Calvin College

safety officers have been armed with firearms since 2008, a decision that the Campus Safety Department director William Corner describes as a response to concerns that the college was not adequately prepared to respond to a similar event following the 2007 Virginia Tech campus shooting. Initially, only Campus Safety supervisors who were former law enforcement and fully licensed to carry firearms on a school campus were permitted to carry firearms on Calvin's campus. At that time, all campus safety supervisors were issued collapsible batons, chemical spray, and handcuffs as standard policy, even if they were not armed with a firearm.
At the time and until 2017, non-supervisory Campus Safety officers were student employees who performed their duties unarmed. In 2017, the Campus Safety Department discontinued hiring students for non-supervisory campus safety officer roles, electing instead to hire former law enforcement officers who were licensed to carry firearms on campus. The department continued to employ students …