The University of Tennessee is hosting an active-shooter training today geared toward helping university staff prevent campus shootings.
The audience is expected to include more than 300 participants; it will also be webcast for the entire university system.
John Rose, president ofHolstonInternational Training and Consulting, says in addition to survival tactics, the training will focus heavily on root causes of workplace violence.
"It’s sort of like training the firemen to put out the fire; we still need the fire prevention, we still need the fire prevention awareness and having your alarms and your smoke detectors and all the things that keep you safe until the firemen get there," he says. "We need to look at this in the same way."
Rose says this will be the largest group he’s trained in a single day event so far.
"We have done them for hospitals, private industry, those type of settings, but we're gonna tailor this to the campus setting," he says.
Rose says the majority of the training will center on workplace violence and preventative measures, like recognizing behavioral red flags.
"Once the shooting starts, everything’s reactive. What I’d really like to see pushed is the prevention," he says.
But, he adds, the final portion of the program will center on survival skills.
"In that golden 5, 6, 7 minutes while you're waiting for the police to get there, there are some things you can do as an individual and as an organization to increase your survival," he says.
Rose is an adjunct professor at East Tennessee State University, where he teaches classes on workplace violence and counterterrorism.
