The day after visiting the University of Birmingham for the second day, and dinner, of the National Association for Healthcare Security (NAHS) conference, Mark Rowe has a read of the University of Birmingham (UoB) student newspaper, Redbrick, that he picked up there.
Redbrick, like other student newspapers, does give you a different outlook on life. A headline on page 35 asks, “Is it time to blow the whistle on UEFA’s carbon emissions?’ I try to imagine Aston Villa manager Unai Emery, or Birmingham City manager Wayne Rooney, worrying about his air miles. On page 16 writers discuss game shows on television (did you know that Richard Osman’s House of Games on BBC2, which appears to run over five weekdays, is in fact filmed on one, and the contestants put on different clothes?!).
Of most relevance to security managers is the article on page 3, ‘Pro-Palestine student walkout held on UoB campus’. Students at Birmingham, as at numerous others, have staged events after the Hamas attack on Israel (Redbrick either got the date, or the day of the Birmingham walk-out wrong). The demonstrators walked from the library one lunchtime towards ‘Old Joe’, the famous brick clock tower (pictured; named after Victorian Birmingham politician Joseph Chamberlain). The report went on:
‘Organisers also handed out QR codes that explained the public’s rights when it comes to protesting, commenting that it was useful to know in case any action was taken by security or police …. There seemed to be a heightened security presence at the walkout, with campus security officers at hand to police the event, but they did not interfere with the proceedings.’
It so happened that the day before I opened the newspaper I had a conversation with another university’s security manager, who remarked, when I mentioned student journalism, that he had set up regular meetings with his campus’s newspaper staff. He had had only good publicity ever since, he noted, and if he should get bad; at least he had a relationship so as to put his point of view.
Without commenting on Birmingham or indeed how any other uni has gone about securing itself since the violence in Israel and Gaza on Saturday morning, October 7, campus security departments, like the police when protest marches have been in public spaces, have had a difficult job. The protesters, pro-Palestine, pro-Israel, Just Stop Oil (meeting daily at Trafalgar Square) or any other, have a right to protest in a democracy; those protested against also have rights. But to return to that Redbrick account of the walkout; that security officers ‘did not interfere’ implies that they might have. It’s a pity that it did not seem to occur to Redbrick that the security officers were there to enable the protest to happen, peacefully; that far from protesters needing a QR code to protect themselves from their own campus’ security staff, the officers were there to safeguard, setting aside any opinions (or none) that they may have about whatever’s being protested against?
This serves to explain the change in name of ever more campus security departments and job titles, from ‘security’ (which can send off off-putting signals of discipline and orders, especially to students from overseas) to ‘safeguarding’, reflecting that over the last 20 years or so, and continuing, campus security has changed from a locking and unlocking of doors and buildings to a service offering of welfare for the physical and mental well-being of students as customers.
