Book Review Lynette H Willett 

Dorothy Siegel, Campuses Respond to Violent Tragedy. Phoenix, AZ, The 
Oryx Press, 1994. 

College administrators hope that they will negotiate their careers without 
ever having to respond to a tragedy that affects the campus on which they work. As 
our society grows increasingly violent, our campuses follow suit and the likelihood 
of any campus remaining untouched by tragedy and human suffering grows smaller 
each year. 

Dorothy Siegel has been at the forefront of work about campus violence 
since 1986 when the Campus Violence Prevention Center was established under her 
leadership at Towson State University in Maryland. Now Ms. Siegel has provided 
another important service for college administrators by collecting information from 
recent campus tragedies and calling from those instances many commonalities and 
much good advice for the benefit of readers. 

Campuses Respond to Violent Tragedy is a very readable book that is orga-
nized in a usable manner. In Part I, Ms. Siegel selected eight different campus 
scenarios that demonstrated a variety of serious campus incidents: multiple off-cam-
pus tragedies; date rape; stranger rape; suicide; serial murders off campus; a high-
profile athlete as assailant; and multiple murders in the classroom. Through inter-
views with principle decision-makers, the author describes each incident from the 
multiple perspectives of people who were the decision-makers or affected in some 
way by the incident. This method of telling each campus story is very effective for 
two reasons. First of all, the reader receives a rich and detailed account of events 
because the picture that is presented is taken from many angles. Secondly, the reader 
can use their own campus experience to relate to the police chief's version of the 
incident, in comparison to the resident director, the information officer, the president 
and other campus authorities. While each campus has its own character (and char-
acters!), and each tragedy, its own set of circumstances, one can see many aspects of 
these stories that make the experiences of our colleagues applicable to our own 
situations. 

As an example, the perspective of the Information Officer in each story was 
remarkably similar: conscientious about relations with the press; concerned about 
institutional image; mindful of the need for accuracy balanced with a desire to assist 
reporters who must meet press deadlines. Regardless of the circumstances of the 
situation, each person had a role to play that was, in part, dictated by title. For 
instance, in most of the examples in the book, the president of the institution was 
perceived as an effective part of an institutional response if they were visible at the 
scene of the emergency. 

Ms. Siegel provides chapter summaries that give the reader an overview of 
the successes and shortcomings of each institution's response to emergencies. These 
chapter summaries, combined with the advice in the closing section of the book will 
give campus administrators an agenda to use to prepare their own campus for trag-
edies that can strike unpredictably. Additionally, the chapters that describe two 
institutions experience with Hurricane Andrew are very useful for disaster planning. 
The magnitude and pervasiveness of this experience is overwhelming to read, but the 
lessons learned can help other institutions prepare for disasters. 



Willett 124 

Campuses Respond to Violent Tragedy is a resource that can help campus 
administrators prepare and plan for events that defy planning. This book removes 
some of the fear and anxiety from the prospect of campus crises situations and 
replaces that anxiety with sound advice and preparation guidelines that can make 
campus responses more effective.