Ryken’s concern about how arming public safety could change the office’s relationship with the campus. Junior Colton Austin, a business and economics major, said the cost of a more distant, formal relationship with Public Safety was worth the possibility of better-protected students in an emergency. For others, like sophomore communication major Aubrey Swanson, an armed officer would enhance their relationship with the office.
“It would strengthen my confidence in campus-wide safety, knowing that public safety could act if there was a campus shooter,” Swanson said.
Another shared concern between Vogel and several signees was the possibility that Wheaton’s religious and political beliefs might make the school a more likely target of armed violence. In a later interview with The Record, Vogel specifically talked about the way “clashes” can occur when Christian faith and ideas interact with society. He, among other signees, said that this concern became a more pressing reality in their minds after the murder of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University.
“My concern is that, as we engage and as we make our stance on what’s going on across the world, and we have this Christian school, are we protected against potential threats?” Vogel asked.
Amid these security questions, Chief of Public Safety Bob Norris points to Wheaton’s proximity to and long-standing relationship with local police in Wheaton and neighboring suburbs. He said that the police forces around the college are aware of how much the school community relies on them, and in the event of an active shooter, the response would be “very fast and very overwhelming.” Cory Orphan, a compliance and control officer, echoed these sentiments, saying there would not be much difference in response compared with a fully armed campus force.
According to Norris, arming public safety would also be a difficult and expensive process. He estimated that training, paying and maintaining an armed private police force would increase Wheaton’s security budget five to 10 times what the college is currently spending. Orphan had similar concerns, adding that a transition like this one could have intense legal and logistical implications as well.
“On top of the budget issues, any police force incurs a lot of costs from liability,” Orphan said. “Even when you do the job right.”
Overall, public safety is committed to a community police oriented model and the relationship it fosters between students and public safety. Norris said that people are always at risk, but he is confident in the processes that have been set in place to keep students safe, and conversations about improving those measures are ongoing.
“You’re probably at a much greater risk going to the grocery store than you are coming to campus,” he said.
From Vogel’s conversation with Norris, it seemed it had been seven to eight years since the college visited the issue of public safety firearms. While most signees, like Vogel, acknowledge that arming every public safety officer may be too great a leap, they want to negotiate some kind of compromise. The group is especially hopeful in light of the presence of armed security at local schools in Wheaton, Ill., as well as other Christian colleges like Biola University, Liberty University and Cedarville University.
“I just have a heart to protect people, and I really want to see people in college stay safe and avoid major tragedy,” Vogel said. “If we hadn’t taken as many steps as we could have, in hindsight, we would feel really bad about that.
