Robert F. Bukaty, Associated Press
	A mourner visits the makeshift memorial to the victims of Monday's massacre in front of Burruss Hall on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., yesterday.

By Bill Schackner
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In America, we lock down our high schools, convinced that a fortress is better than a bloodbath. But a different standard has always applied to colleges, where one enters most classroom buildings unchallenged.

Far from being a security lapse, it's a cherished aspect of the open campus, a nod to the importance of letting young adults explore and learn freely.

	Chuck Burton, Associated Press The memorial in front of Burruss Hall at Virginia Tech has grown daily since a student shot and killed 32 students and faculty members on Monday. Click photo for larger image. Related Stories Jerome Sherman: A Virginia Tech Journal Virginia has long tradition of guns Opinion Issue One: The shootings at Virginia Tech Sunday Forum: Generation Columbine Sunday Forum: Proud of the students Sunday Forum: When violence and bureaucracy collide Associated Press Lives lost in the gunfire Updates, video and interactive reports

But the nation's worst mass shooting has driven home vividly what can happen when someone trolls a campus to settle a score or, in the case of Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech, to act out a sadistic fantasy on his classmates.

With 32 students and professors on that campus dead in his murderous wake, in addition to Mr. Cho himself, it's not surprising that colleges nationwide are being asked how many of their buildings could be sealed off instantly, whether they have enough surveillance cameras and how much tactical training their police forces have.

But some wonder if the growing pressure being placed on schools to plan for the unthinkable might begin to undermine the free flow of ideas.

"It's hard to put it into words. If we were to be monitored in every hallway and every doorway, then there is something that would be lost," said Kimberly Latta, an assistant professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.

What happens if a student in a literature class begins to worry more about the stranger a few seats away than what Milton was trying to say in the book on his desk?

"You can't interrogate ideas when you're constantly protecting yourself from whatever the response to your ideas might be," said Melanie Dreyer-Lude, an assistant Pitt professor of theater arts. "The level of learning is going to be compromised."

Others see it differently. Adam Thermos, whose Milford, Mass., firm, Strategic Technology Group, does security design and consulting for schools such as Harvard and Brown universities, said he doesn't understand the reluctance by some in academia.

"Nobody complains when they're getting $20 or $30 out of an ATM machine and there's two or three cameras watching," he said. "Yet when we walk onto a campus with 23,000 kids we talk about privacy. Where? In the quad? That's a public space."

He said people on campuses "talk about universities being an open, collegial environment" but "at the end of the day everybody comes back to their safe neighborhoods, their gated communities."

It's not as if anyone expects metal detectors to be deployed throughout the nation's 4,000 college and university campuses.

300 cameras at Pitt
Indeed, the 42-story Cathedral of Learning, where both Pitt professors work, illustrates the difficulty with that strategy. When school is in session, nearly 12,000 students and employees, plus visitors, pass through the landmark classroom tower every day. The sprawling campus already is protected by some 300 security cameras.

Controlling access would be even more daunting at Penn State University, with its two dozen campuses, 84,000 students and hundreds of classrooms.

Logistics aren't the only reason campuses permit free passage through common areas.

At Juniata College, in Huntingdon County, professor Jack Barlow says local residents regularly crisscross the 1,400-student campus on their way to exhibits and other events, or to use a repository of community documents dating from the 1800s housed in the college's library.

It's a key part of the town-gown relationship, said Dr. Barlow, a professor of politics. "We welcome that," he said.

The fact that his building and others on campus are open and unlocked into the night encourages spontaneous encounters that enrich life on a small residential campus, Dr. Barlow said.

Even something as subtle as a camera distracts from that by creating a sense that "somebody is keeping tabs on you," he said. "It's the first step down a slippery slope. Ultimately, it has a chilling effect."

But security consultants say such surveillance is precisely what has allowed campus life to continue normally amid such threats.

Surveillance systems cost $3,000 to $4,000 per building perimeter door, said Mr. Thermos. For that price, campus police could lock down entire buildings with the push of a button, "instead of running all around campus with their weapons drawn," he said.

He sees technology as preferable to an overreaction he contends already is invading academic communities after Monday's massacre.

"You're going to see the militarization of campus police, lock downs, the presence of more vehicles and guns,'' he said. "The last thing I want to see is a SWAT team on my campus."

Jonathan Knight, who directs the program on tenure and academic freedom at the Washington D.C.-based American Association of University Professors, doubts that a single mass killing will undo centuries of openness. He points to what until Monday had been the deadliest university shooting -- a 1966 sniper attack from a clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin that left 16 dead.

"I don't know that it changed campuses that much," he said.

But James Renick, a former university chancellor in North Carolina and Michigan, said violent events over time already have ended the days of wide-open access.

Research labs and other classroom buildings deemed high risk are secured at all times. Other classroom buildings employ swipe cards, though often those systems are not in use during the day.

Student residence halls restrict access 24-hours a day through locked entrances and sign-in desks. But a resident intent on sneaking a guest in can defeat some of those systems.

Because Mr. Cho was a student, an ID check or swipe card system would not have stopped his methodical march through Norris Hall, a classroom building where 31 of the deaths occurred, including his by suicide.

Threat within
The idea that campuses should be protected just from outsiders does not reflect reality, said S. Daniel Carter, senior vice president with Security on Campus, a safety organization based in King of Prussia, Montgomery County, founded by the parents of a Lehigh University student murdered in her dorm room in 1986.

"Most of these campus shootings involve either current campus community members, former community members or someone who's involved with a community member," he said. "The threat is within."

That's why his group wants schools to quickly isolate potential threats using such means as campus-wide text message warnings for students when an attack occurs. Even better, he said, is spotting dangerous individuals before they act out.

He said schools must have strong campus procedures for identifying and doing follow-up on troubled students like Mr. Cho, who twice stalked others and disturbed faculty with his dark writings.

But those kinds of assessments can get dicey when they involve classroom work.

It requires that faculty distinguish between students who are truly a danger and others who simply are engaging in their legitimate right to explore thoughts and ideas, even grotesque ones.

Martin Cockroft, assistant professor of English at Waynesburg College, recalled how a student in a creative writing class six months ago asked his opinion about a speculative piece of poetry in which the student "tried to inhabit the mind of a serial killer" by "taking that character's view about what it would be like to enjoy killing someone."

Mr. Cockroft said he told the student the piece was graphic but stopped short of calling the subject choice inappropriate. He said being a creative writer can mean "getting into the minds of people, even those whose minds we normally wouldn't want to be in."

"On the one hand, he did a good job of trying to understand the motivations of somebody like that," Mr. Cockroft said. "On the other hand, I just cautioned him."

He said the young man did not seem to confuse himself with the murderer and in all other ways seemed well grounded. The student ultimately submitted the work to a campus literary publication, which Mr. Cockroft said rejected it after a somewhat blunt peer review.

"One female reviewer basically said 'Yuck.' "