Colleges need better ways of spreading information in a crisis and improved means of dealing with students who are mentally ill, even as the schools balance the principles of academic openness with campus safety, witnesses told the Senate Homeland Security Committee yesterday.
The hearing, held a week after a rampage at Virginia Tech that left 33 dead, was intended to find ways to prevent further campus violence, said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), the committee’s chairman.