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HOW TO WELCOME CAMPUS VISITORS a visitor ID badge on a color-coded lanyard to wear around his neck. Depending on the campus security assessment, the visitor management system might contain a driver's license scanner that performs a quick background check. Modern systems can handle most of these transactions is less than 30 seconds, so no one encounters inconvenient delays. Unwanted Visitors Inside a building, students, faculty, administrators, staff, and visitors should wear ID badges. The access control and visitor management databases have a list of who is in the building. In an emergency — a fire, perhaps — the two databases can tell firefighters and other first responders how many people are in the building, who they are, and, in many cases, where in the building they are. Part of controlling visitors involves deactivating access control cards possessed by people whose access rights have been discontinued. When students graduate and faculty and staff change jobs, the security officer managing the access control system must turn off their access cards. They are now visitors and must go through the visitor badging system like all other visitors. Sometimes former members of the community are terminated employees. They might be students that have flunked out. They may have a grudge. Perhaps a faculty member is involved in a bitter divorce and fears that her estranged husband may attack her. For a number of legitimate reasons, members of the current campus community might want certain people barred from campus. The visitor management system can help with this. "True security touches all aspects of a university. It starts with a security master plan that assess risks and outlines a strategy for addressing those risks with policies, procedures, people, and technology over the next several years." —Jeffrey A. Slotnick, CPP, PSP YOU SHALL NOT PASS. At least, not without a valid badge or access control card. Badges are available with embedded technology that limits the user's ability to access only buildings or spaces he or she is authorized to access. With centralized management, these cards can be instantly activated or deactived as needed, as well as tracked, improving campus safety. Centralized systems can record watch lists — names of people not authorized to enter a building. When someone on a building watch list appears, the receptionist refuses to provide a visitor badge, and the system summons security. Managing Visitors Requires a Good Security Organization For a visitor management system to do its job, the rest of a campus security system must first be doing its job. "You have to get the overall campus security picture right to get visitor management right," says Jeffrey A. Slotnick, CPP, PSP, chief security officer and founder of OR3m, a Bellevue, WA-based security consulting firm. "True security touches all aspects of a university. It starts with a security master plan that assess risks and outlines a strategy for addressing those risks with policies, procedures, people, and technology over the next several years." Specifically, a security master plan will manage and schedule how you hire security officers and sworn police officers. It will outline a schedule for installing access control technology in various campus buildings. It will include a schedule for building a central security headquarters with equipment that will monitor the functioning of the access control system and later the video surveillance system. It will set up a path for badging students, faculty, and staff. Only after all of this is done can visitor management policies, procedures, and technologies contribute to campus security. CPM TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE. Assuming everyone in a building is properly wearing his or her ID badge, an integrated system's access control and visitor management database can instantly provide a list of who is in the building and, in many cases, where they are inside the structure. This is vital information to provide to first responders in the event of an emergency that would require either a shelter-in-place or evacuation. 36 COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / FEBRUARY 2013 WWW.PLANNING 4EDUCATION.COM