The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 3 - 122

LaWanda Ward * David J. Nguyen * David H. K. Nguyen

Observing How Other Institutions
Implement Campus Carry Policies
a third finding illustrating how directors of residence life make sense of campus carry policies is
through observing how other institutions implement these policy types. Directors from different states acknowledged that colleagues at other
institutions who have implemented policies can
be valuable to the policy creation process. the
participants mentioned that they had a network
of other colleagues, either at other institutions
or at their own, who they sought support from
as they were going through the policy-making
process. since the campus-concealed carry
phenomenon is new and emerging in higher
education, there is not much precedent to craft
policy. other colleagues who have traversed this
process became good resources from which to
learn. a director shared:
"We reached out to colleagues around the
country and I am sure other committee
members did as well. We reached out and
we did a benchmark study. And we also
reached out to a couple of people at schools
at Utah and followed up with a call or two
to individuals to ask them questions about it
[campus-concealed carry policy]."
While each campuses' policies are campus
specific, learning from the experience of others
helped the directors anticipate various challenges in the process. it also helped confirm
that the law did not change much on campus
as was anticipated. one director expressed:
"Reach out to colleagues at other institutions
where it's already been implemented. I
certainly did that. And I talked with colleagues
in Utah, Texas and found that they really
hadn't seen any changes in situations."

122

Within the context of this study, directors of
residence life have not fully comprehended
how their institutional context would differ
from the institutions that they intended to
emulate and inform institutional policy.
While they were aware variation would occur,
they had not seen specific changes since residence life incorporated campus carry firearms
into the fabric of residential living. perhaps
most notably, no major incidents had taken
place in the residence halls of the directors in
this study.

From a sensemaking perspective,
study findings demonstrate a
deliberative approach directors
incorporated into making policy
for senior staff, residence directors,
student staff, and students .

DIscUssIOn
the purpose of this study was to understand
how residence life directors make sense of
campus carry policies within residence halls.
Qualitative findings demonstrate that participants engaged in three processes-how
designing policy is value-laden, understanding how the law came to be, and observing
how other institutions implement campus
carry policies-while implementing their own
campus carry policies. from a sensemaking
perspective, study findings demonstrate a de-

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 3

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