By Raeann Walquist ’20, staff writer

Students and faculty alike are taking steps to make LVC a safer, more prepared College.

Lauren Sigmon, a junior English major, is currently working with public safety to instate mandatory ALICE training in all FYE courses. ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. The main goal of the program is to train students to be prepared in case of an active shooter situation.

“I got ALICE trained because I was an education major, but after the shootings last year, I thought it was relevant to more than just education majors,” Sigmon said. “I got trained to be an ALICE instructor so that I could train others.”

Sigmon has participated in an 18- hour training course to become a trainer for ALICE and has been working closely with Brent Oberholtzer, director of public safety, and Dr. Laura Eldred, assistant dean and director of Constellation LVC, to implement ALICE training as a mandatory component of the FYE program.

“My goal is to educate and empower as many of our community as possible,” Oberholtzer said. “We all have the right to know how to survive an active shooter situation.”

For Sigmon, her motives are personal.

“After seeing all of the tragedy with mass shootings, I decided to turn my outrage into action,” Sigmon said. “I really want to ensure people are prepared if something would happen to them.”

Sigmon hopes to eventually grow the program in a way that will ensure that every person on campus is ALICE trained.

“ALICE training is important because it gives students and faculty the tools they need to be empowered and keep themselves safe,” Sigmon said.

To date, six FYE classes have been trained or are on the calendar to be trained in the coming month.