By Paul Goldenberg
America’s college campuses are now among the most complex and contested security environments in the country. Once defined by openness and intellectual exchange, they have become convergence points for violent protest, targeted hate crimes, ideological extremism, lone-actor violence and mass-casualty threats. Increasingly, they also attract the attention of foreign adversaries seeking opportunities for espionage, influence operations and disinformation.
As the threat landscape escalates, campus law enforcement administrators are being asked to protect one of the nation’s most critical assets — its students — often with shrinking budgets, constrained authority and uneven institutional support. These leaders are expected to deter, detect and defeat threats that would challenge even the most well-resourced police agencies, all while operating within institutions structurally designed to remain open, decentralized and politically sensitive.
Last week’s deadly shootings at two elite universities less than 50 miles apart brought this reality into sharp focus. Authorities allege that a single suspect with tenuous ties to both institutions killed two students and wounded nine at Brown University before fleeing. Two days later, the suspect allegedly murdered a renowned MIT professor at his home.
In the aftermath, familiar questions emerged: Could the suspect have been identified earlier? Were warning signs missed? Should intervention have occurred sooner? These questions are understandable, but they often obscure a more difficult truth. University public safety leaders are routinely expected to perform flawlessly inside systems that deny them timely intelligence, decisive authority, operational independence and institutional alignment. When tragedy occurs, scrutiny falls on those at the tactical edge, not on the governance and structural constraints that limit their ability to act.
Brown is not an anomaly
North American universities are, by design, open environments. Academic buildings are accessible. Classrooms remain unlocked. Perimeters are porous. These features reflect deeply held academic values, but they are also explicit risk decisions in a threat environment shaped by grievance-driven violence, ideological radicalization and unpredictable lone actors. Openness without layered security is no longer a neutral posture. It is an operational vulnerability.
University law enforcement and security administrators understand this reality better than anyone, yet many operate within governance structures where security decisions are filtered through multiple administrative layers, competing political pressures and leadership teams with limited experience in law enforcement, emergency management or crisis response.
Too often, campus security functions are treated as cost centers rather than essential safety infrastructure. In some cases, public safety leaders are politicized, marginalized, or routinely second-guessed, undermining deterrence, delaying response and eroding preparedness. The result is a dangerous paradox: university public safety leaders are expected to prevent every threat, manage every crisis, preserve civil liberties perfectly and absorb blame when tragedy occurs, despite operating inside systems that constrain decisive action.
Violence on university campuses is no longer rare
The past year alone has seen fatal shootings at Florida State University, Elizabeth City State University, Kentucky State University and Utah Valley University, along with targeted killings and hate-driven violence on and around campuses nationwide. These incidents are not isolated. They are warning signals. Campuses have become attractive targets precisely because they are symbolic, emotionally charged, densely populated and accessible. This risk is further amplified by protest-driven unrest, online radicalization and foreign influence operations designed to exploit social divisions and institutional hesitation.
University public safety administrators now stand at the front line of this convergence — often with fewer resources, less authority and less intelligence support than the threat environment demands. This raises the unavoidable question: What must change if universities, states and the federal government are serious about preventing the next tragedy?
A blueprint for campus safety
If higher education leaders and policymakers are serious about prevention, several reforms need to be considered as no longer optional.
First, campus public safety must be treated as essential infrastructure, not discretionary spending. University boards should establish protected baseline funding for law enforcement and security operations, insulated from annual budget cycles and political volatility.
Second, university law enforcement and security leadership must have operational independence and direct access to senior leadership. Public safety leaders should report directly to the university president or a senior executive with law enforcement or security expertise. In crisis response, delayed decision-making costs lives.
Third, campuses must modernize security through technology and intelligence integration. Strategically deployed surveillance, access controls where appropriate, real-time communications, drones and emerging response technologies can significantly enhance safety without turning campuses into fortified zones.
Fourth, training standards must reflect the modern threat environment. Active shooter response, behavioral threat assessment, social media threat monitoring, protest management through dialogue policing and hate-crime prevention must be standardized, recurring and mandatory.
Fifth, and most critically, DHS and DOJ must step up. Despite being clear targets for domestic extremists and foreign adversaries, higher education lacks a formal, nationwide information-sharing mechanism comparable to those serving other critical sectors. Financial services, aviation, utilities and real estate all benefit from Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs). Higher education — despite its national security, economic and democratic significance — does not.
This gap is not merely a policy oversight
Organizations such as the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) have carried an outsized burden in advancing campus safety. For decades, IACLEA has worked tirelessly to professionalize campus policing by setting standards, advancing training, fostering collaboration, and helping leaders navigate an increasingly volatile threat environment. In doing so, IACLEA has become the trusted global voice of campus law enforcement, demonstrating what is possible when campus safety is treated as a serious discipline rather than an afterthought.
The need for federal, state and local law enforcement to work more closely with campus agencies has never been greater. No professional association, no matter how dedicated or capable, can substitute for sustained federal. State and local engagement and institutional commitment. University law enforcement and security administrators are not obstacles to openness; they are the last line preventing openness from becoming vulnerability. They serve quietly and relentlessly, often without recognition. protecting students while upholding civil liberties and preserving the academic values that define higher education.
About the author
Paul Goldenberg started his career as a beat patrolman in urban New Jersey. He is a former decorated undercover agent and senior ranking law enforcement leader with nearly three decades of experience, including leading organized crime investigations and serving 10 years as a senior advisor to the Secretary of Homeland Security. He has chaired Congressional DHS subcommittees on foreign fighters, cybersecurity and targeted violence, and has worked globally with police agencies across Europe, Scandinavia, the UK and the Middle East. He is CEO of Cardinal Point Strategies, Chief Policy Advisor to the Rutgers University Miller Center on Policing, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the University of Ottawa’s for Transnational Security, a senior officer with the Global Consortium of Law Enforcement Training Executives, member of the NSA Border Council and Chair of Public Safety BOA for Draganfly.