New Jersey requires campuses to plan for shootings

GLASSBORO, N.J. -- Colleges and universities in New Jersey are required to submit safety plans including sections on active shooter responses to the state government every year.

A look at the requirements and campus shootings in the state:

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SHOOTINGS ON CAMPUS

New Jersey colleges have seen shootings, but not one involving mass casualties. A 2008 report on the issue found there had been five shootings on campuses in a 15-year span.

Since then, students have been involved in off-campus shootings, including one at a party involving Seton Hall students in 2010 that killed one and wounded four.

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THE REQUIREMENTS

After a shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007 left 32 people dead, then-Gov. Jon Corzine called for recommendations on campus security in New Jersey.

The report that resulted the next year called for all the state's colleges and universities - public and private - to produce emergency plans including sections on active shooters. A state law requiring the plans was signed in 2012. Annual emergency drills are also required.

The plans are filed annually with the state and also reviewed by members of the New Jersey Presidents' Council, an organization of the leaders of the state's colleges and universities.

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ON CAMPUS

Anthony Wohlrab, the president of the student government at Rowan University, a public school in Glassboro, said the university offers students training on what to do in an active-shooter situation and also has a handbook on those situations on its website.

"Our university works ridiculously hard to make sure we have all the resources we need," said Wohlrab, a 21-year-old senior entrepreneurship major from Linden.

Rich Wolfson, an education professor and president of the union for faculty and professional staff at Montclair State University, said that he's not always in the practice of praising his university's administration, but that he gives them high marks for emergency preparedness when it comes to active-shooter situations.

"All of our police are actually well trained," he said. "We have a lot of them. For whatever it's worth, they have the best equipment that you can get. They participate in training exercises. We have an extensive emergency plan."